Ice Read online

  “My bad,” the woman quipped. “I should have known you wore desert camo to pick up drunk chicks at the local dive bar.”

  “Eat me, Elle,” the man said.

  “Not even if you were the last meal on Earth,” she responded.

  Moments ticked by before the door opened again. She grabbed his arm and pulled him out.

  “Ugh, that Ken is a dick. You have my permission to melt him with eye laser beams or whatever you aliens do.”

  Ice couldn’t melt anything with his eyes, but he made a mental note that this Ken man possibly deserved death.

  “Damn, this would be easier if you spoke my lang—”

  A blaring siren sounded, and red lights began to flash. The woman’s demeanor changed instantly, going from stealthy to panicked.

  “Keep your head down and we might just make it out of here.” She grabbed his hand and forced him to run. It wasn’t long before he heard others behind them.

  “Lock it down. Lock it down!” a man yelled. “Sharp?”

  “On it,” Ice’s liberator yelled.

  “Sharp, stop,” the man shouted back.

  She ran faster.

  “Sharp, that’s an order!”

  There were no more warnings. A loud pop sounded behind them seconds before a light fragmented over their heads. Tiny shards rained down as they ran under them.

  Another shot sounded, this time striking the wall by Ice’s shoulder.

  She jerked around a corner. She lifted his hand and placed pieces of metal into his palm. “I hope you know how to use keys and drive. Look for the blue sedan by the number seven.” She held up seven fingers then drew the number seven in the air before she pushed him away, indicating he should keep running. “You go. I’ll hold them off as long as I can. Whatever you do, don’t stop.”

  She turned her back on him, bracing herself as the footfalls came closer.

  Ice frowned. He was not leaving her.

  He spun her around and tossed her over his shoulder before running full force in the direction she’d told him to go. The woman struggled in protest at his plan. Ice didn’t care. If she truly was scared of these other Earthlings, he was not leaving her behind to face them alone. They would escape together.

  The annoying siren kept blaring, cutting the sound of his running so that it came in punctuated bursts. Two large doors came into focus and he charged faster. More shots were fired, ricocheting around them. Something stung his leg and arm, but he kept going. He charged through the doors, leading with this palm to slam them open.

  The dark room that greeted them smelled like the engine room of a spaceship.

  The woman kicked. “Put me down!” He let her go, and she slipped off his shoulder. “Fuck, you can run.” She hurried back to the door and took something out of her pocket. She slid it against the wall and began punching numbers into a keypad.

  “Lockdown,” a serene voice said. The beeping continued on the other side of the door. “In three, two, one, initiated.”

  Fists pounded as the men shouted at them from the other side. “Sharp, goddamn it, open the door!”

  She sighed heavily and gave a small smile. “That will hold them for a second. Come on.”

  She tugged his arm, taking him to a blue sedan by the number seven. He knew what a car was from the uploads, but he had never seen one. He looked at it curiously and continued to follow her.

  “No.” She stopped him. “Get in the passenger side.”

  He didn’t know what that meant.

  “Argh, come on,” She grumbled, tugging him around the vehicle to the others side. She opened the door, placed her hand on his head, and roughly guided him to get in.

  Ice watched her run around to the other side. She slid in next to him, jamming the metal keys into the dashboard and revving the engine to life. Within seconds, they were driving through the dark room, past lines of various-shaped cars.

  She stopped, lowering her window to rub her magic card against a box. The wall lifted, streaming sunlight into the darkness. A golden landscape stretched before them, shaped like the icy tundras of home, and a wave of longing washed over him. Specks of color dotted the ground.

  As they drove out into the sunlight, he felt the heat intensify on his skin and he uncomfortably drew his arm away from the direct ray of light into the shaded areas of the car’s interior.

  “Welcome to the Utah desert, blue man. Now let’s get you the hell off this planet.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Elenore Rollins, how far you have fallen,” Elle mumbled as she reached her hand into the partly opened window and shoved her arm as far as it could go. Her fingers fished for the knob so she could unlock the door. Stealing a rundown, prairie-tan-colored 1997 Ford Thunderbird wasn’t exactly on her bucket list of things to do, but here she was. It was the only car in the parking lot that had an open window—and a small screwdriver shoved into the ignition.

  As the tips of her fingers touched the lock, she flicked them several times to get it unlatched. Her eyes met the alien’s where she’d placed him in the shadows. The sun was setting, which was good, because it seemed to be having an adverse effect on him. Though he didn’t speak, he’d spent most of his time staring at a bright dot of light on the dashboard, watching it move as she sped them away from the desert facility. It reflected off a laminated parking pass hanging from the mirror.

  It would make sense. His core temperature seemed lower than a human’s. He was cooler to the touch and probably did have adverse reactions to heat. The desert was conceivably the worst place possible for him. His skin color appeared adapted to the colder climate, or at least blue made her think cold. She wasn’t a biologist, so she could just be pulling nonsense out of thin air.

  The knob popped up, and she sighed in relief. After glancing around the parking lot, she waved the alien over. He walked toward her, his stride strong, as if he didn’t realize the danger they were in. It was probably just as well. It would have been worse if he was acting sketchy and panicked.

