Alien in the Family

“Want to be a doctor, thanks. What the hell did they hit him with?”

“Want to train with doctors better than you’re ever going to meet at med school? And, she hit him with, I’m guessing, her fist.”

He looked at me. “There’s a lot more to this, isn’t there?”

“Yeah.” I took a deep breath. “Look, they just tried to kill my best friend. You saved his life. And you did it by doing the things we have to do every day to stay alive.”

“Who’s we?”

“Centaurion Division.” A man’s shadow covered mine. “World government agency, United States based.”

Tito looked up at Martini. “You her boyfriend?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Give her your jacket before the hombres decide they don’t care if they get deported back across the border.”

Martini did as requested. “We have her locked down. And I do mean down.” His voice was a growl. “If James dies, I’m killing her.”

“Let me.”

“Okay.”

Tito looked back. “Um, not really sure I’m for cold-blooded murder.”

“The person who attacked your patient is an alien from the Alpha Centauri system. She’s here to kill or at least severely bother the Alpha Centaurions who live here peacefully with us and help us protect the Earth.” I heard sirens in the distance. They were getting closer.

“This a Men in Black joke?”

“No. Jeff, they called for an ambulance.”

“Don’t want one, but we’ll take the gurney.” He pulled out his phone. “Alpha Team has a man down. Need a floater, on my mark. Needs to take four and a gurney to human medical. I want that gate active in less than thirty seconds.” He dialed again. “Christopher, you and Tim take the bitch to lockdown. I want her miserable. James is down, and he looks bad. Yeah, I’ll have the girls get Paul. You take Reynolds with you, too, have Melanie and Emily stay with the flyboys and do guard duty. Right.”

Martini looked at me. “You want to bring this guy on why?”

I reiterated Tito’s skills.

“I want to be a doctor. I don’t want to get involved with a bunch of crazies, no insult intended.”

“Oh, none freaking taken. Jeff, call the girls.”

He nodded. “Lorraine, we’re at Code Red, man down from Alpha Team. Yeah. Yeah, she’s a mess. I want you and Claudia to get Paul and get him back to human medical. Keep him calm, don’t let him know how bad it is.” Martini eyed Reader. “It looks really bad from where I stand. Like brain gone bad.”

I started to shake. Tito reached out and grabbed my arm. “He’s not a doctor. I’m not either, but I’m closer. It’s bad, but he’s not brain-dead. There’s optical activity.”

“Is he paralyzed?”

Tito tightened his hold on my arm. “I don’t know.”

The ambulance arrived. Martini was suddenly standing there with the gurney. He bent down and lifted Reader easily. He put him carefully onto the gurney and strapped him in.

Tito stood up and looked at Martini suspiciously. “How’d you do that?”

Martini reached out, grabbed Tito’s hand, and put it onto his chest. “She told you. You want to listen?”

“Holy Mary, mother of God!” Tito yanked his hand away. “You have two hearts!”

“Yeah, I’m an alien.” Martini nodded his head toward a shimmering in the air. “I’m going through. Bring him.” He shoved the gurney through the gate and disappeared.

Tito’s jaw dropped. “Um . . .”

I grabbed his hand and pulled. “Come on.” I didn’t think about the ambulance drivers or trash guys. I didn’t care about them or what they would or wouldn’t tell anyone. I only cared about seeing if Reader was going to be okay.

It was the worst gate transfer of my life, though it felt like they all did. But it seemed like it took forever. My foot finally hit the ground, and Tito came through with me. We were in the med lab at Dulce, and Reader was already hooked up to a lot of scary-looking machines.

Dazzlers I didn’t know were working on him, and they all were moving fast and to a woman looked grim. Martini put his arm around me. “It’ll be okay, baby.” He didn’t sound like he believed it.

Tito looked around. “Wow.”

“Yeah.” I was crying again.

Gower arrived, flanked by Lorraine and Claudia. “What happened?” he asked me softly.

“She must have thought he was Jeff. Or something.” There was more to it, I knew that, but I was too upset to think about it. “Paul, I’m so sorry.”

He pulled me away from Martini and hugged me tightly. “It’s not your fault.” He let go and got closer. One of the Dazzlers gently shoved him back. “Sorry, we can’t have you close. Actually, you all need to get out.”

Tito stepped closer. “Why are you doing that procedure? He’s had double head trauma.”

“Pardon me?” The woman spun on him. “Who are you?”

“Tito Hernandez. It looks like all the trauma’s in the front, but I think he got slammed into a wall. The back of his head’s a mess.”

“Tito didn’t tell me that,” I said softly to Martini.

“Because he’s good.” Martini was watching Tito closely. “Clean him up, let him stay in here.” It was an order.

“Jeff, that’s not a good idea,” the Dazzler who appeared to be in charge said.

“James is a human, he’s a human doctor. Do it.” Martini pulled the rest of us out.

We all stood in the hall, no one looking at anyone else. Martini’s phone rang. He walked away from me to take the call. Gower reached out and pulled me to him. I buried my face in his chest and just let the tears come.

“Leave us alone . . . please,” Gower said quietly. I heard footsteps fade away and could tell the others had given us some space. Gower’s body twitched. “Kitty, ACE is afraid.”

“Me too, ACE.”

“James is going to die.”

CHAPTER 20

I COULDN’T CRY MORE THAN I WAS. I couldn’t stop, either. “It’s not fair.”

“No, it is not.”

“Why doesn’t God ever come help us?” I didn’t mean to say it out loud. ACE and I had had this conversation before, after all. I knew why—God wanted us to do it on our own. “Why can’t he come and save James? Just this once, actually save the good person who doesn’t deserve to die?”

“Why does Tito feel responsible?”

“What?” This seemed out of left field.

“Tito is in there with James. Tito feels if James dies it will be Tito’s fault. Why? Tito did not harm James, Tito is not the one who caused the injuries.”

“Oh. Tito’s learning to be a doctor. He helped me find James. He tried to take care of him.”

“Why would that make Tito responsible?”

“Doctors and nurses, paramedics, all the people who are trained to save lives—they sort of have to act like God, in that sense. They have to be good enough to save someone’s life, to steal a life back from death, from God, if you will. That’s a lot of pressure and responsibility. I think Tito feels responsible because, well, that’s how most people who try to save someone feel—if they could have done one thing differently or better or faster, then they would have saved the person.” Like me. If I hadn’t wanted to go shopping, if I hadn’t asked Reader to go with me, then he’d be okay.

“It is not Kitty’s fault, either. Kitty is blaming Kitty. Paul is blaming Paul. The same with Jeff. Everyone feels responsible. Everyone but the one who hurt James. She feels happy.” ACE sounded madder than I’d ever heard him.

“I’m going to kill her, ACE. In cold blood. I just want you to know that, so it won’t be a shock to you when I do it.”

“No, Kitty. Kitty must not become what she is.”

“He’s my best friend. I love him. He’s the only person I can talk to sometimes who understands—me, this, everything we do. There’s no justice on Earth that can make her suffer like Paul will suffer, like I’ll suffer, if we lose James. And I’ll be happily damned if that means she can’t hurt someone else I love.”