Book 8 of the Starstruck Saga

  by S. E. Anderson

  DREADKNOT

  © S.E. Anderson 2022

  Cover design by Sarah Anderson

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, scanning, uploading to the internet, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher and/or author, except in the case of brief quotations for reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination, or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental.

  First published in 2022 by Bolide Publishing Limited

  Bolidepublishing.com

  To those of us who are still hanging on

  Keep hanging on.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  EPILOGUE

  EXCLUSIVE CONTENT AND SPECIAL OFFERS

  OTHER BOOKS BY S.E. ANDERSON

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Chapter One

  Post-Pandemic Shopping Vibes

  The first problem with time travel is it technically constitutes as tax evasion. The second is the relativity of time itself—relatives tend to hate the jet-setting camp of being lost in time and space.

  Three years on Earth were a lot to miss, especially when two thirds of them were a dumpster fire. Just when I thought I was caught up on every facet of the pandemic, nothing prepared me for dealing with family drama. It turns out a parent’s hospitality wears out the second their relief at seeing their daughter alive is replaced by the dread of living with her kidnappers-but-not-really. In our case, the honeymoon phase lasted all of two days before my parents were already tired of me and my delinquent friends lazing about their living room. When you plead the alien defense in court before breaking out of an institution while your psychiatrists were being arrested then hold their daughter hostage for three years in the process, you don’t make a good first impression.

  It was all time travel’s fault, but telling them that was a big, fat no.

  But we were on Earth. Home. We should have been relaxing. We’d come up against the Alliance and won; true to their word, they’d ordered the Agency to stand down and drop their charges. New evidence had come to light showing our innocence. The story that hit the media was vague—the Agency had been too lazy to write clever cover stories—but we were free. Well, free from the Agency, not free from the journalists hounding us for an interview.

  So, we hid in the house, curtains drawn, the TV filling us in on what we’d missed. We’d been like this for a week, trying to catch our breath, though each story was worse than the last. I’d given up on the internet at this point. After all we’d been through, even cat videos seemed unsettling and morose.

  “Does Earth feel... different since we’ve been back?” I asked, after the third breaking news story in a row.

  Blayde looked up from her journal and cleared her throat, all cozy in mom’s old Minnie Mouse sweatshirt. Everything I owned had either been taken as evidence or was in the storage locker my parents had been forced to get when my landlord evicted me for not paying rent due to being on another planet. Even my trusty duffle bag was still buried under a mountain of procedure. I hadn’t realized I’d miss it until it wasn’t there waiting for me when I got back, but now my shoulder felt empty.

  Blayde looked at me. “Hate to break it to you, but your planet has always been a”—Zander nudged her in the ribs—“adorable little hovel.”

  “Wow, thanks for that.” I shifted closer to Zander on the couch and he put my arm around me, pulling me in tight. We hadn’t had time to ourselves since we’d gotten back, not a moment to comfort each other after the events of Pyrina. “Something’s off, though. Can’t you feel it? Like we’re home, but not really. We can’t travel to parallel universes, can we?”

  Galli snorted from her bed by the kitchen. My family dog had changed color while we were gone, more white in its fur than when we’d left, and had gained a passive-aggressive streak to rival the rest of us.

  “This is what happens when you live it up on Pyrina.” Blayde shook her head. “You can never go back to dumpy little worlds again.”

  I frowned. Pyrina had been a letdown. Despite its vibrant patchwork of peoples, the political fabric had been stretched thin. And with multiple rebel attacks—including our own—on the president on the same night, I’d expected better from the Alliance capital.

  “We need food.”

  Dad stood in the doorway, one hand on his hip, the other taut and holding a shopping list out to me. Since we’d gotten back, he’d been treating us like we were teenagers caught underage drinking and was understandably sulky.

  I plucked the list out of his hands. It was as long as my arm. “Jeez, how many people are you trying to feed?”

  “Be sure to check the brand,” he said. “After the consumer wars in early November, stick to what you know, Sally.”

  Was he trying to get rid of us? Every conversation with my parents since we’d gotten back had been like fixing a warp core; one misstep and your arms would end up hugging opposite ends of the galaxy. Sure, they had good reason to hate us, but it was hard to catch one’s breath when the air was this thick with tension. Dad practically shoved the car keys into my hand and pushed us out the door.

  Our drive to the grocery store was silent and cold, like most everything since the ball. And inside, Publix was worse still. There was a certain chill in the air, like the drop of pressure before a storm. Not from the cosmobeat blasting through the PA system—a whole new musical genre we’d missed, which sounded like the universe was trying to bathe a cat. Maybe from the way people seemed to be avoiding not only us but each other too.

  Anxiety appeared to be catching.

  “I got the ice cream,” said Zander. “Not sure if your parents even have a freezer big enough for it all.”

  Seeing him there with a metric ton of ice cream just made him all the more beautiful. Perks of his sturdy arms were that he could carry a dozen containers at once as well as beat up interstellar fiends. He dropped them unceremoniously into the cart.

