Battlefield: Control (Book Two)

Chapter Eleven - Dale

The previous night was a blur. Dale was still pinching himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming, and each time he winced with pain because it was all too real. The images he'd been shown about Altura continued to play in his mind; a world so similar to his own.

He'd seen a video of beautiful landscapes and people walking down a suburban street on a calm, quiet night. A scene he'd witnessed many times on Earth. He would have thought it some kind of sick joke if he hadn't noticed a number of differences.

The first was that the signs were all written in a language he'd never seen before, and second the animals were unlike anything he'd ever seen as well. They were similar, but the dogs the people walked had fur in bright vibrant colors, for starters.

Then there were his powers: the black liquid coursing through his veins. If he hadn't gotten those, he'd be a lot harder to sell on the idea of aliens being on Earth.

They say they want to help. Maybe they can help me control and harness this better? And Tori... He caught sight of her down the hall. She was talking with one of her friends at her locker, sort of. The friend was trying to talk and she was blowing the girl off. It was becoming a more common occurrence. Tori froze everyone out, including him.

What happened to her?

Taking in a deep breath, he walked to her locker and tried his best to keep cool. He didn't want to show her just how much she was destroying him.

"Morning Beautiful." He leaned in to kiss her cheek. Tori turned away before he could even touch her. Refusing to react, he forced a smile. "And how are you today?"

"Fine," she mumbled and didn't look at him. Her attention stayed on her textbook.

"Me too." He glanced over her shoulder at what she was reading—chemistry—a class he was fairly decent at. "Studying hard?"

"Mmmhmm."

Seriously? He growled. "Tori, are you trying to give me a hint here? Are we breaking up?"

That got her attention.

She snapped her gaze up at him and her eyes grew wide and filled with tears. "What? Are you breaking up with me?"

"No, I'm just wondering if maybe that's what you're trying to do. So I thought I'd ask."

"I told you, I just have a lot going on," she whispered. "Why do you keep bringing this up?"

"Because it's been a month of a lot going on, and I'm trying here. Like, really trying," he said. "Thought I'd jump to the chase in case I was missing it."

"I don't want to break up," she said in a low voice.

"Then something needs to change."

"Can we talk about this later, like, not at school? You know how I feel about having our personal problems out in public," she whispered.

He did know. They had more than their fair share of fights. Most they were able to keep away from outside ears.

Dale was popular; he had a lot of people who wanted to know his business. Many of them were female who were trying to persuade him to look their way. What they didn't understand, what Tori didn't understand, was that he only had eyes for her.

Dale reached out to grab her hand, and once again she rejected his advance.

"You're confusing me," he grumbled.

For someone who wanted to stay together, she was great at keeping them apart. He gazed at his sad, rejected hand, grasping for reasons why she'd reject all forms of touch that didn't involve her not being interested anymore. A flesh eating bacteria? A contagious disease? He didn't get it.

Tori also gazed at his hand with a longing he didn't understand and then up at him. "Do you have time to come over for a while?"

"Your girlfriend may proposition you to come with her to meet someone, or just to go with her somewhere. Do not do it."

That's what the man had said...the alien said. Was that what she was doing? Trying to lure him to come join this other team of alien warriors?

"I need to check with my parents first. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. They might need help with some of the prep, and I might have an early curfew," he said cautiously, not wanting to flat out say no. He did want to see her.

Tori let out a heavy sigh. "I thought we were a priority. So we can only talk about things on your time?"

"What?"

That comment felt like a slap to the face. He couldn't help but be appalled by her accusation. She wasn't talking like Tori, but like someone else had written a script for her to follow so she could get what she wanted. Tori was a lot of things, passive aggressive wasn't one of them.

When he gazed into her eyes, he only saw a hard, cold expression staring back at him. Her brow was furrowed, and her mouth tight with a frown, and if he didn't know better he would have assumed she was glaring at him.

"You heard me," she snapped. She slammed her textbook shut, stuffed it in her bag, and then stood.

"I didn't say no. I just said I had to ask," he said.

So much for trying the gentle route. But even if she was trying to introduce him to more aliens, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to go with her and see what these other people had to say. There were two sides to every story, right?

The alien's warning continued to echo in his mind: the other tribes wouldn't be as kind to him, they wouldn't give him a choice. Or was that a scare tactic? How did he know who was being honest and who was good? What if the alien he had visited the night before had lied? What if Tori was on the right side? Her sparkling new personality suggested otherwise, but she'd also never done well under stress.

She didn't say anything to him and simply walked away. No "I love you and I'll see you at lunch" like usual, or even "We'll talk later." Not one word, or so much as a glance. He couldn't believe it. Three years and she was willing to let it all go. What happened? Why couldn't he get through to her?

"I'll go," he whispered.

But something else the strange alien man said repeated itself in his mind. The alien said don't do it unless she's worth it. And that's the part I'm not so sure on.

Should he take that as a sign? They'd talked about marriage after college and family, being that sappy couple that knew each other since diapers. This hiccup aside, she'd always been his best friend. The rough patch was just rougher than usual.

Dale would have to make a bigger move to pull them out. For a month he'd been wanting to talk with her about the party, but held back because she seemed far too stressed to deal with his problems on top of her own.

His powers scared him. They were dangerous, hard to control, and potent. Every day he wondered if it would be the day where he'd get out of control and kill someone. Adding that to her plate didn't seem right.

What he hadn't thought of until then, was that she might have been going through the same problem. When she started to shut him out and not trust him, he did the same to her. Trust was a two-way street, though he often felt like he trusted her a lot more than she trusted him.

Every other week she was on him for talking to another girl, or looking at another girl. Tori talked to plenty of other guys, and he never cared. No, if he was going to break through her insecurity, he had to tell her the honest truth about his new abilities—for better or worse.

He shook his head and went to his class, head down, and shoulders slouched.

"You okay Dale?" one of his friends asked.

A girl of course, and he had to stop himself from cringing because if Tori saw him talking to her, now of all times, she'd be adding another item on their agenda to talk over.

He was able to manage a slight nod and a small smile, enough to get the girl to back off and not hound him over the issue. Once in his classroom, he pulled out his notebook and flipped it open to the next clean page, ready to take notes on some movie.

A movie he only half paid attention to.