Under Sunless Skies (Starlight Saga Book 2) Read online

  So I’m cursed to inherit my dad’s abnormal powers. Freakin’ grrreat. A goth girl with special abilities, like some Marvel comic anti-hero wannabe. My brain is on overload, rebelling against the idea. I just want to be normal…well, my kind of normal.

  I tuck a strand of purple hair behind my ears. “So you’re saying we’re destined to be some type of mutant X-Men?”

  David nods. “You must have more questions.”

  “What else can Meleah do?” Jonah bounces in his seat. “Besides teleport.”

  “They have enhanced intelligence and use of ferrokinesis,” David says, “which is—”

  “I know,” Brainiac Boy replies matter-of-factly. “Ferrokinesis is the ability to summon, bend, control, and manipulate all types of metals. So what are the physics behind your teleportation abilities, Dad?”

  “Well, I could give you a long, boring lecture on recombinant DNA splicing, but I’m no expert physicist or geneticist. From what I understand, teleportation is often referred to as quantum entanglement. It’s like breaking down a person’s constituent molecules, such as the binding energy of atoms, the DNA pairs that form genomes in every cell, and nuclei, then beaming across space and reassembling elsewhere.”

  “I understand. We have to dematerialize, be stripped to atoms, and then reconstructed, in order to achieve matter teleportation, right?” Jonah says.

  David grins proudly. “Yes, and I’m relieved you’re taking it so well, son.”

  My parents turn their heads in my direction as if waiting for me to nod and smile.

  Not gonna happen.

  “Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not okay with all this,” I snap. “You lied to us. If Agent Dixon finds our family, we could all get mind-wiped!”

  “Your friend Hayden must’ve filled you in on quite a lot,” David says, narrowing his eyes. “But that’s never going to happen. Your mother and I will protect you—”

  “Save it. I’ve heard enough.” I stand, shoving my chair aside.

  “Wait,” David says. “This must remain our secret. I don’t think anyone outside our family can be trusted.”

  “And it’s best if we act natural,” my mom says. “Simply go about our normal, everyday routines and not let this affect our lives.”

  “That’s a terrific idea.” David rubs my mom’s shoulders. “Sector Thirteen and the other Meleah don’t know I’m here—”

  “Why all the secrecy?” Jonah’s forehead furrows. “Why would anyone care?”

  “We’re not sure why the laws for Meleah are so strict. But your dad might have a solution,” my mom says. “So for now, let’s keep your dad’s heritage a family secret.”

  My mouth is dry and my head throbs viciously. Realizing my absentee father is a Meleah has really messed with my brain. My parents should’ve told me the truth about my dad being an alien instead of all the deceitful lies. My entire world has imploded, fallen like a house of cards. I need space. Time to think.

  “I’m going to my room.” I shuffle to the staircase.

  A strong sense of foreboding strikes my heart, as if a dark storm is pushing me along the edge of a high cliff, and at any second, I’ll fall over the side.

  TWO

  A flood of tears slips down my cheeks as I rush upstairs to my attic bedroom. Our home is a three-story Victorian, and the best part is that my bedroom is the entire third-floor, and gives me total privacy. Shutting and locking the door, I lean against the wood. At least in here, I won’t have to stress my parents bugging me while I’m decompressing this big alien heritage news.

  As if losing Hayden wasn’t enough for the day!

  How could my parents lie to me about my brother and me being part alien?

  The thought of my ex-boyfriend causes me to plop onto the bed and sob for so long my eyes burn. My life is spiraling downward into a dark place without anyway to climb out. Suddenly, I’m struck with painful memories of Hayden, a very down-to-earth guy with the top three “S” qualities I like: plenty of sophistication, smarts, and swagger. And most importantly, he seemed to really get me—basically, everything I ever wanted in a boyfriend, right down to a pair of sexy cheekbones.

  Ah, never underestimate the power of defined cheekbones. Major swoonage.

  Jinx, my black cat, sprawls tightly against my thigh. He lifts his furry head and meows. I scratch behind his ears as he softly purrs.

  “Jinx, I’d be lost without you. You’re the only one I can trust in this screwed up family.”