  “Air conditioner problems?” I rubbed the goosebumps on my arms. “Where’s Blayde wandered off to? We should find her before she stumbles upon a quest in the dairy aisle. She was ranting about needing purpose again.”

  I couldn’t imagine Blayde being happy with our current pace. We made our way to the checkout and saw Blayde in deep conversation with an older lady in the bookstore corner.

  “They only published the manuscript now?” Blayde was either truly interested or a brilliant actress. “Fascinating. I’ve been to your seventeenth century and don’t think I know this specific Desmond, but I can go back and check.”

  “It’s a free country,” said the woman, before stomping away.

  “We’re done.” I waved Blayde over to the cash register. It was a lot more polite than screaming ‘Earth is not ready for time travel!’ We’d only just gotten out of a mental institution, and I wasn’t aiming to be put back in one.

  “We leave your planet for three years, and that’s when things get interesting?” Blayde grimaced as she joined us, tossing a paperback on top of a tub of mint choco-chip. So many uber-specific, niche brands of chips, along with vegetables we’d had to measure and compare against a chart.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket—Dad, probably wondering what was taking so long. I handed Zander the credit card and stepped away, pressing the phone to my ear.

  “Dad?”

  “Sally, is that you?” he asked, breathless.

  “What happened?” The hair on the back of my arm rose like zombies from the grave. “What’s wrong?” I paused. “Dad, is Mom okay? Is anyone hurt?”

  “No, Sally.” His voice was thick with tension. “But you’d better get here soon. It’s—”

  The phone fizzled out, and so did my thoughts. I stood there, frozen, my phone still pressed to my ear. After all the Agency promises that my parents would be safe...no.

  “What happened?” asked Zander, pushing the cart past checkout.

  My mind snapped into action, screaming at me that everything Foollegg had threatened me with was now coming true. That my parents would pay for my supposed crimes with their life. Or maybe a worse threat than the Agency had gotten to them first. “Something’s wrong. We have to go. Now.”

  Everyone you love is in danger because of you.

  A scream burst my eardrums, and I spun to see the checkout aflame, a column of heat reaching up to the ceiling. White-hot fire all around the... the person. Our clerk, a woman I’d seen alive and smiling a second ago, was now consumed in fla
mes. The column fell just as quickly as it had appeared, leaving the charred body of our cashier seared into our eyes before it, too, crumbled.

  Zander’s hand grabbed mine, tugging me away, but I couldn’t move. My feet were rooted to the floor. She had been there, then on fire and—

  “What the hell?” I shrieked, as the grocery store erupted into screams. I’m pretty sure people didn’t just start bursting into flames since we’d left. If there was a new side effect to working in the service industry, I’m sure somebody would have told me about that by now.

  “SHC!” Blayde answered. “Don’t talk, run!”

  We bolted out of the store to the car, screams ringing in my ears. Zander spilled the shopping bags into the trunk, loose fruit rolling around as he slammed it shut. I peeled out of the parking lot. We couldn’t be anywhere near the incident, not when we’d been criminals just days ago. And we weren’t just driving away; we were driving toward—toward my parents and whatever had happened to them.

  “S-SHC?” I stammered. The woman had been alive and then... gone in such a horrific instant. I could still smell the sizzle of skin. Could the same thing have happened to—

  “Spontaneous human combustion,” said Blayde.

  “Wait, I thought that was an urban myth! People just bursting in flames? That doesn’t happen. Does it?”

  “It’s a safeguard for Agency operatives,” said Zander, his voice impossibly steady. “When their cover is blown.”

  “The Agency has infiltrated Publix? Is nowhere sacred anymore?”

  “It was a safeguard,” Blayde corrected. “The whole system was terminated centuries ago. After the locals started getting...inspired.”

  And here I thought Agency tourism was a recent thing. How long had we been entertaining off-world guests? I clenched the steering wheel. “They ignite their own agents?”

  “There’re meant to be protocols in place.” Zander’s head spun around, checking every mirror. “It must have malfunctioned.”

  “Sabotage?” said Blayde. “The only reason it would activate now is—”

  “If someone is trying to send a message to the Alliance.” I gasped. “The Agency would never allow themselves to be this sloppy in the smartphone era. It’ll hit the internet immediately, no matter how far the Agency reaches. People will panic.”

  “She’s right. Zander, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Sally’s right. Someone wants the Agency to notice them. And we’ve officially been exonerated for one day, so this can’t be a coincidence.”

  My heart clenched. Here I thought our ordeal in Pyrina had accomplished something.

  There was something more than wrong happening here. I could feel it deep in my gut and deeper still. It wasn’t just that familiar feeling of anxiety. No, there was something more, something in the air reflected in the glares at the supermarket. Something toxic and growing stronger. Because under everything, there was something bigger, a gut-clenching feeling of dread.

