The Storm Spirits
Chapter Seventeen

Two Months Later

I was standing at the stove, making pasta for myself. Papa limped in, his cane barely making noise as he walked. “What’re you doing, Char?”

“Making pasta.” I smiled at him.

“Any extras?”

“Maybe.”

Papa grunted, then opened the fridge. “No beer, Alan!” Nana yelled from the living room. Papa grunted again and retrieved a bottle of juice. He limped back out.

I chuckled to myself and stirred my pasta. It has been two months since I’d said goodbye to the most amazing guy I’d ever met, and I thought about him every day. Mostly I thought about how I’d never see him again and he was doomed to slavery forever because of me. I tried to distract myself, however, by getting a job and working as many hours as I could.

My pasta was nearing finished, so I got out the tomato sauce and cooked ground beef I’d stored in the fridge. Mixing the two, I microwaved them while the noodles finished cooking. I poured myself some iced tea while I waited.

The lights in the house flickered suddenly, and I looked outside to see if it was storming. The sky had darkened considerably, which was odd, because it was still summer, and stayed light later. My brow furrowed until I was a lightning strike that seemed to originate on the hill right outside the window. A dark figure was briefly illuminated as the lightning shot from the sky and struck right behind him. That figure … I gasped, but didn’t dare believe it. Is it … Lightning flashed again, and the figure was gone. My face fell. No! I ran and threw open the door, only to run into-

“Zack!” I threw my arms around him, jumping a little at the big shock I received.

He laughed and hugged me back. “It’s good to see you, too, Char.”

I looked up at him, and was surprised at how different he looked. “What happened to you?” I did a double-take. “Wait. You’re here! You’re not back with your people!”

He shook his head. “Nope. It’s a long story.”

“One I’d love to hear.”

“I’m happy to tell it.” He smiled. “May I come in?”

I shook my head. “Geez, I’m sorry. Yeah, come on in.” I pulled away and stepped aside so he could enter.

Zack ducked by me. “Something smells good.”

“Pasta. You want some?”

He nodded. “Thank you.”

I put some extra sauce into a bowl. “Meat?”

“Sure.”

I popped the bowl into the microwave and took mine out. “It’ll be done in a minute.” I jumped when he touched my shoulder.

He moaned a little. “Stupid abilities …” He pulled something out of his pocket, winced, and slipped it onto his wrist. “There, that should help.”

I took his hand and examined what he’d put on. “Zack, that’s a metal bracelet.”

“I know.”

“You’re allergic to metal.”

“I know.” I took hold of it, but he stopped me from ripping it off him. “It keeps me from hurting you.”

Smiling a little, I sighed. “Look, you need to stop sacrificing like that for me.” I turned to remove his bowl from the microwave.

“I’m doing it because I want to, Char.” He smiled at me.

His smile made me feel shy suddenly, and I moved toward the stove. “I need to serve the noodles,” I mumbled, smiling myself. Turning off the burner, I picked up a slotted spoon and piled noodles into each bowl. “You want something to drink?”

“Whatever you have is fine.”

“It’s iced tea.”

“OK.”

I poured him a glass and handed it to him. “Here you go.” I retrieved forks from the silverware drawer and stuck one in each of our bowls. “We can take these into the den.”

“All right; lead the way!”

Nana appeared in one of the kitchen doorways as I picked up my glass and bowl and moved to lead him out. “Who’re you talking to, Char?”

I grinned at her. “You’d never guess.”

She leaned around the doorway arch, and a surprised smile lit up her face. “Zack!”

He smiled back at her. “Hello, ma’am.”

“I thought Char said you weren’t coming back!”

“Things changed; it’s a bit of a long story.”

Nana nodded. “Well, I’ll let you tell Char first; I’m sure she’s dying to know.”

Papa stuck his head in, too. “Who’s here?” He glanced sideways at Zack. “You’re the kid she met at the beach?”

We both nodded. “Good to meet you, sir.”

“Hm,” Papa grunted. “There goes my helping of pasta.”

I rolled my eyes. “Papa!”

“Just don’t close the door.” He ducked back out.

Nana shook her head. “Enjoy your food, you two.” She went back to her green recliner in the living room.

I gestured with my head for Zack to follow me through the dining room and to the den. “Sorry about Papa. He claims to hate any boy who comes home with me.”

“He seems like an interesting man,” Zack commented as we entered the den. “Cozy in here.”

I nodded and sat down on the long sofa along the far wall. “This is primarily where I hang out. My bedroom is great and all, but I like it just as well in here.” I set my glass down on the coffee table, and Zack did the same thing as he sat down. “Let’s eat before our food gets cold, and then we’ll talk.”

“Sounds good to me.”

We dug in, and it didn’t take long for us to devour our food. “How’d you like it?” I asked.

He nodded. “It was good. Very enjoyable.” He set his empty bowl down on the coffee table. “What’s new with you?”

I shrugged. “Not a whole lot, I guess. I got a job to help finish paying for college, plus my life after college.”

“You still haven’t finished college yet?”

His question confused me. “Well … I’m about to start my last year. That much hasn’t changed.”

He seemed surprised. “How long has it been since I left?”

“Two months.”

He muttered something to himself and ran a hand through his dark and light hair. “I thought a year had passed.”

