She threw a saddle over Perseus, hitched herself over her back, and urged with her mind, Let's go! Perseus snorted and took off.

She galloped across the field, past the pond and into the woods. She wished the wind would blow through her mind and sweep away the terrible knowledge.

Out of eyesight, she slowed the horse and stripped off the wig and plastic, tucked it beneath her. She wanted to be free, to tell the truth, to find answers, and not to have to hide.

I missed you, Perseus said telepathically. That's why I was mad.

Kaila patted her neck. "I missed you too," she said. "I'm sorry. I promise I won't ever leave you again. I made a mistake."

Boy, had she made a mistake. The inside of her chest ached, as if those bony fingers squeezed her heart.

As she rode through the forest, inhaling the odor of damp earth and leaves, she recalled riding here with Jordyn on her birthday.

She went to the stream. Fall's chill hung in the air, and she was grateful she wore her hoodie.

She dismounted and sat by the stream. She'd kissed Jordyn here. The stream blurred. How could he kiss her with such pa.s.sion then shut off and become like a robot, involved in something so sinister?

Because he is controlled, she heard in her mind. Same as you were.

She felt like she'd never recover from this betrayal.

Kaila put her head in her hands. Please help me. I don't know what to do. My heart is broken. I can't stand the pain!

She wept. Perseus bent, nudged her shoulder with her nose.

"I'll be okay," she sobbed.

Sunlight filtered through the leaves. Yet across the stream appeared another light. Kaila froze, watching the ball of light.

Kaila jumped up, clenching her fists, her eyes going black. She'd been tutored in alien mind tactics. Now, she'd use those tactics on them.

The light floated over the bubbling stream then hung in the s.p.a.ce a few feet away.

Priscilla Snowden took form.

Her long white hair was loose; she wore a long white dress. Light radiated from her edges.

"What do you want?" Kaila asked.

"I want to help you."

"How do I know that?"

"This is good you ask questions. I say: don't trust me. Learn who you can trust. Learn for yourself what is good and what is not."

"I don't want to hear any c.r.a.p!" Kaila shouted.

Priscilla smiled. "I know you're tired."

"Tired? I'm ready to kill myself."

"Don't say that. Words have power. Same as thoughts."

"Look," Kaila said, folding her arms across her chest. "I don't want to hear any mumbo jumbo. What are you? Why are you so interested in my life?"

Priscilla gazed at her. "Kaila, know that we are not all here to harvest people."

"We?" Kaila cried. "Are you one of them?" She stepped back.

"No, I'm not one of them."

Perseus approached Priscilla, nudged her arm. Priscilla petted her nose.

"What I meant was that I'm not of Earth either." She looked left, then right. "They're trying to come to you now."

Kaila noticed the blue patches of sky through the leaves. Listened with her mind. She heard nothing. Only the stream bubbling over the rocks. They must have erected mind blocks.

"I can offer some protection," Priscilla said. "And there are many more of us. We want to help you."

"How?" Kaila asked.

"You're on the right path," Priscilla said. "You heard us in meditation today. Know that where you put your attention is what you get. Call to those you hold sacred and everything that is good. But more so, look into your heart."

She started to fade. Her edges went blurry and her form transfigured to ethereal white light.

"Wait!" Kaila called.

Take the light in you and form a golden shield, Priscilla said to her mind. Help your friends. And we will help . . . if you are receptive, and if you ask.

The glowing ball lifted, floated through the trees. Then evaporated to nothing.

Kaila listened. Heard the wind rustling the leaves. The stream gurgling over stones.

She folded her hands. Give me strength. Help me, please.

And then she had an idea. She pulled out her phone and texted Pia.

"Go to drugstore. Get a preg test. You'll see you are not preg anymore. Do it!!! Will explain ltr. C U tonight." She added three emoji hearts.

"How did you know I wasn't pregnant anymore?" Pia asked later. Kaila, Melissa, and Pia had suffered through dinner answering the typical boring questions about school and grades, while the girls were dying to get upstairs behind closed doors.

Kaila locked her bedroom door then sat on the sleeping bags on the floor. "Because I was there when they took the baby," she said.

We should run out of here now.

Is she trying to trick us? Kaila heard their thoughts.

"Listen," Kaila said. "You remember when we made a triad and formed a pact of secrecy?"

Melissa and Pia nodded, looking like scared lambs.

"Well, I'm honoring that. I made a mistake. I went with them because-"

Because I loved him! Her mind shouted.

"I made a mistake. I thought it was cool what they could do. But it's not cool. Not at all." She petted Lucy's head, searching for the right words.

"I'm gonna tell you the truth, but you have to swear to secrecy."

Kaila told them about the abductions and how they impregnated females with mixed DNA of alien and human, how they let the fetus grow in their belly, and later re-abducted them to take the baby to create hybrids.