  Besides grieving my breakup with Hayden, my parents’ shocking confession is still rocking my world. I blindly placed my trust in them and they’d been lying to my face for seventeen years.

  Why couldn’t I have wickedly cool parents who embrace their inner-freak, like Morticia and Gomez Addams, instead of those bold-faced liars called, David and Karen?

  Groaning, I hug my teddy bear with the missing eye to my chest. All of this gut-wrenching betrayal makes me suffer a crippling doubt on top of everything else, because I don’t know who I am anymore. With these doubts plaguing me about myself, it feels as though I’m living under sunless skies.

  Talk about an identity crisis.

  I grab the remote lying on my nightstand and switch on the small TV with a built-in DVD player. Then I get comfy, planning to spend the entire weekend hiding out in the safety of my room. Whenever I’m unhappy, I focus on the things worth living for, like my love of chocolate, my friends, and an Insidious movie sequel.

  Knowing none of that is going to help me get through this crisis, I sit up and gaze around my sanctuary. Gothic prints cover the walls and a laptop sits on the desk beside an eReader. I glance up at my beloved collection of horror films stacked on a shelf to ground myself with something real.

  While I spend the day watching sappy chick-flicks on Netflix, I ingest an eclectic assemblage of junk food, including but not limited to, a tub of ice cream—the preferred breakup food of the heartbroken—yellow cupcakes, and a whole lotta sugary goodness.

  Even though Hayden was my first big crush, I found true love when I was only seven-years-old. Some might say that’s too young, but we don’t care. Cupcakes and I have been inseparable ever since.

  The next two days following the “big breakup” and discovering my alien origins involves lots of crying, listening to an embarrassing amount of Taylor Swift songs, and writing morbid poetry. My parents leave me alone, and when we do pass each other in the kitchen, they’re wise enough to give me some space.

  Taking out my trusty Hello Kitty notebook to digest all this life-changing stuff, I scribble: I have zeta origins. Check.

  Then I quickly add, My parents are untrustworthy liars. Check.

  Must decide if I should tell Hayden or not. Check.

  I am not completely human. Check.

  Then I boot up my laptop to research shalinayas. And what do you know?

  I find a few alien-loving websites that actually mention the half-alien and half-human offspring by The Greys aka Zetas. One site discusses a “Hybrid Galactic Family” composed of crossbreed kids born from a hybridization program and each child has a genetic blend of human and extraterrestrial (Zeta Reticuli/Grey) DNA. Well, duh. It also claims that the children reside with their alien dads, but they’ll begin arriving on Earth in the near future. Super weird. The website also goes on to say that these special snowflakes are incredibly compassionate beings with very high, loving vibrations. Ah, not Jonah!

  But my brother and I can’t be the only ones on the planet. There must be other shalinayas…

  I jot all the info I uncovered in my notebook, along with the websites for future reference. Then I add beneath: Does Sector Thirteen know about these sites? Why aren’t they shut down?

  By Monday morning, I sluggishly descend to the second-floor bathroom to take a quick shower. Then I yank on my bathrobe, catching my reflection in the mirror. I’m a hot mess with swollen eyes, blotchy skin, and a red nose from all the crying. Shuffling my feet, I go back to my room and dig through
my clothes. Dammit. Where’s that one black top I want to wear?

  Oh yeah, it’s in the dark, mourning abyss that is my shirt drawer.

  Finally, I yank on a short-sleeved top, a long black skirt, and my comfy combat boots, not really caring how I look, yet pausing to put on some red lipstick. Then I grab my backpack and slide on a pair of big sunglasses to hide my bloodshot eyes.

  Today I will smile like a trained actress, and make it believable. If I run into Hayden, I will just grin and give no indication that I’m still raw and hurting inside. I will not act like the sad girl who got dumped over the weekend. I will start fresh, and be someone made of steel. It’s the only way I’ll be able to make it through the day without crumbling under the amount of stress weighing on my shoulders.

