“Marcy, I—”

  “Save it,” she said, “We both kept things from each other that we shouldn't have, and now we're facing the consequences. I'm a space princess.”

  Stook unceremoniously dropped us off back on the beach, keeping Marcy and Dany for their greedy selves and leaving me caught between a glaring pair of eyes and some extra crabs who would spend the next years of their lives spreading abduction stories on the crab equivalent of the dark web.

  Chapter Three

  Tension Is a Force You Won’t Find an Equation for

  “Does this make Sally our agent?” Blayde wiped sand from her leggings. “I mean, if she can dictate what causes we’re going to ally ourselves with without any kind of consultation whatsoever, that’s the only reasonable explanation.”

  I felt like I was still bobbing around in the tractor beam. Shit. I really didn’t want to do this right now. After everything that had just gone down, I needed to sleep, to process, not have another argument.

  Oh god. The party.

  “I did what I had to do to get us all out of there,” I said. “And, look, we’re all out of there. None of us have been arrested. Neither of you are in Alliance custody.”

  “And you thought your five minutes of interstellar experience were better than our lifetimes of handling the Alliance?” she snapped, “How deluded are you? You don’t speak for us. You’re not entitled to our services just because you’re boning my brother.”

  My skin went cold all at once and I stumbled back, hands flying to my face to cover my slack-jawed mouth. Even Zander recoiled at her words.

  “I was trying to help—”

  “Stop trying!” she said. “Just...stop. We’ve already made too many adjustments for you. We could have left the instant the tractor beam hit, but we didn’t. Why? Because you’re part of the team. But that doesn’t mean you have a monopoly on our services. We draw the line at being the Alliance’s lapdogs, something you should know by now—and we’re not changing that for a single backwater planet.”

  I found myself reaching for Zander, but he was standing too far away. And he wasn’t reaching back, his hands instead plunged deep into his pockets.

  “I was trying to help,” I squeaked. “I told them I would help—me, not you. This agreement is between the Alliance and me. If you want to help me, fine, but you don’t have to. I can handle this.”

  Zander’s lips quivered, brows tight, but still, he said nothing, avoiding my gaze. But Blayde? She didn’t hold back an ounce of laughter.

  “You? Solving an interstellar—perhaps intergalactic—crisis on your own? Come on. You knew Zander wouldn’t let you go without him. And I don’t go anywhere without Zander. You’re manipulative, Sally. You either assumed we’d be there or knew we’d be stuck helping you again. Because of course we are. Especially for a crisis of this scale. But you made the negotiations, and you took away our voice. Never do that again. Zander, back me up here.”

  “Oh, now you want to hear what I have to say?” Zander’s face was red. “All this about taking away your voice, and you haven’t given me a breath in which to speak.”

  “Oh, please. I’ve known you for lifetimes. I know what you’re going to say before even you do.”

  He threw his hands in the air. “I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of crisis after crisis, all the secrets and lies. I’m tired of you assuming you know what’s going on in my head, Blayde. And, Sally, I’m tired of the expectations. Blayde is right. Whether consciously or subconsciously, you’re forcing our hands here. I know everything with Marcy and Dany took you by surprise—”

  “You knew,” I spat. “You knew for years who Dany was, and you never told me!”

  “Stars, Sally, I wasn’t going to expose her identity to you. How would you have liked Felling to have told your parents everything while you were gone? I know Earth is important to you, but you’re being incredibly self-centered right now.”

  “Me? Self-centered?” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I haven’t had time or freedom for years! I’ve been putting out off-worlder fires since the first day we met, Zander, and haven’t had a moment’s peace since. Grisham, the Leechins, Tallagans, Kranyonites—it never ends. It’s cost me my job, my friends, and maybe even my family. You have no right to call me selfish.”

  “Two years is nothing,” said Blayde, baring her teeth. “We’ve been at this game for centuries.”

