Free Starseed by Liz Gruder

light when they were being chased by predators. Still, the charge from Jordyn’s touch exhilarated her.
    “Hey,” Kaila said. “Next week is my birthday. I’m having a party. So, I invite you all to come. You can ride horses. Eat barbecue. What do you say?”
    The hive stepped into one line as a military formation. Six pairs of eyes fixed on her. They said nothing.
    “We need to try and get along,” Kaila coached. “Though we are different, we need to live in peace with each other.”
    Lucius snorted.
    Viktor smirked as if Kaila were the ultimate saccharine chump. He leered at her like a lion from his lair.
    “We will come,” Jordyn said. “Thank you for inviting us.”
    Toby licked his small mouth and asked, “Will your other friends be there?” He looked at Melissa.
    “Everyone is welcome,” Kaila said. She turned to Melissa and Pia. “Of course you’re invited!”
    “Thank you,” said Echidna.
    “Thank you,” said Antonia.
    “Thank you!” cried Toby.
    Lucius and Viktor said nothing, both looking at Kaila like she was a juicy grasshopper whose blood they’d love to suck, leaving nothing but a withered carcass.
    The bell rang. Time for advanced physics.

Chapter 5
    K aila was pushed through the doorway with the crowd. Again, the shouts of “Three! Three! Three!” as the students taunted Albert Jackson for eating three lunches.
    “Hey,” Melissa called. “You want to come over tonight—you, me, and Pia?”
    “Sure,” Kaila said, adjusting her wig.
    “We gotta talk about all this,” Melissa said.
    Kaila nodded, then saw Douglas Lafarge, the guy with oily curly hair freshly emerged from the dumpster trudging down the hall in his baggy pants.
    And she saw Phyllis Joiner, the girl with stringy hair and bulging eyes from . . . a thyroid problem? The one whose father had left her with the alcoholic mother . . . the one who had a crush on Derek Mendoza. Kaila wondered how this information came to her, but she knew it was true.
    Wade hovered behind Phyllis and shouted, “Hey bug eyes! When you gonna wash that hair? When you gonna stuff that bra?”
    He slapped hands with Derek as they guffawed. “Why’re your eyes bugging out? See a big one you like?”
    Kaila realized how intensely this must hurt with Derek being Phyllis’s crush. Phyllis scurried away, head bowed.
    Dark horses trampled through Kaila’s mind as she hurried out the door to the back field to advanced physics. These people were so cruel! Yet this morning Priscilla Snowden had taken a protective stance. Who was Priscilla, really? Kaila determined to find out.
    As Kaila walked through the maze of modular units, she saw Jordyn standing near the back of the physics mod.
    Calm the wild horses in your mind .
    And she calmed. She stepped through the grass, hearing the exhaust from the air conditioning unit above them, outside the mod.
    “I feel like I’m going crazy,” said Kaila. “Everything is happening so fast.”
    “Third dimension existence is always hard,” Jordyn replied.
    “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “You’re coming awake more every hour.”
    She was acutely aware of his presence. He felt like gravity, tugging her; she moved closer to be near him.
    “Tell me,” Kaila said. “Am I crazy or did you visit me last night in my dreams?”
    “You know,” Jordyn said. “But you have to come to the answers yourself.”
    “And what was that design in the grasses at my house?”
    He drew her to him. He bent his head close to hers. “Like the goddess Aphrodite. You look so beautiful,” he said. “And no matter what the others say, I like your new coverings. I think they’re . . . sexy.”
    She smiled, softening like warm pudding. She felt his arms, his chest, his warm breath. Her heart fluttered like a bird beating its wings in a cage.
    As quickly, Jordyn pushed her away. He rubbed his temples. “I can’t believe I just said that.”
    He stood straight as a soldier. Kaila could actually feel his energy