One Starry Knight: A Scifi Alien Love Story (The Starry Knight Saga Book 1) Read online

  One Starry Knight

  The Starry Knight Saga Book 1

  Carrie Lynn Thomas

  Copyright © 2019 by Carrie Lynn Thomas

  ISBN: 9781086808063

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Epilogue

  The Story Continues…

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  For Joe,

  my real-life Adam

  (well, except that alien part)

  Chapter One

  The last time I saw my dad, he whispered eleven words into my ear. Take care of your mom, Sage. She’s not strong like us. The nine-year-old me swelled with the responsibility. The seventeen-year-old me sags under the weight.

  His words haunt me as I hesitate on the cracked cement step of my front porch. Voices buzz from inside, growing like an approaching swarm of angry bees.

  “What the hell?” Mark’s rough voice thunders through the door. His feet slam across the floorboards followed by my mom’s cries echoing through the walls.

  Not this again. Not today.

  “No… no… no… I’m so sorry.” My mom begs as I step back from the door. Two years ago, I stood here while boyfriend number five, my ninth-grade math teacher, was discovered in my mom’s bedroom by his wife. When the yelling reached the porch, I ducked into the thick leafy bushes beneath the living room window with my fingers in my ears. But that was an early fall day. Now, the scrawny bare branches with only a handful of April buds can’t conceal my pinkie. There will be no hiding.

  “Sorry? You’re sorry?” Mark growls. A daddy longlegs inches down the door halting at the bottom of the door frame beneath the dent left by boyfriend number two.

  “Mark, please. I’m so sorry.”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  I take another step back. Their voices shake through the door, my mother’s crying reaching a full-pitch whine. Here comes the begging.

  “Please, please. I’m so sorry,” she wails. The daddy longlegs skitters into the crack between the porch and the house. Even the spiders are running.

  “Shut up, you stupid bitch.”

  Smack.

  A painful shriek rips the air. No. He didn’t. My heart bounces and I push in the door, taking wide steps through the closet-sized entry into the living room. Papers litter the floor, and a lamp hangs sideways off an end table. Mark fills the middle of the room, his hands raised over the couch and a maniacal grin stretched across his red face.

  My mom. Where is she?

  “Mom.” I drop my backpack when I see her. She cowers behind the couch, her face clutched in her hands. I drop to my knees, wincing as a shard of glass pierces through my jeans into my skin, and grab her shoulders.

  “Mom?” My throat squeezes, trapping my breath in my lungs. “Mom, talk to me.” I force her face to mine. She blinks, red and puffy, with mascara-laced tears coating a bloody welt across her cheek. “Are you okay?”

  “Of course, she’s okay.” Mark stomps back and forth behind us. “I’m the one that’s not okay. She was going through my crap.”

  “Mom?” I ask again. Her blond hair hangs in a ratty mess around her swollen face and specks of blood stain the dull white collar of her motel work uniform. Why does she put up with this?

  She looks from me to Mark. “He’s-he’s right. My fault.” I shake my head. According to her, it’s always her fault.

  “Let me get you some ice.” I stand and head for the kitchen. At the doorway, Mark pushes in front of me. He folds his hairy arms across his chest and tightens his lips into a thin I-dare-you line.

  “Excuse me,” I avoid his gaze and step sideways. Ignoring Mark when he’s angry usually works. He jerks his hand across the doorway. Apparently, not today.

  “Have you been out there too—in my crap?” His eyes bulge and a vein throbs underneath the shiny folds in his forehead.

  “You’ve only been living here for two weeks. I’m not even sure where or what your crap is.”

  “Liar. Tell me the truth.” He pounds his fist into the doorjamb with each word, the flesh on his knuckles growing redder and redder. His arm bends, and his hand curls and blood still dries on the backs of his fingers.

  My mother’s blood.

  A fire licks me on the inside, growing and spreading through my bones and my blood and my skin. I am my father’s words and my mother’s tears. My fists clench and my mouth opens. Tell him to leave, to never come back. Tell him to never hurt my mother again.

  But he leans into me with beer on his breath and crazy in his eyes, and I press my lips back together. He grins like a carved pumpkin on Halloween.

  “Don’t mess with me. Got it?” He curls his rough hands around my arms and squeezes. “Got it?”

  I nod and drop my gaze to the floor. Go away, please go away.

  “What was that? I didn’t hear you.”

  “Yes.” The word pushes through my teeth too fast and too hard. Mark’s eyes widen and he presses into me, the smell of stale cigarettes and sour sweat burning my nose. His dirty fingers glide along my throat, and his tongue runs across his top teeth. They’re brown and yellow and uneven.