  “We’re not turning this into a contest over who has sacrificed the most,” said Zander. Our eyes met before he ripped his gaze away. We knew—we knew—this argument would go nowhere. I’d given up my mortality for him. In return, he’d given up his only hope of finding his past for me. “We’re all tired, and not just from tonight. We need to calm down, reassess, and figure out how we’re going to tackle the Dread. Because guess what? I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be fighting like this if our anxiety wasn’t peaking.”

  I swallowed hard. He was right. I could feel the pressure on my chest, the oncoming onslaught of panic. There was blood in my mouth; I had been chewing my cheek without conscious thought. The feeling was so familiar I hadn’t realized it could be alien.

  “Frash, you’re right,” said Blayde. She took a deep breath—then three more. “I should have more control than this. How long for you?”

  “Since Pyrina.” Zander wiped sweat from his brow. “Sally?”

  “Yeah, since before the ball.” I had to pinch my lips to keep them from trembling. “I mean, I’ve been struggling to manage all the new emotions since I...changed, but I had just assumed the anxiety came from faking an assassination attempt on the president of the Alliance. When we got home—”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” asked Zander.

  “Why didn’t you?” I pushed my flip flops into the sand, feeling it crunch under my toes. Just because their brain chemistry was off, it didn’t make what they said any less true or any less painful to hear.

  It didn’t excuse the crap I’d said either.

  “I’m sorry,” said Zander, his voice a warm and welcoming blanket. “Can we all just say sorry?”

  We did. Not that it made anything better, but it defused the situation for a while. When my anxiety had been at its worst, it had rendered me silent, but now that the whole universe was feeling the same, it was as thick and syrupy as truth serum.

  “We should get back to the house,” said Zander. “Sleep this off. Start fresh in the morning. Do you think there’s any chicken left? All this misplaced anger has made me hungry, and if we’re going after this Dread thing, we’re going to need some sustenance.”

  “You know one thing I like about Earth?” said Blayde, skipping down the beach ahead. “The ice cream. Sure, loads of planets make ice cream, but you’re the ones that do it right. It’s wonderful.”

  And, in the silence of her departure, I couldn’t help but agree. If I was going to help save the universe from an unknown psychological torment, then I needed a good hearty scoop of Earth-made ice cream. Preferably with brownie chunks.

  “Hey,” said Zander, finally taking my hand. The warmth of his presence was instantly reassuring, an anchor in the tumult. I sank into it, letting it overflow. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. I’m sorry.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “I’m sorry too. You’re right.”

  “Whether I was or wasn’t doesn’t matter. I love you. And we’ll solve this thing together.”

  “I love you too.” I nodded, grasping his hand tighter. I was too exhausted to say anything else. His shoulders dropped, then rose again, steady and strong. I needed him, needed to ground myself in his steadiness, needed... all of him.

  I’d panic about everything when I processed it later.

  * * *

  James was beyond pissed when she showed up the next morning, and to make sure we felt the full brunt of her annoyance, she knocked at 7 am sharp. Seeing as how we'd spent most of the evening on a spaceship, we hadn't gotten much sleep.

  “You left me,” she said, as I opened the door. She glared at me over the thick stack of papers in her arms, and burned holes into my soul. “Again. You never invite me to the interesting stuff.”

  “We weren’t exactly invited,” I replied, stifling a yawn. It left my chin trembling. “Had I known we were going to get abducted, I would have asked to bring you along.”

  You’re poison, said the old voice in my head. Everyone who tries to help ends up dead or destroyed.

  “What is it this time? Another invading alien ship? Or will another of my partners turn out to be an ET? Who will I be assigned to next? Alf?”

  “The anxiety epidemic?”

  James grunted, pushing her way into the house. My cheeks were hot, and I bit my lip to keep myself from saying anything I might regret. I hadn’t even thanked her for her three years of covering for me. Too much had happened last night, let alone in these past few months. But angry as she was—and boy did she have a right to be—she was still here.