  But I’m not sure if I want to tell him about my being part Zeta yet. Or if he’ll even care. It might only end in another explosion of heart-stomping tears. And I don’t mean his…

  Sneaking downstairs, I slip out the backdoor into the garage before my parents wake up. I’m in no mood for a lecture on how I should be embracing my alien roots. I hop into my Volkswagen Jetta, covered in band decals and an I Read Banned Books bumper sticker. Then I drive across town in mild traffic to school. Grimm Haven, California is an island within the San Francisco Bay Area, with spacious parks, a coastal oak forest, and shady bike trails along the shoreline. A lovely place to visit, if you don’t mind that it’s populated with alien hybrids.

  I park in the school lot near the football field. An immense wooded area lies behind Haven High, an impressive two-story structure.

  Dragging my feet, I enter the building. Part of me hopes to see Hayden, but another part dreads it. Posters for the upcoming senior prom flap in the air-conditioned draft. Wide swirls from the janitor’s mop glimmer on the linoleum floors.

  My first two classes pass in a haze of growing depression. I don’t hear a damn thing any of my teachers lecture on, and I fail my pop quiz on Hamlet in English. It’s hard to focus on Shakespeare when I’ve come down with a bad case of senioritis, and I know Hayden is somewhere on campus.

  When I stop at my locker before third period, Tanisha Jackson, one of my good friends and fellow lovers of dark-side apparel, rushes up to me in the corridor.

  “Hey! I’m glad I caught you,” she says breathlessly.

  “What’s up?” I ask, opening the locker.

  My locker is my own personal space during a busy day at school. Plastered on the walls are a dry erase board, a small mirror, and photos from last Halloween with Viola and me in our zombie costumes taped to the door. Lowering my sunglasses, I check my teeth for lipstick stains in the mirror, rubbing one finger over a red smudge on my front tooth. As I lean back, a black envelope flutters out of the locker, and I barely manage to catch it before it hits the ground.

  “Can I borrow your notes for trig tomorrow?” Tanisha briefly touches my shoulder, and I glance at her. She’s looking all caramel-skinned and bodacious today while I look like a member of the walking dead. “I’m leaving early for a dentist appointment.”

  “Um, yeah, I guess…” I say distractedly.

  “I don’t even want to go because the last time I had an appointment,” she says, “it was so annoying when the dental assistant asked me to remove my tongue ring…”

  While Tanisha is talking, I rip open the envelope and pull out a white slip of paper with the typed words:

  I KNOW YOUR SECRETS. TELL ANYONE ABOUT THIS NOTE, AND THEY BECOME PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE!

  My hands shake as I scan the note, and then I reread it because I can’t quite believe what I’m seeing. Staring at the warning note, I yank off my sunglasses and toss them inside my locker. I read it again.

  My chest tightens painfully. I just learned the truth about my parents and I’m still dealing with the big reveal of my heritage, along with the breakup, and now someone is blackmailing me.

  I am so screwed. This is like a bad slasher movie. Some twisted version of I-Know-What-You-Did-Last-Summer. I clutch the warning message to my chest so Tanisha won’t see it. Not that she’s even paying attention because she is still rambling about going to the dentist.

  “...then when I do it,” Tanisha continues, flipping her dreadlocks over one shoulder. “The dentist claims he lost the barbell during my teeth cleaning. But I think my mom put him up to it. So can I borrow them tomorrow?”

  Images flash through my mind like an erratic slideshow, displaying everything bad that’ll happen if my secrets are revealed, like Sector Thirteen soldiers storming my house, and next comes the painful ice pick lobotomy, followed by my dad being sent to an alien prison. My family will be ripped apart…

  “Sloane?” Tanisha touches my shoulder. “Are you okay? You look like you’re gonna spew chunks.”

  “Huh? Yeah, I’m good.” I thrust the note into a pocket of my backpack and zip it tight.

  Tanisha stares at me. “So can I or not?”

  For the life of me, I can’t remember what she wanted.

  Oh, right—math class. And something about notes.

  If someone at school knows I’m a shalinaya, taking notes in trig will be the least of my worries.

  But I can’t very well lose my shit in the hallway, so I force a stiff-lipped smile. “Uh-huh. I’ll give you the notes tomorrow.”

  “Thanks! I gotta take off now. See you later.”

  Once Tanisha walks off, I inspect the corridor. My mouth goes dry. Whoever left me this warning might be skulking nearby, watching my reaction. My squinty gaze flits over each student lingering in the corridor, searching their expressions for any signs of guilt.

