AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Honestly, Lili, I can tell you’re upset,” was the response. “Which is why I’m trying to cheer you up by telling you that f’loon sent you a package all the way from F’rith Three. Talk about long-distance shipping!”
“They did? What’s in it?” Lili demanded.
“Now how would I know? I’m not the kind of person who opens other people’s mail!” Rebecca sounded indignant. Then her mental voice turned enticing. “Guess you’ll have to come up here and open it yourself.”
Lili bit her lip. She didn’t like going back to the Mother Ship. What if she ran into Dark or Light?
For the first several weeks after they had ended things so abruptly, she’d kept hoping that one or both of the big Dark Kindred would contact her. But after a while it became apparent that they were done with her and didn’t want any more contact.
Lili just wished they could have talked things out. She was sure that Dark was probably upset about the way the sex between them had gone. He felt he had hurt her in some way. And while it was true that he hadn’t been gentle, Lili didn’t feel used or abused—it had just been extremely intense, that was all.
Or it might be because they know they can’t Bond with me, she thought sadly. Maybe that’s why they never got in touch.
“Who can’t Bond with you?” Rachel asked and Lili realized that her thought must have somehow slipped through the mental communication device she and her friend were using.
“Never mind,” she said quickly. “Can’t you just bring me the package? I can’t leave in the middle of the semester and besides, don’t you want to come down and see your mom?”
Rachel sent a mental sigh.
“Fine—I’ll bring it to you. How does this Friday sound?”
“Perfect,” Lili told her. “My last class is at two. Come anytime after that and we can have the whole weekend if you want.”
“Girls weekend!” Rachel cheered. “It’ll be just like old times!”
Lili tried to feel the same excitement her best friend did, but somehow she just couldn’t. It was like there was a dark cloud over her life and she just couldn’t get out from under it.
“I’ll see you then,” she said. “Uh—I’m getting a text from someone. I better go.”
And she cut contact with Rachel before she could betray herself with any more thoughts…thoughts of how badly she missed Dark and Light and how she was probably never going to see them again.
26
LILI
“So? What did f’loon send you?” Rachel was dancing with excitement as she handed Lili the strange black box. It wasn’t very large—only about the size of a brick—but it was immensely heavy—so heavy that Lili had to hold it with both hands as she set it carefully on the kitchen table of her small apartment. “Hurry up and open it!”
“Well, first I have to figure out how to get into it,” Lili pointed out. The box wasn’t just as heavy as a brick—it resembled one too. There was no packing tape or staples or seams or really any obvious way to get into it.
She flipped it over and looked at it from every angle before she finally saw strange writing on one side of it. It was so faint she could barely make it out but finally she was able to read it.
“DNA required to open,” she said out loud as the alien letters resolved themselves into English. Or at least, her brain made them appear to be English—thanks to the Translation Bacteria still in her system.
“DNA? What are you supposed to do—lick it?” Rachel demanded.
“Something like that, maybe.” Since she didn’t know what else to try, Lili licked her thumb and pressed it to the heavy black brick.
At first nothing happened. Then there was a hissing sound and a horizontal crack appeared right down the middle of the box. A strange blue light came from the crack—it grew as the crack widened.
“Watch out!” Rachel exclaimed. “Is it radioactive?”
“I certainly hope not,” Lili said. “f’loon didn’t seem like the kind of person to send me something dangerous.”
“Be careful, just in case,” her friend begged. “Put on some gloves or something before you open it and touch whatever is inside!”
This didn’t seem like a bad idea, so Lili went and found an old pair of pink rubber dishwashing gloves she had at the far back of her silverware drawer. Pulling them on, she carefully opened the box.
The blue glow seemed to be coming from an object that looked like a kind of seashell—the long, curly flute-like kind, Lili thought. It was an elegant spiral about as long as her hand from palm to fingers. She was about to lift it out of the box when she saw a sheet of thick black parchment with her name written in white ink.