  “Oh, don't worry. Perenelle—Full Egg, whatever—filled me in this morning. My alien partner, remember?”

  The tension was so thick I doubted I would have been able to saw through it with a laser saber. At least I knew the familiar anxiety knot in my gut wasn't entirely mine to begin with.

  “I'm really sorry,” I said. “They dropped us off, and everyone was already gone—”

  “You could have called! I had to learn everything from her. Now she’s running damage control on the Costco incident, trying to cover up the whole thing. The only reason I’m here is because I already know how to fill these out.”

  She shook the papers in my face, all the while glaring at me with her cold, tight eyes. I wanted to crawl back into bed and skip this whole day. What lengths was Foollegg going to, to wipe the SHC incident from existence? That poor clerk... all those people watching...

  You should have helped her. What good are you to anyone if you can’t help a single person?

  “James, I’m sorry.” I couldn’t meet her gaze, so I stared at the linoleum instead. “I really, truly am. And I’ll do everything I can to make it up to you. I was blindsided, too, last night. We all were.”

  Her shoulder dipped just a little. She clutched the papers to her chest.

  “I know it’s not your fault, but I can’t help but feel like I’m the one who’s always left behind cleaning up after you. Three years, Sally, three years I’ve kept this secret from your parents, your friends. And all for nothing.”

  “No.” My head swam. “Not for nothing. You were there for my parents when I couldn’t be. I can never repay you for that. I’m going to have a normal life with my parents for a little bit longer, all thanks to you.”

  “You’re going to have to tell them, eventually,” she said. “You know what you’ve done to them?”

  I did know; I knew exactly what I’d done to them. Zander had done the same thing to me, leaving for two unscheduled years, but at least I’d known what he was and had had the promise he’d return. My parents had seen their only child completely disappear.

  I could tell both of them everything, barring no detail, as I should have done the second I walked through their door a week ago. Should have tried harder to explain to my parents why I had been gone so long, what had happened to me. Hey, Dad, have you heard how I can’t die? I was selfish, clinging to the illusion that I could have it both ways: have a normal human life and the adventures and responsibilities of whatever I was.

  Zander and Blayde were waiting for us in the breakfast nook. Blayde smiled at James in a very un-Blayde-like way, so wide and beaming and beautiful that I couldn't help but shiver. James dropped the papers on the table and spun on her heels before marching to the kitchen and pouring herself a cup of coffee. She grabbed the milk and sugar, totally at ease in my parents’ home.

  She’s been more of a daughter to them in the past three years than you have. They don’t want you back.

  I was too tired to say anything. I wasn’t even sure if I could be trusted to say anything. What anxiety was mine, and what was the Dread?

  Zander’s eyes slid to the paperwork, but instead of turning away, he beamed. “James! You brought us forms! Is this because of the men watching the house?”

  “That I did, yes.” She split the papers into several stacks. “We have NDAs for the Webbers and the official official secrets for Sally, since you're still a citizen of Earth and bound by its laws, like most of us. Then we have a whole pile about the sharing of information and so on. There’s more, but we'll start with this cocktail for now.”

  “Back up. What men watching the house?” I asked, glancing through the living room window, as if I were going to spot them that easily.

  “Oh, you mean Secret Service?” said Felling. “They need to make sure this place is secure first.”

  “First? Before what?”

  James let out a heavy sigh. “Before they bring the president, silly.”

  Three men in black suits let themselves in through the front door, marched through the living room, and threw every couch cushion in the air.

  A scream. Ah, so Mom was up.

  “Get out of my house!” she shouted from the top of the stairs. “Hal!”

  “Secr—”

  But the Secret Service agent didn’t have time to finish. She had already leapt from the stairs and come at him like a bullet released from its chamber. Her flying kick got him square in the sternum.

  Shit, her MMA class was legit.

  “My daughter is innocent,” she said, turning him on his back. His colleague didn’t move, keeping both of his hands visible in the air. I wondered what his superiors had told him about my family; he wasn’t exactly fighting back. “You leave her alone!”

