Bo and the Beast (Book #1) (Completed)

48. You Think I'm So Terrible?

As the brick hurtled toward him, Aston was forced to lurch to the left at the last second, making his shot swing wide. The energy bolt from his gun hit the grass harmlessly somewhere a few feet away, though Aston didn't escape the brick entirely. It caught him on the side of the face, nicking his chin and lip, drawing blood that slid down his neck in a thin line.

His jaw tightened just before he lurched at Bo, grabbing her collar and yanking her up until her pinned legs stopped her.

"Aston, put my daughter down!" Dad growled, but Aston ignored him.

"You disgusting piece of trash," he hissed in her face. Hot breath poured over her skin, his hand twisting in her collar so much that it squeezed her throat. She fought off the cough that threatened, unwilling to let Aston see that he was in any way hurting her.

"Let me go," she said, deathly calm. Aston shook her sharply.

"Did you forget your mom, Bo? Because I remember her. She loved me too, and there's not a day that goes by that I don't miss her more than I would a limb. His kind tore her away from us. His kind killed my parents and left me alone in this world. His kind made it so that we have to live in tents in this forsaken wasteland instead of how our parents grew up." He snarled in her face. "He forced you to stay in his mansion against your will."

"You don't know anything," Bo said. "He knows that holding me was bad, and he hates what he was during the war. He doesn't hold love for his kind. And if you'd only listen to me you'd know what's going on. Adam can help us, and he's willing to work for forgive—"

"Adam?" A shadow ran over Aston's face. His hands shook at her collar, his skin turning a mottled red. She knew that anger, and it scared her.

To her surprise, he took a step back. He released her collar and backed away, throwing his hands up. Her dad scrambled to her side as soon as he vacated, and they watched him pace a few feet away, fuming and muttering to himself.

"Bo, we need to get you out of here before he gets even more out of hand," Dad whispered. "Do you think you could help me try and shift this off your legs?"

Bo nodded, though waves of exhaustion already rolled over her. She just wanted to lay down and fall asleep forever, not lift a brick wall off her numb and useless legs.

As her dad felt down her legs to determine if they were broken before they began shifting things, Bo tuned her head and stared at Adam. He faced her, his eyes still closed, the blood now drying on his skin. She reached for his hand, wrapping it in her own and trying to impart some of whatever strength she had left into him.

He couldn't be dead. She couldn't let him be dead.

"I can't leave him," she said, glancing at Dad as he examined the wall. He frowned at her, his eyes determined not to land on Adam. "I know you won't believe me, but he doesn't deserve to be left alone again. I promised him he could be a part of something."

"It's not a good idea, Bo. The camp... everyone there has had their lives destroyed by the aliens," Dad said. "I don't think we could get him out without equipment, either."

"Dad." Tears, stupid tears, made tracks down the dust on her face. She'd already done so much crying within the last hours, but they came anyway. There seemed to be no end. "I can't leave him."

Before either of them could react, Aston stormed back over and cast a dark shadow over Bo's face. His mouth twisted in disgust, his knuckles going white around the barrel of his power rifle.

"I can't believe it," he said, his eyes moving from her face to Adam's. "You turned me away, the one other person besides your father who has always stayed by your side, and instead you chose an alien. A bloody, murdering, ALIEN!" He whipped his gun up again, but this time Bo's dad was the faster of the two. He jumped to his feet, smacking the gun off target.

Bo looked to Adam with panic coursing through her veins, but the bullet had been off by a few inches, hitting a brick instead of his flesh. She sighed in relief, struggling to pull herself closer to him. His hand in hers seemed almost to move, though she wasn't sure if she was only hoping too hard and imaging it. She didn't have much time to figure it out, though, as Aston hadn't yet dropped the gun from his shoulder.

"Back off, Morris," he snarled. Dad took a step back, his hands raised.

"Stop it right now." Bo pushed herself to her elbows, dropping Adam's hand as she turned to face Aston. He stared at her in confusion and pain, his hands shaking almost as bad as hers. "Aston, just leave it."

He shook his head slowly, once. The barrel of the gun rotated to face Bo.

"How horrible must I be if you'd choose an alien over me?" Aston said, the barrel of the gun shaking up and down in his unsteady grip.

"Aston!" Dad barked, making a move.

"I'll shoot, Morris. I'll do it!" Aston glared at Dad, taking a step toward Bo.

"Do that and you'll never be welcome at the camp again," Dad whispered, dangerously low. "I'll run you out myself, if I have to, but you'll lose your home as well as any friendship I might have once offered you."

"I can't believe you're siding with her. She's protecting our enemy. Its kind killed your Lara, and yet Bo's just willing to throw herself into the arms of the first one she meets like some disgusting-"

"Don't go any farther, Aston. Put the gun down and walk away."

Aston's eyes gleamed, though he never once met Dad's eyes. He stared at Bo throughout, as if she'd just fallen from the highest pedestal there was. Despite the wrongness of his words, she still felt a small twinge of guilt that she could let him down so thoroughly. For the longest time, he'd been her only friend, the only person she could trust to keep her secrets and help her run what her dad was too tired to notice needed fixing. Aston should have been helping her, yet here he was aiming his rifle at her chest.

"If the militia finds out we harbored an alien, we'll be wiped off the earth," Aston said. "But if we show them that we killed one, all on our own, we might be able to get them rethink breaking our contract."

Dad shook his head. "Aston, I've told you that it is for the best that the militia pulled back from us. We're not going to go chasing after them."

Aston breathed heavily through his nose, but still stared at Bo. She tried to bare his heavy gaze, but soon her eyes slipped away, coming to a rest on the wall over her legs. At some point, feeling had returned to the left leg, and now she'd wished it'd stayed numb. Pain like a forest fire raged in her flesh, feeling as if her bones were powder and her muscles pulp. She clenched her hands and rounded her fingers around Adam's palm.

That's when she was certain that his hand moved in hers. His fingers twitched against the curve of her thumb, that small charge of electricity that always ran beneath his skin kicking back in.

She couldn't help it. Her head jerked toward him, light in her eyes at the relief that he was alive and not dead and cold. She met his open eyes which still seemed unfocused and blurred, but they were blessedly alive. Alive. Alive. A smile played at the corners of her mouth, his name on the tip of her tongue.

Then Aston's voice broke over them like cold night. "You think I'm so terrible, Bo? I'll show you just how terrible I can be."

She didn't even have time to turn over and watch him as he pulled the trigger and shattered the air. She merely clutched Adam's hand, fear playing across her features that at any second she could see a bullet rip through his body and carry him far away.

And yet, he still stared back at her and no bullet came. Only... his eyes grew wide, his mouth opening in a silent yell that she didn't hear. In fact, she heard nothing. Just a roaring in her ears like what she imagined the ocean must sound like.

Confusion washed over her as her hand in Adam's decided on its own to release. Her eyes clouded, her whole body fizzing and attempting to escape her mind somehow. It felt as if her limbs no longer wanted to take orders from her, as if she was being evicted from her own body.

It was then that the pain grew in her side, worse than the pain in her leg, worse than anything. It shocked her, yanked her sharply back into her body and snapped the world back into focus. She heard noise now. So much noise. Dad screaming, Aston shouting, Adam desperately calling her name in his weakened voice.