Alien Me by Emma Accola Read Free Book Online Page A

the vice principal’s office. I began shaking in reaction.
    “Why did those men come after us with knives?” I asked in a voice whispery with fear. “If they were trying to kill us, why didn’t they use guns?”
    “They don’t like human weapons like guns. And those were not ordinary knives.”
    “Where are we going? The police department?”
    Sean accelerated through a second red light. “That’s the first place they’d look for us. We’re going to fall through into Geminay. If we’re going to survive this, we’ll need the protection of our Houses.”
    I had no idea what he was talking about. “Fall through? And what houses? What are these houses you keep talking about?”
    “Our Houses. You’re the Sworn Asset of the House of Beck and I’m of the House of Picard. Our Houses won’t throw away our lives like that. They need us to bring them energy from the yellow sun, so they won’t want to lose us. If anyone can call off the assassins, they can.”
    I stared at Sean. “So these Houses you keep talking about aren’t the ones who sent the bad guys and their glass knives after us?”
    “No, that would be His and Her Majesty,” Sean said as he repeatedly checked the rearview mirror. “They’re in charge of enforcing the Treaty. The Original People have a complex system with lots of rivalries and rules.”
    “So you’re saying that there’s a monarchy in a country called Geminay that is under the surface of the Earth?” Before Jonathan died, he told me he could tell that I was one of those who could bring the light. Were these the beings he was talking about? “That’s not possible. People couldn’t survive there.”
    “They know how,” Sean said.
    “What happened to all of our knife wounds? How did we get healed? My arm was slashed to the bone and now it’s gone.”
    “You did that with the life energy you took from the assassins. We’re Sworn Assets. We’ve been engineered to carry the energy of the yellow sun in our bodies because of DNA manipulation and I don’t know what else. We can then give that energy to others to heal them.” Sean slowed down as he turned into a residential neighborhood and drove past an elementary school. “That is why the Original People created us.”
    “Created? I have a mother and a father.”
    “And has your mother told a story of how when you were a baby she found you not breathing? Does she say how she revived you using mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and that after that you were the healthiest child, barely ever getting sick? Does she mention how you have perfect friends, loyal, good influences?” Sean brought the car to a screeching halt. “Our families were chosen to foster us. They’re called our Earth tenders.”
    My head was swimming with all this information. “Our Earth tenders?”
    Sean stared over the steering wheel. “I think we quit breathing when they put our life energy into these bodies. I think that, but I don’t know for sure. When I ask the question, everyone acts like they’re surprised that this matters to me. To the Original People, making Sworn Assets is business as usual.”
    My heart skipped a beat and I felt myself become very hot. “So you’re saying that whatever we are was put in these bodies?”
    Sean turned to me, his face pinched. “I don’t know what I’m saying. If I think about it too hard, then I feel like I’m walking around in someone else’s flesh. Or then I think we’re nothing but some kind of disposable animal who has a purpose, like a chicken meant to produce eggs, and that we’re not responsible for whatever happened during our creation.”
    “And what happened to the life that was in these bodies in the first place? Are we it—I mean is it part of us?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “So what are we? Transplanted souls? I’ve been to church. I know about these things.”
    “I don’t know. I asked those questions too, but my shaman, Whitlock, told me that it’s a question for the Mechanics, the