  “Mom!” I cried as I rushed into the living room. “He’s Secret Service!”

  She turned to me, frowning so cold I took a step back. I would never forget the look on their faces for the rest of my life, like I was a stranger, a trespasser.

  What a disappointment I turned out to be.

  I shook the thought out of my mind. This isn’t me; this isn’t me.

  “Secret Service?” she asked, just as Dad appeared at the top of the landing, brandishing Grandma’s country lamp. “Hal! That’s an heirloom!”

  He put it down oh-so slowly. If an heirloom were to go, I don’t think he would have been unhappy if it were that one.

  “Ma’am,” said the man in black, surprisingly calm despite having been kicked down by a woman half his size. “We need to clear the area—”

  “The area?” she said, incredulous. “You mean my living room?”

  “Uh...” I glanced down at Mom, up at Dad. Was he glaring at me too? “Who wants a spa day?”

  At least that surprised them long enough for Mom to release the Secret Service man, who joined his colleagues and James, who had rushed onto the scene to do damage control. Dad raced down the stairs to Mom.

  “Sally,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest, “what is this about?”

  I took a deep breath. It was time for the truth, wasn’t it? But then the Secret Service man caught my gaze and shook his head, like he knew. Shit. Even the US government wanted me to keep this secret. I hadn’t even signed James’s fancy forms yet.

  “It’s about the...manhunt for us,” I said, spit balling. “We need to...make amends.”

  Mom’s frown deepened. “In my living room?”

  “Yeah. Which is why I want to send you all on a spa day.”

  “You left. Again.” Dad put an arm around Mom’s shoulders, the sure sign of an allied front. I felt like I was fifteen all over again. “Not a word. Nothing. Do you have any idea how worried we were?”

  My words stuck in my throat. And here I thought we wouldn’t have to talk about last night. That we’d get over it, get through it, but I couldn’t say anything. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

  “You can’t just come back here and expect things to return to normal,” said Dad. “We tried that already, tried to give you the time and space to talk to us, even tried to have a party to show you how happy we are that you’re back—but it’s obvious you don’t respect us.” He waved at the Secret Service men behind him. “This isn’t normal.”

  “Dad.” I opened my mouth, found once again that I couldn’t find the courage to say the truth, and closed it again.

  Say it. Say it now, I begged myself. But I couldn’t. Whether I told the truth or kept it to myself, it was too late. Of course someone was going to get hurt. Everyone was going to get hurt.

  And I couldn’t blame it all on the Dread.

  “We tried, Sally. We really tried.” Dad sighed.

  Shit, I couldn’t do this. Zander put an arm around my shoulder, giving me strength. I took a deep breath and then another. I couldn’t give them the truth, but I could give myself time.

  “I screwed up majorly.” I reached up for Zander’s hand, clutching it. “But we’re trying to make things right. If you give us the living room for a few hours, then we have a chance of making it better.”

  “Fine.” Mom’s lips pursed so tightly they were a thin, white line. “But when we come back, we either want the truth or nothing at all. You were resourceful enough these past three years. We trust you’ll find someplace safe tonight.”

  I swallowed hard, handing them my credit card. Hopefully the spa would soften them in more ways than one. I got one small relief: a thumbs-up from the Secret Service agent my mom had assaulted. Was he one of ours or one of the Agency’s? Either way, I was doing right by somebody.

  If I wanted life to carry on as we knew it, I was going to have to play by the rules—but whose?

  Chapter Four

  Second Contact Has Much More Paperwork Than the First

  President Robert Turner arrived that afternoon in a plain, black town car. His men shuffled him in, seating him on the couch and flocking around him protectively. A film crew was already setting up cameras and adjusting the lighting, Galli frantically weaving through their legs and almost tripping them in her quest for pets. And here I was, putting dishes away, still in my parents’ hand-me-down sweats and jeans.