Alien Surrender (The Alien Series Book 6) Read online

  Alien Surrender

  Tracy Lauren

  © 2020 Tracy Lauren

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  Chapter 1

  Allison

  The door to the old trailer slowly creaks open. Neither Casey nor I venture to take a step inside. You’d think during all these years of dereliction that squatters would have taken up residence in this place. I expected at the very least it would have been ransacked by vandals. But as we peek in from our spot on the rickety porch, it looks like nothing more than weather has touched this old trailer since we left it all those years ago.

  I take a deep breath and steel my courage.

  “Welp,” Casey says, following me inside. “Looks like no one wanted our shit.” We both eye the sagging green couch.

  “No. I guess not.”

  “You’d think kids would have at least come here to get drunk.” She wades through leaves and crumpled bits of the ceiling brought down by water damage.

  “I was just thinking the same thing! I expected spray paint and knocked out windows.” Instead it’s like walking through a wormhole into another era. I can almost imagine the light on under the bathroom door and the sounds of Mom getting ready to go out.

  “Spray paint,” Casey echoes. “Now, that’s a good idea.”

  I frown. “No. It isn’t.” This place, it’s not home anymore, but it was…a long time ago. To desecrate it would be wrong. It’s better to leave it up to time and let it sag like our old couch until the earth swallows it back up, completing some cosmic circle. Or…maybe it’s just death that has me thinking that way.

  I follow Casey down the hall. The Venetian blinds are practically rusted right off the windows; they bow and light filters in. I watch as the dust we’re kicking up swirls through the rays of sunshine.

  “This is too freaky,” my sister says. I can hear her frown. Still, Casey takes the lead as we venture further into our childhood home.

  The first door on the left is the bathroom. Even from the hall I can see the yellowed, vinyl shower curtain with little blue dolphins all over it. Casey goes in, but it’s a tiny room and all I can do is poke my head in behind her. My heart sinks when I see Mom’s pink Bic razor sitting on the side of the tub. Hell, if we opened the medicine cabinet I’m sure my cartoon character toothbrush would still be tucked safely in its caddy.

  “This is like some fucked up time capsule, filled with shit we’d never want to remember.”

  “I don’t know. It’s weird for sure, but this is where we came from. It’s our history…”

  “Yeah. Well, you know what they say about history? Forget that shit.”

  “Case, nobody says that.”

  “Whatever.” Casey shrugs, grimacing at the room from floor to ceiling. She pushes past me, ready to move on, and we continue our trek into the depths of the trailer.

  Both of us eye Mom’s room, but we don’t stop. Maybe we’re not ready for it. Instead, we’re drawn to the door at the end of the hall—the room Casey and I shared when we were little. It’s cracked open just a bit and I can see the warm glow of sunlight shining within. And despite the fact that I had to beg Casey to come with me today, it seems she’s filled with just as much awe as I am. She reaches out, her fingertips barely grazing the door, and slowly, it swings open.

  It’s just as we left it, with two little twin beds pressed up against opposite walls. And though the bedspreads are covered in a thick layer of dust, it doesn’t obscure the familiar floral pattern. Something happens to my heart at the sight of it and hot tears prick my eyes. To be a child again…to be lying in this bed and waiting for Mom to come home. Not the Mom that I came to know her as, but the Mom that I saw through a child’s eyes.

  “Hmpf. Smaller than I remember. Didn’t think that was possible.” Casey glances over at me. “Are you crying?” She’s completely aghast.

  “What? No, of course not.” I hurry to wipe my eyes, but she’s not buying it.

  “Jeeze, over what, you nerd? A couple twin beds and an old Garfield stuffie?”

  “Fuck, Casey! It’s just the dust! It’s giving me allergies or whatever.”

  “Yeah, right.” She scoffs contemptibly.

  We both step farther into the room, our eyes scanning the contents. Our old lamp. The tiny book shelf. A bin filled with second-hand stuffed animals. Inside the closet there’s probably a dusty stack of school papers, maybe even the matching Christmas dresses we wore for three years straight, regardless of the fact that the sleeves were so stiff and scratchy they made our arms bleed. These are all the things Mom made us leave behind when her rich boyfriend finally proposed.

  “Remember when she used to go out on dates after we went to sleep?” Casey reminisces. “You’d always wake up in the middle of the night and try to get in bed with me. Ugh, I was so annoyed with you back then.”

  “Yeah.” I fake a weak laugh. That isn’t how I remember it though. I remember being six years old and Casey eight. She’d wake up scared, knowing we were all alone in the trailer. She’d want me up too. Dazed, I’d crawl over to her bed just so she’d feel safe. I always felt like…I don’t know, like I was protecting her or something. But I guess that isn’t how she remembers it.

