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He made a noncommittal sound and sectioned her hair, then began twisting the strands. It took a second before she realized he was braiding it.
“What would you do if you came face-to-face with one?”
“An alien?”
“Yes.”
There was an earnestness to the question that gave her pause. How did they always get on these strange subjects? She considered if she should tell him the truth. Why not? This was Dingle. Everyone had an alien story here.
“I’ve already come face-to-face with one.”
His body stiffened, and his hands stalled in her hair. “When?”
“Two months from my fourteenth birthday.”
Ethan sat beside her, angling so he could see her face. He’d relaxed but appeared to be on guard about something. Clearly waiting for her to continue, he put a hand on her arm and squeezed.
She’d never shared this story with anyone. Her father had mentioned her experience once in a very obscure interview with a novice vlogger back when vlogs were brand new and most footage was so grainy they were impossible to watch. The only person to have seen it was probably Pel, considering he’d tried to call her out on it.
“I woke up to a blinding light coming in my bedroom window. There was this terrible sound outside, like a high-pitched keening, so I covered my ears as I sat up. The light was so bright, but I could see just enough to notice my bedroom window opening. Three dark shapes climbed in, turned, and looked right at me. They were tall and thin, but I couldn’t make out any features because of the light. My father claimed those creatures abducted him for a second time that night.”
Clenching her eyes, she clearly recalled her father’s haggard and declining appearance after that night. The hollow look in his eyes, sunken cheeks, and thinning hair. How skeletal he became.
“For years I thought it had been a dream, but one thing stuck with me.”
Ethan was hanging on her every word. “What?”
A shiver tumbled down her spine. “The window was open when I woke up the next morning. The thing is, my father had nailed all the windows in the house shut several years before after a story came out of a young girl getting kidnapped from her room in the middle of the night. I couldn’t have opened that window. No one could have. The nails would have had to be pulled out from inside and the noise would have woken me up.”
The memory sparked tremors that rolled over her limbs. Ethan gathered her into his arms and the press of his hard, warm body was comforting and wonderful but didn’t stop the flood of old emotions. For years, she denied it as nothing more than a scary dream. But as she got older and her interest in her father’s claims grew, she wondered if the dream had been reality. Which, of course, made her question her sanity. Was she just as crazy as her father had been?
“You didn’t imagine anything,” Ethan said with conviction, as if reading her mind. “What you saw isn’t crazy, either.”
“You sound pretty sure about that.”
Setting her away from him, he smoothed the hair away from her temple and worked his jaw. Her insides flipped. His brow furrowed; his eyes conflicted as if he were contemplating telling her something. Eager to know, she leaned a little closer.
“What is it?”
He swallowed. “Kimber, there’s something I have to–”
A soft beeping sound drew his attention. Slipping his cellphone from his pocket, he read the screen and clenched his jaw. Sadness bubbled up from deep inside her. He had to go. She could see it on his face.
“You’re leaving?”
He nodded, reluctant to pull away. Their eyes caught and held, and Ethan pulled her into his arms and crushed her with an embrace. “I’ll be back.”
Why did he sound uncertain?
His phone went off again. He didn’t check it. Cupping her face with his hands, he kissed her deeply until her toes curled and the ache in her heart spread a hundred times wider.
“Kimber, very soon everything will make sense.”
His phone went off again. Grabbing it, he glanced at the screen and shoved it back in his pocket. His bracelet-smart watch-thing glowed with a red light, then faded.
“My father is not a patient man. I have to go. I’ll talk to you soon, I promise.”
She followed him to the door, tipped her chin for another kiss.
