I can barely breathe under his grip.
“Where are the rest of them?” he demands, squeezing.
“It’s just me!” I rasp. I can’t lead him to Jamie. What will Jamie do when I don’t come back? Jamie is hungry!
I throw my elbow into his gut—and this really hurts. His stomach muscles are as iron hard as the hand. Which is very strange. Muscles like that are the product of hard living or obsession, and the parasites have neither.
He doesn’t even suck in a breath at my blow. Desperate, I jab my heel into his instep. This catches him off guard, and he wobbles. I wrench away, but he grabs hold of my bag, yanking me back into his body. His hand clamps down on my throat again.
“Feisty for a peace-loving body snatcher, aren’t you?”
His words are nonsensical. I thought the aliens were all the same. I guess they have their nut jobs, too, after all.
I twist and claw, trying to break his hold. My nails catch his arm, but this just makes him tighten his hold on my throat.
“I will kill you, you worthless body thief. I’m not bluffing.”
“Do it, then!”
Suddenly he gasps, and I wonder if any of my flailing limbs have made contact. I don’t feel any new bruises.
He lets go of my arm and grabs my hair. This must be it. He’s going to cut my throat. I brace for the slice of the knife.
But the hand on my throat eases up, and then his fingers are fumbling on the back of my neck, rough and warm on my skin.
“Impossible,” he breathes.
Something hits the floor with a thud. He’s dropped the knife? I try to think of a way to get it. Maybe if I fall. The hand on my neck isn’t tight enough to keep me from yanking free. I think I heard where the blade landed.
He spins me around suddenly. There is a click, and light blinds my left eye. I gasp and automatically try to twist away from it. His hand tightens in my hair. The light flickers to my right eye.
“I can’t believe it,” he whispers. “You’re still human.”
His hands grab my face from both sides, and before I can pull free, his lips come down hard on mine.
I’m frozen for half a second. No one has ever kissed me in my life. Not a real kiss. Just my parents’ pecks on the cheek or forehead, so many years ago. This is something I thought I would never feel. I’m not sure exactly what it feels like, though. There’s too much panic, too much terror, too much adrenaline.
I jerk my knee up in a sharp thrust.
He chokes out a wheezing sound, and I’m free. Instead of running for the front of the house again like he expects, I duck under his arm and leap through the open door. I think I can outrun him, even with my load. I’ve got a head start, and he’s still making pained noises. I know where I’m going—I won’t leave a path he can see in the dark. I never dropped the food, and that’s good. I think the granola bars are a loss, though.
“Wait!” he yells.
Shut up, I think, but I don’t yell back.
He’s running after me. I can hear his voice getting closer. “I’m not one of them!”
Sure. I keep my eyes on the sand and sprint. My dad used to say I ran like a cheetah. I was the fastest on my track team, state champion, back before the end of the world.
“Listen to me!” He’s still yelling at full volume. “Look! I’ll prove it. Just stop and look at me!”
Not likely. I pivot off the wash and flit through the mesquites.
“I didn’t think there was anyone left! Please, I need to talk to you!”
His voice surprises me—it is too close.
“I’m sorry I kissed you! That was stupid! I’ve just been alone so long!”
“Shut up!” I don’t say it loudly, but I know he hears. He’s getting even closer. I’ve never been outrun before. I push my legs harder.
There’s a low grunt to his breathing as he speeds up, too.
Something big flies into my back, and I go down. I taste dirt in my mouth, and I’m pinned by something so heavy I can hardly breathe.
“Wait. A. Minute,” he huffs.
He shifts his weight and rolls me over. He straddles my chest, trapping my arms under his legs. He is squishing my food. I growl and try to squirm out from under him.
“Look, look, look!” he says. He pulls a small cylinder from his hip pocket and twists the top. A beam of light shoots out the end.
He turns the flashlight on his face.
The light makes his skin yellow. It shows prominent cheekbones beside a long thin nose and a sharply squared-off jaw. His lips are stretched into a grin, but I can see that they are full, for a man. His eyebrows and lashes are bleached out from sun.
But that’s not what he is showing me.
His eyes, clear liquid sienna in the illumination, shine with no more than human reflection. He bounces the light between left and right.
“See? See? I’m just like you.”
“Let me see your neck.” Suspicion is thick in my voice. I don’t let myself believe that this is more than a trick. I don’t understand the point of the charade, but I’m sure there is one. There is no hope anymore.
His lips twist. “Well… That won’t exactly help anything. Aren’t the eyes enough? You know I’m not one of them.”
“Why won’t you show me your neck?”
“Because I have a scar there,” he admits.
I try to squirm out from under him again, and his hand pins my shoulder.
“It’s self-inflicted,” he explains. “I think I did a pretty good job, though it hurt like hell. I don’t have all that pretty hair to cover my neck. The scar helps me blend in.”