  I’m going to be sick.

  Then he tugs at the chain tucked beneath my shirt, revealing the silver heart locket I wear every day. His gaze grows dark, and that warped grin spreads across his face again. Fear buzzes across my skin.

  He’s crazy. Crazier than boyfriend number three who sniffed bath salts every night before carrying on conversations with the kitchen appliances. Crazier than boyfriend number six who swore aliens had abducted him. Crazier than any of the nine boyfr
iends before him.

  He wraps the chain around his fist and twists and pulls. My heart crashes and I grab for him, for my neck. Oh no, he’s got my locket. My locket.

  Stop him. Stop him. Stop him.

  I grasp one of his hands and claw my fingernails into his flesh. He pulls harder. No, this can’t be happening. I need to —

  Snap. The chain breaks free. He dangles it like a pendulum, swinging it in front of us. Back and forth. Back and forth. Then he drops it, the locket rattling onto the hardwood. He steps forward and grinds his heavy boot into the floor.

  Crunch.

  “Noooo!” I lunge for him, but he shoves me back against the wall and grips my throat, squeezing and squeezing and squeezing. Air, I need air. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I claw at the surrounding air. I can’t fight him, I can’t stop him, I can’t—.

  I dig my nails into his arm again, and he slams me into the wall. Pain stabs into my skull, bleeding through my brain into my eyes. It slices through me like thousands and thousands of knives.

  Oh god, it hurts.

  I slide to the floor and into a ball. The living room around me is a smear of gold and brown and red. I close my eyes and press my hands against my ears. If only I could block out the pain.

  Breathe. I need to breathe.

  The sharp ache fades. I exhale and blink. Mark’s shadow crosses over me, grunting. His boots scrape across the floor and the locket goes with them, bouncing and rattling into the far reaches of the room. And then the shadow disappears.

  My breathing slows, finding a steadier rhythm. Far away the front door slams, and I close my eyes again. Summer sun dances off the backs of my eyelids and laughter swirls inside me. I see smiles—so many smiles. His smile.

  I’m on the beach, buried in sand, and he’s above me, laughing. “Sage, why are you on the ground? Walk much?” He raises an eyebrow.

  “Help me up,” I say. He holds out a hand and I reach for it, lacing my fingers with his. I pull, but he doesn’t, bringing him down beside me. I laugh and toss a handful of sand at him.

  “Hey,” he says, “that’s not nice.” He frowns, and I giggle. He narrows his eyes in a mock glare as I curl my fingers into the beach, ready to throw more sand in his direction. He strikes first, pelting my arms and my legs with hundreds of grains. I’m laughing, he’s laughing.

  We’re laughing and laughing and… crying.

  Steady sobbing seeps through and drowns out the laughter. I open my eyes and return to the present where my mom’s cries fill the air. I need to check on her. Sitting up, I rub the back of my sore head and tender neck.

  Tender and bare neck.

  My locket is gone. The last gift my father ever gave me is gone. No, it can’t be. It’s here… somewhere. My hands splay across the hardwood floor. I crawl through the room, stopping briefly to remove the embedded glass from my knee. Ignoring the burning pain, I continue on, combing the light and shadows.

  It could be anywhere. Caught in the knotted fringe of the rug. Beneath the sagging bottom of the couch. In the dusty heat vent underneath the window.

  Oh god, I need to find it.

  I brush the grooves in the floor's grain and slide my fingers beneath the tables. I move several piles of newspaper, a shredded part of the lampshade, and a crumpled beer can. Where is it?

  In the center of the room, a silver shard reflects under the haphazard yellow lamplight. It’s coming from beneath the TV stand. Shaking, I slip my hand underneath until I feel metal. I pinch a fragile strip of the chain between my fingers and drag it across the floor until the locket is safely in my hand. Or rather what’s left of it. Mangled clasp, lopsided heart, chain torn beyond repair.

  Breathing back the ache in my chest, I push it into my jeans pocket and stand up. My mom huddles on the floor, swaddled in her hands as she rocks back and forth, still wailing. Stringy ribbons of blood wrap around her arm, from her elbow to her wrist.

  “Mom?” She doesn’t answer, doesn’t look at me. She just rocks and wails, rocks and wails. I sigh. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”

  I return with the kit full of bandages and gauze that’s kept in the hall closet and sit down on the couch in front of her. She’s still rocking, her bloody arm held out in front of her. I pry the plastic box open, spilling bandages across the couch cushions. Great, another mess for me to clean up. I dig until I find the gauze and press several sheets against the wound. “Here, hold this.”