"But why are they doing this?" Melissa asked.

"Look," Kaila finally answered. "Aren't you freaked out just to know that everything you suspected is true?"

"What can we do?" Melissa whispered.

"For starters, sleep here," Kaila said. "I'll kick anyone's a.s.s that dares come here."

After that, Melissa and Pia started to trust again. They spent the night catching up then raiding the kitchen for midnight snacks. As they ate fried chicken with red beans and rice, Kaila explained mind-screens. It was easy for them to understand for they'd experienced many owls, cats, and mysterious shadow people. Even those were but a whisper of a remembrance.

Kaila revealed that she planned to put a mind-screen on Mrs. Bourg and her teachers to make them believe she was in cla.s.s but that she couldn't go back to school now. She could not risk being around the hive or seeing Jordyn. She'd either kill him or collapse blubbering at his feet.

"If anyone says anything about you not being there, I'll tell them to shut up," Pia said.

You won't have to, Kaila thought. For she'd extend the mind-screen to everyone but them.

Later, in her bedroom, they sat on the sleeping bags. Gla.s.sy eyed, they needed rest. Kaila closed her eyes and visualized energy emerging from her heart and surrounding them as a golden light shield.

Melissa gasped. Kaila opened her eyes. It was visible, this radiating light.

"Awesome!" Pia said.

They sat in silence as her light surrounded them.

"It feels wonderful," Melissa said.

Kaila lay on her sleeping bag on her stomach, her face on her pillow. Melissa and Pia did the same, on each side of Kaila. Kaila spread her arms over her friends' backs, like a cross.

"I'll protect you," Kaila said. "Sleep."

When she heard Melissa and Pia's soft snores, Kaila stifled her own sadness. She had to be strong.

A heavy shroud wrapped around the home. Paw Paw was dying. And everyone knew it.

Even the dogs tread lightly.

Lee spent more time in her yoga studio, meditating.

Mike sat in his recliner, for once having no commentary on the news; he worried about Paw Paw who spent more time in sleep. Nan stayed in her room reading the Bible.

It came to where Paw Paw could not stand, so Kaila, Mike, Lee, and Nan all carried him upstairs.

Kaila stood by his bed watching him sleep. She remembered him taking her shopping that first day after school to help her fit in; she remembered him barbecuing on her birthday; she remembered riding horses with him; she remembered sitting in his lap and him reading her Green Eggs and Ham; she remembered setting out cookies with him on Christmas Eve in his Santa suit. How would she bear this? No one she loved had died before. Out of necessity, she'd calcified her heart. She could bear no more pain. It was too deep to realize, to touch, to know-to accept. How she'd get through this, she didn't know.

They called hospice. They put a stretcher in the living room and put Paw Paw on the stretcher.

"I don't want no drugs," he murmured.

Ever a proud Southern man, he refused to dull his pain, though the cancer had claimed his body and was eating away at it.

Nan hid in her bedroom, weeping. Lee hid in her yoga studio. Mike hid with the horses in the barn.

The hospice nurse visited.

"Here," the nurse said, handing Kaila drugs. "Though he says he doesn't want it, you will know. She gave her a dropper. "Morphine. Every three hours. Squeeze it into his mouth, inside his cheek.

Kaila nodded, scared.

"You can do it," the nurse encouraged.

"How much time does he have?"

"No one can say for sure. But probably by the weekend." The nurse packed her stethoscope and blood pressure monitor into her bag. "Call if you need help." Then she was gone.

"I can't do this," Nan said, weeping.

"You don't have to," Kaila said.

She wanted to run and hide, but there was no place to run and hide. She'd learned that by running to . . . them. No matter where she ran she still was herself. She just had to suck it up and face it, dig down and find the strength, no matter where she was, what she faced.

She glanced at Paw Paw lying on the stretcher, snoring, covered by a sheet.

Kaila sat on the couch observing her grandfather. She was frightened but knew what she had to do.

She did not sleep. She and her mother changed him. He protested, waving them away. Kaila, realizing that his dignity was deeply affronted, retrieved the eyedropper and filled it with morphine. She pushed the dropper into her grandfather's mouth and squeezed.

No grandfather should have to see his granddaughter change him like a baby. He was so much more than that. His lips and tongue were dry. He hadn't eaten or drunk anything in days. She rubbed a moistened swab to his lips, watching him suck the water like a baby bird. She rubbed the swab on his parched tongue.

As the morphine took effect, he slipped into the protective veil of sleep.

Nan, Lee, and Mike hovered, looking scared and lost.

"Y'all go to bed," Kaila said. "I'm sleeping here. I'll take care."

Her phone chimed an alert she'd downloaded. The voice stated in a mechanical tone: "You-have-another-sucky-text-message."

It was Pia. "Spending night at Melissa's. U got nuff goin on."