“A year?” I was stunned. “You mean that wherever you were, a whole year passed?” He nodded. “Wow, Narnia, anyone?”

“Narnia?” Zack was confused for a moment. I tried to replace a concise way of explaining the fictional world to him, but he nodded. “Oh, OK. Time is different here and on my planet.” He froze. “Sorry.”

I suddenly understood that he had read my mind and waved him off. “No problem; I was getting ready to explain it to you anyway.” I smiled. “Something else I did was start going to church regularly.”

He smiled. “Really?”

I nodded. “What you said really spoke to me, so I decided to do something about it. It’s been really good, I’ve found a group of people my age who are really into any and all kinds of service projects, so I’ve been doing a lot with them.”

“Good, I’m glad to hear it!”

“Also, the FBI has been asking around about you. I’ve had to speak to them probably a dozen times about my time with you at the beach. They asked for the same story every. Single. Time.”

“I’m sorry about that; I didn’t think our being here would arouse much suspicion. I certainly didn’t intend for you to be mixed up in it.”

I shrugged. “It’s fine.” I set my bowl on the coffee table. “So.” I turned sideways on the couch so I could see him better. “What happened in that year you were away?”

“A lot.” He rubbed his face a little, and teeny-tiny sparks jumped from his hands. “Once we were on Grayson’s ship, we found that he had picked up others who had escaped.”

“You mean … others like you? Other Storm Spirits?”

He nodded. “We’d had no idea anyone else had escaped. Grayson tracked us all down and caught us.” He smirked. “He may be powerful, but he’s only one.” His face fell. “One of the other captives could manipulate wind, and she held him off while the rest of us took the ship over. Grayson … he did the equivalent of snapping her neck.”

“No!” I groaned. “He’s awful!”

“Yes. We took him back home and kept him locked away while we negotiated with the Yven for the release of the remainder of our people. That ended in a trade: our people were returned to us, and we gave them Grayson.”

“What about getting back to the planet you came from?”

“It turns out that they were bluffing that part. No one truly knows where we came from, but we’re thriving where we are, and that’s what’s important.”

“So, what happened?” I asked. “Surely negotiations didn’t take all year.”

Zack shook his head. “No, we were taking time to resettle our people and establish some kind of order. The brother who was only a little bit younger than Grayson was elected to serve as our leader. My parents are serving as his advisers, and our other brothers are leaders of the divisions we established.”

“What about you?”

He looked me in the eye. “I declined a position and only stayed until there was enough order.”

I cocked my head. “Why?”

“I felt like I should be here.”

“Here?” My face started to feel warm as I realized that he might be saying he wanted to be with me.

“Yes. With you.”

My face burned, and I looked down. “Really?”

“Really.”

I looked back up and grinned. “Wow … Zack, I don’t know what to say! You left your home for me?”

“No one on my planet can compare to you.”

I rolled my eyes. “OK, that’s an old one.”

“An old on?”

“An old pickup line.”

Zack shook his head. “You’re going to have to thoroughly explain these pickup lines to me sometime; I don’t quite understand.”

“No problem.” I sobered. “What’re you going to do when the FBI comes looking for you?”

“I’ll answer any and all questions they want me to. I can perform for whatever tests they want, as long as they aren’t harmful to my person.”

I smiled. “We can probably replace you a place to crash until then.”

“That would be nice.” He smiled back. “Char, I really do mean it; I can’t replace anyone who compares to you.”

My face burned again, but I tried to control it. “Are you … are you saying you want to have a relationship with me?”

He nodded. “If that’s what you want. I know you said how aliens can never-”

“I didn’t mean that,” I cut in quickly. “I didn’t mean what I said in that interrogation room two months ago. That doesn’t make what I said right, but it doesn’t make it what I really feel. I like you, Zack, an awful lot, and I want to give this a try!”

His smile grew. “I can do that.”

“I’ll be finishing school, but we can make this work around that.”

He nodded. “Of course. Perhaps after school we can replace a nice little place.”

“We could adopt!”

“If they’ll let an alien adopt a human child.”

“Hopefully they will.” I started thinking out loud. “It should be all right if you crash here until we replace you a place in a few days. I don’t know if you could get a job, but we could try. I could have a job and support both of us, if you’re OK with that.”

“Char?”

“Yeah?”

He was still grinning at me. “You’re beautiful, you know that?”

I grabbed a pillow and hugged it. “Dang, why do you have to be so awesome and cute and perfect? I have no defenses against that!” Zack laughed.

“Get some,” a voice from the doorway of the den said. We both looked up and saw Papa standing there. “So. You’re staying?”

“Yessir,” Zack responded.

“You planning to date my granddaughter?”

“Yessir, if she agrees, which she seems to have.” He glanced at me, and I nodded.

“You’d better; she hasn’t smiled like that since before she met you.” I blushed and looked down at the couch. “Got any idea how to treat a human female right?”

“I think so, but I can always learn, sir.”

Papa grunted. “Good. Just do it right.” He turned, and I thought he was going to leave, but he stopped. “And get that dang spaceship out of the sky! You’re going to draw the military here.”

“Yessir, right away.” Papa grunted again and left. Zack turned to me. “Fancy a short flight in a spaceship while I replace a place to land her?”

I grinned. “Is that even a question?”

He held out his hand and I took it. “Let’s go.”