  “He-he didn’t really mean it. He never means it. He just couldn’t—” She hiccups. “I should have asked him before going in the garage. I should have.”

  Talking to her when she’s like this is pointless, so I take her hands and hold her fingers to the gauze. “Push. I need to get you some ice for your face.”

  “He really didn’t mean it. He didn’t mean any of it.” She drops her hands and the gauze flutters to the floor. Sighing, I pick it up and ball it in my fingers. I slap another strip of gauze to the tear in her flesh.

  “Push and don’t move. I need to get ice. I’ll be right back.”

  In the kitchen, I fish my cell phone from my pocket. I dial his number and balance the phone between my shoulder and ear, while I fill up a baggie with ice.

  It rings, four times, then five. C’mon, pick up. The voicemail message begins, Hi, this is Adam—. I shut the phone off.

  Pink and orange sunlight streaks into the kitchen, illuminating the dust hanging in the air and the dirty dishes lining the counters. I toss several plates into the sink, grab a handful of paper towels, and return to my mom.

  I give her the bag of ice. “For your face.”

  “It was my fault, Sage. My fault. All my fault.”

  I dab ointment on her arm while she blubbers apologies and excuses, all for Mark. I tune her out. We’ve been here before, her and I. In this moment, on this couch. Two boyfriends ago, six boyfriends ago, the first guy she brought home after my dad.

  The bleeding has stopped so I apply the bandage and pat her arm before standing up. “You’re all set now. I need to get going.”

  “Oh,” she says, her eyes swelling with tears. “You’re leaving?”

  “Yes. I’m working at Stella’s tonight.”

  “You can’t stay, just for a little while? Please.” The tears break free, trailing across the top of her cheeks.

  “I—”

  Stay, so I can listen to her tell me how wrong she is and how right he is? Stay, so I can listen to her gush about how wonderful deep-down Mark really is? “I’m already running late.”

  “Oh,” she says in a small voice. Tears drip from her chin. I hate the lie I told her and the look on her face and the pain in her eyes.

  I hate all of it. But not enough to stay.

  Chapter Two

  The last sunlight of the day squints through the towering trees surrounding the path to Stella’s. The smell of wet bark and raindrops roll through the air and a gust of wind slides through the trees, rattling the leaves and blowing hair into my face. I brush the strands from my eyes and adjust the collar of the turtleneck I slipped on to cover the bruises Mark left on my neck.

  The half-mile walk crosses Star Harbor Road, the main road to town. Today, it’s an empty two-lane highway bordered by a wall of trees. I cross, my sneakers slapping across the pavement to the path of dirt and mud running through the skinny trees on the other side. Dead leaves crunch beneath my feet, birds flutter above and the lake growls in the distance. No fighting, no crying, no messes to clean up. I love these woods.

  The roar of the lake grows with every step I take. I am nearly there.

  The path ends at the beach. I dodge the dead branches dumped by the lake during a storm last week and round the corner to where Stella’s home and office rises above the twelve cabins she rents out. A wooden deck juts out from the second floor where she lives. The first floor houses her office, a small lobby, and a gift shop for her renters.

  In a few weeks, there will be bonfires at dusk, screaming kids racing along the be
ach and couples cuddling in the deck swing, but now the cabins are closed, only the occasional chirp of a bird and the steady drum of the lake breaking the quiet. I love this time of year at Stella’s—the anticipation of summer.

  When I reach the parking lot, the brief lightness in my step vanishes. A red convertible shimmers in the late afternoon sun, sleek and gaudy like the color of lipstick my mother slaps on when she’s on the prowl for a new boyfriend.

  Brianna Woods’ red convertible.

  No, not Brianna. Not here.

  I gulp air, inhaling it like a drowning swimmer, before bending down to clasp a stone from the gravel drive. I rub the jagged edge and close my eyes imagining the screech of scraping paint, the vibration of the rock against metal, the horror on her face when she realizes I’ve carved every nasty name she’s ever called me into the side of her precious car. I can do it. I will do it.

  When I reach her car, I lean over the hood, my face close enough that I can make out the freckles across my nose. Squeezing the rock in my fist, I ignore the goosebumps crawling up my arms and my heart thundering in my chest. What name should I go with—Freak? It’s her favorite. Or maybe killer spawn? That’s the name the whole fifth grade class had given me after she told them my dad had flown a plane full of hundreds of people into a mountain. Or maybe I should stick with what she really is and go with b—.