  “Ma’am, do you know that man?”

  Elle was startled by the voice. She’d been staring at her travel companion and had stopped paying attention to her surroundings. It was a rookie move. She turned to the speaker, realizing she’d been frozen in place with her hand on the door handle.

  “Ma’am?” The older gentleman had a slight Southern drawl to his words. He began to walk toward her when she didn’t have a fast answer. It wouldn’t look good, her not moving and a man coming at her from the shadows, all dressed in black.

  “What? Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s my boyfriend.” Elle held up her hand along the small of her back, trying to communicate that he should stop. The alien’s footsteps kept coming, boots crunching on pebble-littered asphalt.

  “You do know he’s covered in blue paint, don’t ya, ma’am?” The man relaxed his stance, and he smiled. “Halloween isn’t until next month.”

  She felt a hand on her shoulder and glanced at the blue fingers gripping her. The alien tried to pull her behind him. She placed her hand on his and resisted his efforts. “Costume party in the desert.”

  The Southerner nodded as if that made complete sense. “You two kids be safe.”

  “Thank you, we will.” Elle waited a few seconds to make sure the man left before opening the door. To the alien, she said, “Get in.”

  He studied her face. His eyes moved as he looked over her features. She remembered his kiss in the holding cell.

  “We have to keep moving,” Elle said. She reached for his head to guide him into the car. But as her fingers met with the strands of black, she hesitated. His hair was soft. There were so many similarities between them—noses, eyes, lips. It was enough to make her wonder at the strangeness of it all. How could an alien, from another planet, evolve to look so much like a human?

  She hadn’t been brave enough to watch him undress. She wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to that particular question.

  “How is it you…?”

  She
felt a tiny vibration in her fingertips.

  “Aliens are supposed to be…different.” She let her fingers move through the strands of hair. “Tentacles and giant heads with scary black eyes that reflect like mirrors and…” Elle took a deep breath. “Get in.”

  Elle pushed at his head, guiding him down and into the passenger seat. She shut the door and ran to the driver’s side. She reached for the handle, realizing she’d not unlocked it.

  Elle looked in the window and pointed toward the knob. She tapped the glass.

  He looked at her finger and didn’t move.

  Sighing, she started to go back around. As she made it to the front of the car, she saw him lean over through the windshield. He flicked his finger on the knob, pulling it up.

  Elle turned back around and opened the door.

  “Thank you,” she said as she slid into the seat and slammed the door shut. She turned the screwdriver key. The engine sputtered a little but did eventually start. “I had an old rust bucket like this once. Lucky for us, they probably leave the window cracked so they can break into their own car.”

  She glanced at the alien, but he didn’t speak. No surprise there.

  The smell of the vehicle became noticeably strong, and she turned to see old bags of fast food takeout and pizza boxes had been thrown into the backseat. “Figures. The one car I can manage to steal, and it hasn’t been cleaned since the year it came out of the factory.”

  Still nothing.

  Elle drove them out of the parking lot, well aware they were in a stolen vehicle. She’d left the keys in the sedan and the doors unlocked, hoping someone would take it and lead anyone looking for them on a wild goose chase.

  When they made it to the edge of town, she was able to breathe a little easier. Feeling his eyes on her, she glanced to the side several times. He stared at her face, not looking around them at the darkening landscape.

  “I can’t very well go around introducing you as my boyfriend. What do they call you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “They call me Elle Sharp, but I’ll let you in on a secret. My real name is Elle Rollins.”

  His eyes still stared at her.

  Elle pointed at her chest. “Elle.” She pointed at him expectantly before repeating the gesture. “Elle.”

  He glanced at her pointed finger.

  “Fine. You look like a…” She tried to think of a good name but drew a blank. “You look like a freaking blue alien I helped escape from a secret lab.”

  “Ice.”

  “Yeah, you look like an ice—” Elle gasped, jerking the wheel in surprise as she realized what just happened. He’d made a noise! She righted the car before she ran them off the road. The alien braced his hand against the dash. “Did you say ice?”

  “That is what you may call me.” The words were clear, slightly accented but spoken in perfect English. “My Earth name. Ice Storm Chaos. That is what they call me, but I will also give you a secret. My real name is Izotz.”

  “You…” She gripped the wheel tight. He had understood everything she’d said to him. Her mind raced as she tried to remember all the rambling thoughts she’d said out loud as they’d escaped the facility. “You understood… You can speak… Wait, did you say you’re named Ice Storm Chaos? Like some kind of wrestler or something? How—?”

  “The Galaxy Alien Mail Order Brides’ crewman gave me the name. I am from a planet filled with ice. There are storms. They said it was a strong Earth name that women would enjoy.” He turned his eyes forward. “Are you to drive on the painted mark like that? That other vehicle does not seem to be doing the same.”

  She glanced forward. The car had drifted into the middle of the highway and she quickly pulled back onto her side of the road seconds before a pickup truck sped past.

  Galaxy Alien Mail Order Brides?

  Surely that was a mistranslation. That hardly felt like it could be a real thing. An alien matchmaking service? That’s what their visit was all about? Alien guys were coming to Earth to find wives?