  Emma Fowler and Kaitlyn Carter are gossiping at their lockers, and when they catch me staring, my frenemies glare. The culprit could be Emma. The girl’s hella mean and way sneaky.

  My friend Raymond McGregor walks by with a classic chin jerk to say hello, but he doesn’t stop. A pack of giggling freshmen amble by, giving me a weird look. Hayden’s younger brother, Zach Lancaster, stands at the other end of the hall, talking with one of his basketball teammates with his back to me.

  Maybe it was a dumb gag by Zach. It’s no secret he hates me. Or only a lame senior prank. No reason to freak out and change the combination on my locker if that’s all it turns out to be. Probably just somebody’s idea of a stupid joke. The message might only be a warning, or it could be possible blackmail to come.

  Yet it suddenly seems as if the entire human population of Haven High is in on my hybrid secret. Or maybe I’ve never noticed the odd looks before today because I assumed it was in regards to my usual funeral attire.

  As I shuffle along the fluorescent-lit, linoleum-covered hallway, the walls close in on me. Air leaves my lungs. The note feels like it’s burning a hole right through the pocket of my backpack and scorching the skin on my arm.

  I catch sight of a boy who looks like Hayden, but when the guy turns and I realize it isn’t him, tears fill my eyes.

  Our relationship totally crashed and burned. No pre-warnings—just a giant, heart-wrenching explosion.

  I need to get out of here—now.

  THREE

  I park near the entrance of Shadowland Memorial Cemetery, and take my backpack with me, tucking my iPod into one of my jacket pockets. Passing through the ornamental archway is like stepping into another dimension, where there’s no heartbreak, cryptic messages, or family secrets, and everything seems more like a bad dream. A sensation of peace engulfs my senses and my need to go all ballistic over the blackmail threat left in my locker somewhat diminishes.

  I’ve never really considered myself normal, so maybe that’s why I like hanging out in cemeteries. Sometimes I spend hours at the graveyard dividing up bouquets of plastic flowers so everyone has their equal share.

  It’s a gorgeous spring day, with daffodils poking their pretty heads out of the lawn to soak up the sun, but I’d like nothing more than to stomp them with my Doc Martens. With the ugly mood I’m in, I prefer the scent of decaying flowers over happ
y freakin’ daffodils.

  I find a shady spot—I sat in the sun once and it was dreadful!—under a tree near my grandparents’ graves. Springtime and sunshiny days are officially here, but there isn’t enough SPF one-hundred in the world to get me through this season.

  Needing a distraction from my craptastic day, I boot up my laptop and write a new post for my wicked cool column, Fright Night Babble, on the school’s online newspaper, the Hazen Gazette, by using the WiFi hotspot from the mortuary offices.

  Leaning back against the tree, I read the comments from my last post, and then answer a few questions. If Hayden had social media, I would totally be stalking him on Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter right now, but he doesn’t believe in it.

  At noon, I take in my surroundings while munching on a ham sandwich and guzzling a diet soda. The wind whistles through the trees, causing the rusty hinges on the entrance gate to creak, and I spy two mourners paying their respects.

  Shoving my lunch back into my bag, I can’t ignore the eerie note any longer. With shaky fingers, I slip out the warning message and read it again. Someone not only knows I was secretly dating Hayden, they might know I’m not entirely human, too. This is just all kinds of bad. My throat squeezes closed, and fresh tears sting my eyes.

  Just as I’m finishing a hunk of dark chocolate, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I take it out and hit the “accept” button.

  “Sloane’s Taxidermy. You snuff ’em, and we’ll stuff ’em.”

  My best friend Viola’s high-pitched laugh crackles through the receiver. “You’re too crazy. Where are you? Did you ditch school?”

  I hesitate, unsure what to even tell her. My BFF is going to think I’m rocking a straitjacket in every color. I’m not sure if she’ll believe me about my new hybrid status, or sympathize with me on the creepy note left in my locker, but she might…

  “It’s a long story and I’m hiding out in the graveyard. A lot’s happened…” I fight back a fresh wave of tears, blinking rapidly. The sugary sweetness that melted on my tongue now clogs my throat.