Alpha Centauri

Four - Jaden

 Julian flicks his wrist, and knife shoots forward, plunging into its chest and stabbing out the back.

Deep dark blue blood seeps from the wound. I watch the life fade out of its blood red eyes.

I release the breath I've been holding since the beast knocked me to the floor. The two knives clatter to the floor, and we both relax.

Julian dashes into Mom's bedroom, me following not far behind. We find her curled up in a corner, shaking like a leaf about to fall to the ground.

"Mom!" Julian says as he rushes over and pries her out of the fetal position. I kneel next to them and put an arm around Mom.

"Jule," she whispers. "Jade... Are you two okay?" She starts checking us for boo-boos. "Oh my God. Jade, your face...oh, and your arm...!"

"Mom, we're fine." I push her away, only to pull her back into a hug. "What happened?"

"I don't know... I never saw it coming. It just snuck into the house, and..."

Mom's face is covered in slightly bleeding scrapes. She's crying from fear or pain or relief or all three mixed into one. Her arms are scratched up, and there's a large knot on her forehead.

"What was that thing?" Mom sobs.

"I don't know, but it's dead, and it's okay now," Julian says, rubbing her shoulder.

Mom trembles as we help her to her feet. "Julian, Jaden, I have something to tell you."

"No shit," I say.

"Jaden, watch your language," she scolds. "And what do you—"

We limp into the kitchen. Nizami is standing over the corpse. A computer-y blue, gridded light is emanating from her right eye, like she's doing a weird remote scan. I'm not as surprised by it as I should be. Mom stops and stares at her. Nizami has a bleeding knot on her forehead, but other than that, she looks fine. Her shimmery sword has disappeared.

"Mom," Julian sighs, "this is Nizami."

"You're one of them, aren't you?" Mom says to Nizami. "Calabastor..."

"Yes." Nizami turns to Mom. "I am here to retrieve your son and daughter to and take them back to Crenala."

"Hey, hey, back the hel—heck up," I interrupt. "Crenala? One of them?"

Mom touches our faces. "You two might want to sit down for this."

-----

If someone asked me what the weirdest part of my day was today, I would've answered my mother. (Julian's freaky psychic powers are a close second.)

I mean, she went on with this chick like they're planning to make brownies for their book club or something. Like this was all some fresh gossip about her baby daddy.

Mom never kept anything from us. She told us everything about everything. She never kept us in the dark on any matter.

Apparently our father is the only exception.

"We need to tend to your wounds first," Nizami interrupts. "Julian, remove your shirt."

"What? No!" Julian's face turns pink, and he covers the hem of his faded t-shirt with his hands. "Not until we get an explanation." The gash has stopped bleeding a little, but despite his determination, I can tell it's still causing him pain,

"Of course." Nizami sighs, like she knows this isn't an argument she can win.

Julian and I stand on side of the kitchen counter opposite Mom and Nizami. Mom clasps her hands together and looks us in the eyes, just as if she's about to give us some run-of-the-mill serious talk like she does every other week.