  “And Chaos?” she asked.

  “Frost chose the…” He took a deep breath.

  “Surname?” she supplied, thinking he was having trouble thinking of the right word. “Last name?”

  “Family indicator,” he answered.

  “Family?” Elle nodded, understanding. “Those other men are your family.”

  “I will go to them. You will take me.” He nodded as if it was that easy.

  “Are they your brothers?” she asked.

  “Yes, we come from the same parents.”

  “Where are you from?” Elle tried to keep calm. It was one thing to be rescuing an alien from a cage like a liberated animal who could take minimal commands, and quite another to communicate fully with an intelligent life form from another planet.

  She was freaking talking to a freaking outer space extraterrestrial alien man.

  “Earth does not have a word, but the closest sound would be Sintaz.”

  She worked her fingers against the wheel. There were so many logical questions she should ask, but she had a hard time thinking of them.

  “Wh-why did you pretend you couldn’t understand what I was saying?” Another car passed, and she glanced up to watch the taillights in the rearview mirror.

  “I did not understand why you were helping me. Now I do. You have chosen me to be your boyfriend.”

  The statement caused an unexpected burst of laughter. It was short-lived. He was serious. “I just told that guy you were, so he’d leave us alone.”

  “You made your intentions known. I accept.” The words were matter-of-fact as he watched the road.

  Elle was at a loss for words. Maybe he didn’t understand what a boyfriend was. Maybe he thought he was male, and they were friends? It wasn’t a topic she wanted to explore at the moment.

  A combination of nerves and excitement filled her. There was something about this man that attracted her. It made no logical sense. It was not something she felt comfortable saying aloud to other people. Yet, no one was here to judge her.

  “If you didn’t know my intentions were to help you, why did you kiss me?” The second the intimate question was out of her mouth, she wanted to pull it back. Her mind did not need any help going down this avenue of thought.

  Her eyes strayed to a dark turnoff leading down a country road. She stayed on the highway.

  “Because you let me.” His mouth shifted, and she could have sworn he smiled. Shadows crossed his face as they drove. “And you make my body vibrate.”

  Don’t ask, Elle, don’t ask.

  “Vibrate?”

  Shit, why did I ask?

  “I mean,” Elle said, “are you hungry? Do you need food? Do you need…water? Anything?”

  “I am told my system is compatible with Earth food, except for berries. I am to avoid berries.” He tugged at his sleeve, slipping his arm out of the jacket before grabbing the shoulders and pulling both the jacket and shirt over his head. He breathed deeply as if disrobing brought him some relief.

  “I noticed you didn’t like the sun when it came through the window earlier.” She tried to turn on the air conditioning on the consul, but it was no surprise it only blew warm air. She turned it off.

  “It is not the sun,” he said. “It is the heat. My body is not used to such extreme temperatures. These scratches do not help.”

  It was only about seventy degrees out. “What scratches?” She glanced over his naked chest. The muscle structure was close enough to pass for that of a human.

  He turned in his seat and pointed at his arm. A deep cut sliced along the biceps.

  “Were you hit when they fired at us?” She tried to grab his arm, but it was too far for her to reach and drive at the same time. “Why didn’t you let me know?”

  She couldn’t believe she’d missed a bullet wound.

  “They are scratches.”

  “They?”

  He pointed at his leg, near the hip. “They will heal once my body is cooler. I am not conce
rned. When do we reach my brothers?”

  “I’m not sure where they are. The good news is, they weren’t captured. The bad news is, there is a whole lot of territory they could have gone to. I’m driving us toward Colorado. It’s where some of the scouts tracked them to before they lost the trail.” She tried not to stare, but it was difficult to keep her eyes on the road. “Do you know where they’re heading?”

  His expression changed by small degrees at the question. “We were supposed to be met by guides to take us to the place.”

  “Which place?”

  “The place where we were going.”

  A sign for a gas station prompted her to look at the gauge. They were low on fuel. “We need to stop. I’ll grab cash from the ATM, but we’ll have to make it last. I hate to sound paranoid, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they can track my cards.”

  His naked blue arm lifted, and he turned in the seat. “I liked the first transport better than this one.”

  She gave a small laugh. The breeze through the partly open window did little to help the smell. “It’s like my mom always said, beggars can’t be choosers.”

  “You do not look like a beggar, so you should be able to choose a different transport.”

  “You do understand that we stole this car, don’t you? We took something that doesn’t belong to us. Yes, it was out of necessity, but it’s still wrong. Some person is going to wake up tomorrow and be—”

  “Joyful that they no longer have to be in this contraption?” he offered.

  “This month is not turning out at all like I’d expected,” she said, more to herself than to him. She turned the car off the highway toward the solitary light of the gas station. “I’m an unemployed car thief on the run with a wanted man.”

  “I am a Sintazian trapped on an alien planet by the company hired to help us, and I can’t find my brothers,” Ice stated. “I am not sure I will ever see the ice tundras of home again.”

  “You win,” Elle answered.

  “What do I win?”

  Instead of explaining the nuances of Earth language, she said, “You’ll need to put the jacket and hat on and try to stay out of sight while we’re here. The fewer people who see you, the better.”