  I spin slowly in the room, taking everything in, and eventually my gaze spots something truly precious. “Oh my gosh, Case! Look!” I exclaim, my eyes on the door jamb. I rush over to it, gently smoothing my fingers over the lines. “This is where Mom used to mark our height on our birthdays! I’d totally forgotten about this!”

  Casey ambles over to examine the treasure, but her expression is unimpressed.

  “This is amazing,” I assure her. “To see Mom’s handwriting like this. Isn’t it amazing, Case?”

  She shrugs and starts back down the hall, even though I’m still kneeling so I can run my fingers over the wood. “I want to keep this!” I shout. “I just need something to pry it off with—a crowbar maybe.” But I don’t have anything like that. I guess I’ll have to come back later. Though I’m reluctant to leave such a treasure behind… I look around helplessly, but there’s nothing. I guess it’s waited this long. A few more hours shouldn’t hurt.

  “Want to check the fridge for old mac and cheese?” Casey hollers. “Hundred bucks if you eat something!”

  “Ew, gross. No way,” I laugh, rushing to catch up with my sister.

  Casey’s ready to go before I am, but I follow her out regardless. “Blah. Good riddance,” she mutters as we let the screen door slam shut. “Best thing Mom ever did for us was marry rich.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “I still don’t understand why you wanted to come back to this hell hole. Believe me, our time would have been better spent at a Starbucks.”

  I ignore the urge to throw wistful glances over my shoulder as we walk back to the car. I’m already embarrassed over how emotional I’ve been in front of Case today. I know she hates that kind of stuff, always trying to drill it out of me. She’s got a point too. This place—it’s so far away from what our lives are now, from who Mom turned into. Yeah, Casey’s definitely right. I don’t understand why it was important for me to come here either. We had the funeral. We said our good-byes. It’s time to let it go.

  “I guess I was just being dumb,” I tell her, keeping my eyes on the ground.

  Still…a few hours later I do g
et myself a crowbar, but I don’t bother asking Casey to go back with me. I don’t want to see the look of disgust on her face when she accuses me of being sentimental. Truth is, I’ve never been Casey’s cup of tea, and now that Mom and Rod are gone, there isn’t much tying us together. Best not to rock the boat.

  Oddly enough, I’m eager to go back on my own. To spend a little more time reminiscing, without Casey there to impress. I find that old country road in the dark and I’m already lost in thought, thinking about simpler times when my heart bottoms out.

  I know something’s wrong before I ever reach the trailer. The horizon’s lit up orange and smoke is billowing into the sky. I gas it, causing my Audi to kick dirt and gravel in my wake. Racking my brain, I wonder if we did something today that could have caused an electrical problem, started a spark. But when I make it to the front of the trailer I’m surprised to see Casey there with her friends.

  “What the fuck happened?” I shout. But even from the driver’s seat, I can tell Casey’s stumbling and drunk while our childhood home is ablaze.

  “Oh shit, it’s Allison! You made it!” Casey exclaims. But she’s teetering on her feet, so I look to her friend Bree for answers.

  “Is everyone okay? Have you called the fire department?” I press.

  “Dang, Allison! Buzz kill! Don’t fucking call the cops!” Casey shouts. Bree is quick to join me as the others try to load Casey into another car.

  “Look, hun, we’ve got to get Casey out of here before the cops show up,” she tells me. “I know you guys just lost your parents, but if our coaches find out about underage drinking and this—” She waves her hand at the fire. “She could get kicked off the team. Hell, we all could.”

  “Wait, how did this happen?” But Casey answers the question before Bree can, when she tosses a half-empty bottle of vodka into the flames. A fireball blossoms into the air.

  “She burned it all down?” I choke on the words, my gaze locked on the trailer’s flaming skeleton. Well fuck me, I want to cry again. I know it’s just a stupid fucking trailer, filled with a bunch of shit we abandoned when we moved into Rod’s 10,000-square-foot home, but it was a part of us. For better or worse, it was a part of us! I remember the door jamb. Surely Casey grabbed it for me.

  I push past Bree. “Case, Case!” I shout, forcing her to give me her attention. “Did you get the piece of the door for me?”

  “Huh? What are you talking about?” My sister looks at me as if I’m speaking in tongues.

  “The part of the door where Mom marked our height? Did you get it?”

  “No, why would I have gotten that?”

  “Because I said I wanted it! Damn it, Casey, that was like the one thing that mattered to me and you fucking burned it with the rest of the trailer?”

  The look Casey gives me is incredulous. “Calm the fuck down, Allison. It’s garbage, just like the rest of this place. If you want some shit Mom scribbled on, go back to our real home and look through her desk or some shit. God, why do you have to be such a downer all the time?”

  My mouth hangs open. I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know if I’m mad at her or embarrassed for wanting that…that piece of garbage.

  Bree steps in. “Casey, seriously, we’ve got to go. We could get into real trouble if the cops get here before we’re gone. Sorry, Allison, but you should get out of here too.”

