Alien Me by Emma Accola Read Free Book Online

into his left eye. Another on his shoulder flowed red and wet. A wound on his chest sucked air and blew red bubbles. A gash on his abdomen pulsed blood. I pulled the linen scarf from my neck, wadded it up, and held it on the abdominal wound. The blood bubbled up between my fingers and saturated the scarf. I threw it onto the vice principal’s desk and put my hand directly on the puncture. Where my flesh touched his flesh, I felt a tingling heat. Sean lay back as if sleepy. I thought that must mean he was dying.
    “Why are you bleeding so much? Come on. Help is on the way,” I whispered. “Stop bleeding. Stop bleeding.”
    I willed him to live. He had to, this boy who had tried to save me with his warnings. Outside the office I could hear shouting and screams, the vice principal ordering the lockdown of the campus. I kept whispering Sean’s name, and his breathing seemed to ease. At first that alarmed me further, fearing he had lost consciousness because he was dying. Then I became weakened and felt queasy. The room receded into gentle darkness. My eyes closed and I fell forward over Sean’s body. I hardly noticed until Sean’s voice drew me back.
    “Darcy! Darcy! Come on. We have to get out of here.”
    I felt Sean pull me to my feet. His wounds had somehow closed, all of them, even the one that had gurgled. Only the red trails of blood on his face and his torn, dripping blood-saturated shirt and jeans gave evidence to what had just happened.
    “Come on. We have to go,” he was saying as he reached into the pockets of the detective who lay motionless next to us. Sean pulled out his badge and wallet and dropped them into his battered backpack. Then he went out into the hall and collected the same things from the other men. “In a few minutes this place will be locked down and covered with cops.”
    “Are they dead?” I asked, unable to process how I had done that.
    He swung his backpack over his shoulders. Sean was so strong and graceful in his movements that I could hardly reconcile the fact that he was the same person who had lain dying a minute before.
    “Who cares? They weren’t real cops. These badges are solid gold. I can tell.” He reached up and pulled off his black diamond earring and tossed it on the vice principal’s disheveled desk. It clattered and bounced playfully against the man’s keyboard. The blood droplets on his fingers fell like rubies.
    “Then who are they?”
    “Assassins. I told you we weren’t supposed to meet. Take off your earrings and necklace. They’re using them to track us.”
    I wasted no time in pulling off my jewelry and letting the pieces bounce and skip across the vice principal’s vast desk. My and Sean’s blood left red fingerprints on the jade beads.
    “Did that fake cop manage to cut you?” Sean asked, his eyes on my arms.
    “He did. I felt the knife hit against the bone.” I lifted up my sleeve to show him. Though my arm was still wet with blood, the cut was gone. “Okay. I can’t explain this. Or what happened to you just now.”
    “I can.” Sean glanced into the hallway. “My car is in the parking lot. Are you feeling well enough to run?”
    He didn’t wait for an answer. He grabbed my hand and we sprinted through the sunny atrium of the front office. We left a trail of blood drops on the tile floors as we passed the young clerk who crouched under her desk crying. The vice principal and the rest of the staff were nowhere to be seen. Sean and I burst through the front doors and ran full speed toward the parking lot.

 
     
     
Chapter Two
     
     
    The tires squealed on the asphalt as Sean raced his car out of the parking lot. He ignored the stop sign near the school and stoplight at the next intersection. Several cars sounded their horns and screeched their tires as they swerved to avoid us. Sean kept checking all the mirrors to make sure that we weren’t being followed. I hardly noticed. Right this minute the inside of this car had to be safer than