Touched by an Alien by Gini Koch Read Free Book Online Page B

pulled away from Martini, and I saw that two of the SUVs were gone.
    “We’re at the crash site,” Gower said. “It allows us to do certain things more . . . easily.”
    “What kinds of things? Time travel?”
    “Not in the conventional sense.” Gower sighed. “Look, try to calm down. I promise you your mother will be fine. And, yes, we have your father under protection now.”
    I was scared, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to help my mother in a dead panic. “What, I ask again, is going on?”

CHAPTER 7
    GOWER POINTED . “Look there.”
    I did. There was nothing, just flat earth with the occasional desert scrub brush on it, and I said as much.
    “No, there’s actually a huge depression,” he said with a small smile. “You can’t see it because it’s camouflaged.”
    “Okay. So? How does this help my mother?”
    “Who do you take after?” Martini asked.
    “What? Why is that a relevant question now?” I wanted to kick him but managed to refrain.
    “Just answer me. Who do you take after?” He didn’t seem like he was playing around.
    “My mother, mostly. At least so everyone says.”
    “Then she’ll be fine.” He smiled at the expression I knew was on my face. “If you take after her, then there’s more risk of another woman in your family killing another ‘terrorist’ than of your mother getting hurt.”
    I wanted to believe him, but it wasn’t easy. “Maybe.”
    “What’s your mother do for a living?” Gower asked, in a very soothing tone.
    “She’s a consultant.”
    “Consultant for what?” Gower prodded.
    Reader started to laugh. I turned, and he was holding a folder. He hadn’t had it before. “Acorn here did not fall far from the tree.”
    “Where did you get that from? And what does it say?” I tried to read it, but he moved it away from me.
    “Nope, you have to calm down and pay attention to what Paul’s trying to show you. Then, maybe I’ll let you see the file on your mother.” Reader winked. “It’s all good, you’ll be proud.”
    “ If I can have your attention,” Gower said.
    “Fine.” I was starting to hate all of them, not just Christopher.
    Gower reached out and pulled me next to him. “Put your hand on top of mine,” he instructed. I did, and then he moved our hands just a bit—and they disappeared. I pulled my hand back involuntarily, and there it was, still attached.
    He brought his hand out, too. “It’s an optical illusion. We have equipment hidden here. The residue from the Ancients’ crash boosts the power.”
    I thought about what they’d said in the car. “You have a transference machine here?”
    “Several,” White answered. “As Christopher told you, they don’t work for us to go back to A-C, but . . .”
    “They work just great to get you to, say, JFK Airport in New York?”
    “Exactly.”
    “There were some in the warehouse, too, weren’t there?”
    “Marry me,” Martini said.
    “Yes,” Gower answered. “It’s how we transport the dead superbeings back without issue.”
    “Okay, but how big are these things? Because I don’t think you had one at the courthouse.”
    “We all have personal models,” Gower said. But he wasn’t meeting my eyes.
    I looked at Martini. “I want the truth.”
    He grinned. “Say you’ll marry me first.”
    “I’ll marry you before any tree on Earth.”
    “Good enough for a start. We’re aliens, remember? Anyone with A-C blood has the ability to travel at what you’d call hyperspeed.”
    “So you’re like the Flash?”
    “No,” Gower sounded pained. “That’s a comic book character.”
    “Actually,” Reader interjected, “it’s a good comparison. Look, you know how the Flash had to eat a ton because he burned so much fuel?”
    “Yeah.” I hated having to admit, right here, under these circumstances, that I was a total comics geek-girl, but I didn’t have much choice. “But he also made sonic booms, and I haven’t heard those.”
    “Right. Because they don’t work