  Trust me, I know my anxiety. This was different. It had been waiting for us when we’d returned from the presidential ball, suffusing the air of this time. Maybe it had been on Pyrina, too, but my usual baseline panic had covered it up.

  Dread. Deep, dark dread.

  There was no room to park in my parents’ driveway. It was taken up entirely by a gigantic black SUV, with more cars up and down the street on both sides—way more than there should be. The zombie-stiff hairs on my arms grew stiffer. Agency operatives?

  I pulled to the curb three houses down and practically fell out of the car. Despite my beatless heart, I felt a phantom pounding in my chest. I ached to rush inside the house, but Zander took point and I was forced to follow his slow, methodical lead. I looked back and Blayde was gone—flanking the house maybe. My trembling legs carried me to the already open door, which creaked as he pushed it in, my guts twisting.

  The instant Zander’s foot crossed the threshold, lights illuminated the room, and before I could focus my eyes, a single cry rose to the heavens.

  “Surprise!”

  People burst out of everywhere, my parents front and center, alive and smiling. And standing between them, Marcy and Dany. My world was thrown upside down as I was wrapped in a massive hug, complete with tears in my hair.

  “Oh god, Sally, you’re alive!” Marcy shrieked in my ear. “Don’t you ever run off like that again, understood?” She grabbed me so tight I probably wouldn’t have survived if I wasn’t immortal. I sobbed into her familiar shoulder, her familiar sweater, her familiar scent.

  The other guests were Dad’s truther buddies and Mom’s MMA bubble. It turns out when you’ve been missing for three years, absolutely anyone will have an excuse to miss you, though I’m pretty sure the older crowd was more moral support for my parents rather than here to celebrate.

  “What is this?” asked Zander. “Oh Veesh, is this an intervention? Look, if you need me to stop with reality television—”

  Marcy let go of me, only to step back and turn to him, shooting daggers with her eyes that were sharp enough to turn him into Swiss cheese.

  “I would slap you, but there’s a crowd and my wife is against violence of any kind,” she spat.

  Blayde took a step closer to her brother, positioning herself between him and Marcy. I’m not sure how she even got there—not enough screaming for her to have jumped.

  “There are people here,” she hissed. “What are people doing here?”

  “Stand down,” I said. “It’s a party. For us.”

  “Party? Well, this explains the excessive amount of ice cream we currently have melting in the car.”

  “I thought they were all for me?” said Zander. Marcy’s glare was unwavering, and he swallowed loudly. “I’ll ... be right back.” He darted out the door.

  So, the timing between the SHC and the phone call had been a coincidence, rare as they were. The call had only been a ruse, a way to get us to hurry back. Perhaps the near heart attack was retribution for the way I’d left. But explaining to the guests that we had to cancel to discuss why our cashier had gone supernova on us... big party foul. We’d just need to smile and pretend everything was hunky-dory for a few hours and make sure no one turned on the TV. I had to talk to Zander about what we’d just seen. There had to be a reason for it, some reason our cashier... I held down vomit as the scene replayed behind my eyes.

  “So, what do you think?” asked Marcy, gesturing at the room. “We didn’t have much time to decorate, but...”

  Dany tugged on a string, letting the banner down.

  Blayde snorted. “Lovely. ‘Congratulations on NOT being murderers.’ Simple. To the point. Well, what can I say? I’m flattered.” She grinned that smile of hers, the kind that could blind airline pilots if the sun hits her teeth just right. “What I don’t understand is why someone covered up the word ‘boy’ so that all your paper plates now read ‘It’s an Innocent!’ Is innocent a gender now? I’ll add that to the list, but I’m not sure where on the spectrum I should place it. Probably outside the visible wavelength.”

  “Thank you,” I said, trying to expel that phantom feeling of danger that filled the room. “You are...simply the kindest.”

  I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. It was almost comical to hear the crowd swoon at my overflowing feelings. Would they be oohing and ahhing if they knew most of the tears were from the most gruesome death I had ever seen?

  But...I was home.

  Despite the party now officially underway, the tension in the air was still palpable. The older crowd kept my parents occupied, occasionally shooting me a glare or two, which I probably deserved. The five of us young’uns—let’s forget for a second the thousands of years Zander and Blayde had under their belts—banded together for conversation and to raid the dinner table. Galli waited by our feet for us to accidentally share.

  “I see chicken.” Zander smacked his lips. “You know, of everywhere I’ve been in the known universe, chicken has always been the comforting, always present, ultimate constant. Anywhere. Okay, sure, not all like Earth chickens. I mean, they’ve evolved differently to adapt to their environment, but they always taste the same, gills or no gills.”

  “No gills here.” I sipped my beer.

  “Wonderful. I was being polite. Chickens with gills are the worst.”

  I glanced past Blayde to where Marcy and Dany were shoveling macaroni salad onto their festive paper plates. They were discussing something in hushed whispers that even I couldn’t follow, Dany having to fold practically in half so Marcy could reach her ear. It instantly sent my gut into a Boy Scout knot lesson all over again.