  “Yeah,” I agree, feeling hollow inside.

  I watch Casey and her friends pile into the car and I stare after them through the dust swirling in the tail lights. I should leave before the cops get here. But instead, I sit down, alone in the tall grass, and I watch the fire burn long into the night.

  The sky’s pink with dawn before the last of the flames have died down. The cops never even came. I guess I’m the only idiot on this planet who still gives a shit about this old relic. How embarrassing.

  What’s more embarrassing is the reason that I stuck around all night. I told myself that something would survive the fire, some little memento I could carry with me. Maybe even the back room would be spared and the door jamb would still be there, waiting for me to save it.

  But the trailer burned like it was no more substantial than paper and by dawn, there was nothing left besides a big toxic smear of trailer trash charcoal. And even that’s too hot for me to poke through to salvage anything.

  I scrub my hand over my face. What would Casey say if she knew I stayed? If she knew that I actually wanted to remember this place?

  Eventually I push myself to my feet, angry at the world. Angry at Mom and Rod for crashing their plane and leaving us like this. Angry that this stupid fucking trailer couldn’t give me one damn break and have something that was flame resistant. I’m angry at Casey too…but I push that down. She’s all I have left, after all. And I remind myself she’s dealing with Mom and Rod’s death too. Just in her own way.

  Slowly, I walk the perimeter of the fire, keeping my eyes peeled for any damn thing. Eventually I get lucky and trip over a decaying garden hose. On the end is the little daisy shaped sprinkler that Casey and I used to play in as kids. A sob escapes me as I drop to my knees in the field. I unscrew the rusted piece of metal and ignore the memory of the time Casey swung the hose and hit me in the face with it—chipping my front tooth. Thankfully, it was a baby tooth. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is all the other times we jumped through the spray of water, cooling down in the summer heat, playing together like sisters do.

  ***

  “What do you mean you aren’t going to be able to make it?” I ask Casey over the phone two months later.

  “Some of the team’s headed to Seattle to get a little rowing in. You know how it is, Allison, I can’t skip out on practice.”

  “But...I just spoke to Bree. She and Melissa are both going to be here.”

  “Yeah, I said some of the team. Not all of it.”

  “Case, this is my high school graduation. I’m going to be the only one there without parents.”

  “Oh my God, Allison! Stop being such a baby! High school graduation is the worst! It takes forever, you’re out in the hot sun, you have to listen to speeches you don’t give a shit about. Literally nothing could be more boring. Hey! You know what I just realized? You don’t even have to go! It’s not like Mom and Rod can make you.”

  “But Case, I want to go.”

  “Ugh, nerd. Okay, well, you have fun being bored for hours, but I’ve really got to go to Seattle. Just because there are no summer games this year doesn’t mean I don’t train.”

  “Yeah, I get it.”

  “I really don’t see how you could.”

  I try not to roll my eyes. Not that Casey could see me over the phone anyway. But it hasn’t even been two years since the first time my sister was invited to go rowing with a friend. Not surprisingly, Casey ended up being really good at it. That friend ended up having another friend who ended up knowing the coach of the U.S. women’s rowing team and just like that—Casey was on it. A certified Olympian. She’d never rowed before in her life and then boom, Olympic team. And sure enough, they won gold last year. Fucking Casey is an Olympic gold medalist. She loves to tease that I’m jealous and I don’t know, maybe I am. Casey’s the kind of person who’s good at anything and everything. Mom and Rod got to see her win gold. They bragged about that to no end and Rod’s rich friends ate it up. Such a delicious status marker for them, to have an Olympian daughter.

  I shake the jealousy away. She’s my sister. I should be proud of her. Supportive. “Alright, well, I hope you get some good training in. You’re going to be awesome, I’m sure of it,” I tell her, not really knowing what to say, but wanting to sound encouraging.

  “You sure I can’t talk you out of graduation?”

  Hell. She probably could. How many times has she talked me out of getting school projects done on time, just because she was bored and wanted someone to hang out with? But this time she isn’t inviting me to Seattle with her. She’s just suggesting I stay home.


  “It’s cool, Case, have fun in Seattle.”

  “Will do. Tell Bree and Melissa they’re lame for not coming along! It’s going to be a blast.”

  “Sure,” I say, but since they’re missing the trip to come to my graduation, I don’t think I will be telling them that.

  Casey hangs up and I toss my phone down on the bed. It’s uncomfortably silent in Rod’s house, and I think about the fact that the only people who are going to be cheering for me on graduation day are two of my sister’s rowing teammates. I’m grateful for them, but it definitely feels like I’m the lame one.

  ***

  College graduation isn’t much different. Case gives me a call and tells me she’s going to take me out to lunch to celebrate next time she’s in town. “I could always come visit you,” I offer. “It’s been a long time since we’ve hung out.”