Renegade Runner Nicole Conway (christmas read aloud txt) 📖

to end up as some exotic pet or breeding animal. There had to be a way.

And I was going to find it.

4

THE NEW KID

The more I thought, the more that stinging pain rose in the back of my head. It throbbed through my brain, strobing with wave after wave of nausea that made my stomach clench like I might start puking again. I leaned forward and put my head in my hands, trying to breathe through it.

“It’ll pass,” Enola consoled me as she pressed a hand to the glass, as though she understood what I was going through.

“W-What’s happening to me?” I whimpered.

“It’s your lingual converter. They call it a ‘ling-con’ for short,” she said. “Aren’t you curious how we can understand one another? I don’t speak the human language and I doubt you speak mine. So how do you think that’s possible?”

I raised my head shakily, blinking at her in surprise. Unconsciously, one of my hands slipped to that tender knot on the back of my head. My stomach fluttered as my fingertips brushed it. Was … that it? Had they implanted something in my head?

“We’re considered much too primitive and under-evolved to get a good handle on all the languages used in Alzumaris, so to compensate and make us more useful, we’re outfitted with ling-cons that tap directly into the portion of the brain that interprets speech. The devices can translate anything we hear in real time, making adjustments for dialectical differences and even names so that we can understand one another’s languages.” She gave another strange, cautious smile as she drew her hand back. “I-I, um, I’m sorry if that’s strange to hear. But at least we can talk to each other, right?”

I swallowed hard. “Is it safe? To have something like that in our heads?”

She gave a wide-eyed, puzzled stare and shrugged her bony, frail-looking shoulders. “I don’t know for sure. I’ve never been that good with medical stuff. But based on what I’ve read, you’ll have headaches for a little while your cerebral system adjusts, but then you’ll probably be fine.”

“Probably?”

“Well, um, there … there’s a slight chance you’ll die of a massive aneurism.”

Great. Just freaking perfect.

“Oh! I-I’m sure you won’t, though! It’s probably fine! Like I said, medical things aren’t my specialty,” she fretted.

I sank back against the glass wall behind me again, my fingers still tracing that puckered mark right at the hairline at the base of my skull. Poking at it made a dull ache ripple over my brain. What else had they done to me that I didn’t know about?

“But, you should know, they can use our ling-cons to track us, too. Each one is paired with a unique signifier. So running from them or trying to escape is … sort of pointless.”

Running. That word struck a chord in my frazzled, alien-modified brain. I straightened a little, letting my thoughts race. Memories danced amidst the throbbing pain, blurred images of a road. The sun warm against my back and shoulders. My feet flying over the pavement, legs pumping and lungs burning. Every movement precise. Honed. Not panicked or desperate. I was in control, monitoring the movement of every muscle as my ponytail swished against my back.

Running like that felt natural. It felt good.

It felt like freedom.

In an instant, the image was gone. A confused, swirling darkness took its place. I couldn’t remember what had happened—how I’d gotten here. Where was Mom? Did she know I’d been taken? Had she been taken, too? More and more questions whirled through my pounding, aching brain like leaves whipped in a windstorm. Why couldn’t I remember anything? Some things stood out, like Mom. I remembered her. I knew my name. I knew I was eighteen. I’d been working lots of hours at a restaurant, saving up for something. But the rest?

It was gone. Lost in the tangle.

Tears welled in my eyes before I could stop them. I crossed my arms, letting my elbows rest on my knees so I could put my head down. I didn’t want Enola or anyone else to see me lose it. My expression skewed and I mashed my mouth tightly, holding in the sobs.

Why had these aliens chosen to take me? I wasn’t anyone special. At least not that I could remember. What was going to happen now? Would I ever get to see home again?

Home …

I tried to focus on that one idea, centering all my concentration on remembering where home actually was. My heart pounded and a cold sweat pearled on my skin as a single image surfaced in my mind’s eye: a little blue house with two ancient live oak trees bent over it like giant guardians. Spanish moss draped from the low branches like brownish living curtains, and strings of colored glass wind chimes sparkled from the front porch. There was an old red Ford F150 parked out front in the gravel driveway. That truck was mine. And the tiny blue car parked next to it was Mom’s. We lived together. It was just the two of us. No—wait. The hugely fat white tomcat snoozing in one of the window boxes, mashing all Mom’s freshly planted pansies with his giant butt, was Sir Marshius the Mallow. Our cat.

And then it was gone.

The memory burst like a bubble, dissolving into nothing as the haze rolled back over my mind, choking out everything except a chilling numbness. I shut my eyes tightly and tried to will it back. But it was lost.

And so was I.

“I-I can’t remember anything,” I admitted, my voice cracking as I swallowed back sobs. “Did they do something to my memory?”

Enola’s voice came gently as she held my gaze, blinking owlishly. “It’s probably just a side effect from placing the ling-con. It’ll probably resolve itself. Give it some time. It’ll probably come back. Your brain has been through a lot.”

Yeah. No kidding.

Without warning, all the small glass cells around me began to shift. They twisted silently into fluid motion, rippling like cubes along