Banish To Earth Book One (27)

And a war was coming. The soothing quiet of a peaceful night was not about to stop it, only offering a short-lived reprieve…

 Pry saw something in Beth’s eyes when she ended the call. Something that filled her with joy.

“You love him, too.”

“What, no, not, not like that. I mean, he’s great and all, but he’s your guy. He’s your husband for crying out loud. I don’t get to love him, like that.”

“Like what?”

“Pry.”

“Beth.”

“No, we are not going there.”

“Your face is quite red.”

“Let me see. Let me see.” Nikki squealed. “Oh, it’s too dark, can’t see nuthin’. Maybe Pry can make me so I can see in the dark too.”

“No!” Beth said much louder than she intended.

“Nikki, I love you just the way you are. I would never do anything to change that.”

Beth rolled her eyes at Pry. “Good call.”

Pry nodded yes. “You want to be with him. I see it in your eyes.” She quickly added, eager to turn the conversation back to Chase.

“But we are sisters. Are we not?”

“Yeah, but that only makes it worse.”

“How so? Beth, I love you. I want you to be happy. Being with Chase would make you happy, would it not? If I have the power to make you happy, then I should. It would be selfish of me not to.”

“No Pry, no. You don’t understand, being with your husband would not make me happy, not really, not at all. It would just hurt people, you especially. That’s the last thing I want. It just doesn’t work that way. Your marriage belongs to you. Your husband belongs to you. Some things you just don’t share.”  

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“But you are hurting me right now. On Phastanar, the Crychee bonded by sharing. That is how they became sisters. That’s all I want, Beth to bond with you as a sister.

  The Crychee bonded by sharing in death. I wish to share life. They did not understand. How can what I want be so bad?”

  “If you want to bond with me, to share with me, then help me raise Nikki, cry on my shoulder. Take things out on me, but not too much, talk to me. But don’t push Chase at me,” she hesitated, “’cause sooner or later I won’t push back.”

   Pry still did not understand but decided she would wait and talk to Chase about it. Maybe he could convince her.

  Despite their union, there was obviously still much about him that she did not know or understand. It seemed quite a bit of Phastanar still clung to her.

   She settled back in her seat and dozed off. The Hunter was dead, and Chase would be with them soon. She could rest now.

     Sometime later, Beth said, “I think this is it.” She slowed her car until it came to a stop in front of a big two-story white house sitting majestically atop a perfectly manicured hill.

  Pry said nothing. She was fast asleep like Nikki.

  “Wake up, Pry and take a gander with your little night peepers.” Beth was exhausted. She always talked silly when she was tired.

     Pry roused, lifted her head and looked out the side window at the big house. “Oh, that’s Tom Master’s house. It looks even nicer than Chase’s memory of it.”

   “Oh,” Beth said, a bit deflated, “thought that might be Chase’s…”

   “Oh no, go to that gravel road that curves behind the property. His house is about a half a mile down the road.”

   “Of course it is.” She pulled off the main road and jostled down a rutty, narrow path that snaked through a stand of pines and quickly became a dark, overgrown tunnel of apprehension.

  “This does not look good. You sure we’re headed right?”

    “Oh yes, this is just like Chase’s memory.”

    “Poor kid.”

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    Beth strained to see anything resembling a house.

  “Green shadows,” Pry murmured when they cleared the pines and drove by the field where the giant oak tree still reigned. The same tree she remembered from their joining.

  “What?”

   “We are almost there. Just a little further.”

  “Okay.” She murmured nervously.

  “There.” Said Pry, pointing at a dark mound squatting in the night at the edge of the forest.

  “That’s it? Oh no.” Beth followed the path until it turned toward the mound. Her headlights flooded the ‘yard’ and the collapsed wreckage of Chase’s bitter past. It looked like a dead spider, desiccated and hollow, unfit for rodent habitation, much less human.    

   “We can’t stay here. There is no ‘here’.” She parked the car and snatched her cell from the car’s cup holder. No service. “We’ll just wait. Chase will be here in an hour or so.”

“Mommy I’m scared.”

 “It’s okay, baby. We’re safe right here. It just looks scary, that’s all.” Beth said, not believing her own words.

   “Maybe we could go to the big house?” Beth offered, desperately trying to comfort her child.

  “Tom Masters was never Chase’s friend. I do not…”

   Bright light suddenly flooded the back window.

  “Oh crap, think it’s a truck.”

  “Chase?”

  “No Pry way too soon.”

 Blinding headlights jostled toward them, stopping about ten feet directly behind Beth’s car.

“They’ve blocked me in,” Beth said aloud, without realizing it.

    Metal creaked; heavy boots hit the ground. Metal creaked again.

  Beth looked out her open-side window, seeing only a distorted backlit silhouette.

“Kinda puny for a redneck.” She quipped but failed to break the tension.

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   “Oh no, is that a shotgun?”

  The small black figure raised its arms, levelling the long gun straight at the rear window.

   “Wanna see heads and hands right now!” The black figure yelled. It was a woman’s