This Alien Soul

Chapter 42

Alek
I didn't have to pull up the hallway image to know who the timid knock on the other side of my pod door belonged to. Clearly, neither did Zeena as she rolled to her stomach on my bed and moaned her irritation into my pillow.

"Maybe if we're quiet she'll give up." I whispered from my spot at the table, as the knock came again when I made no move to answer it. I just didn't have the energy to tip toe around Sozas feelings today.

"You're horrible." Zeena reprimanded me.

"What? You don't want to have her around any more than I do. And you're not the one she hides behind every day." If I thought Soza would adapt quickly as most Zionians did to new environments, I had been completely off the mark. If anything she was becoming more introverted and afraid.

"At least she serves one purpose. She keeps the human away." Zeena stood to answer the door when it became apparent I wouldn't.

"Seriously." I snarled at her. For two reasons. One being that she had let the pain in my ass in. Two, was that now I was thinking about Amber again. Not that she was ever far from my mind.

Correction, she was all that I thought about.

I'd been living in hell for the last few weeks. Being close enough to touch her, smell her scent in the air but unable to do anything about it. Not able to take away the hurt and betrayal in her eyes. A look that I had caused.

"Hey Alek." The softly spoken words managed to raise my hackles. I thanked God once again he hadn't seen fit to pair me with someone so weak.

"Hello to you too." Zeena sneered, when Soza walked right past her without even a look.

"Hi." Soza meekly replied, skirting around the room to were I sat.

"Well, I'm out of here. Find me later Alek." Zeena was quick to leave the other girls presence.

Not about to be stuck alone with Soza, I stood to leave. "Sorry, but I was just heading out."

"Oh, can I come with you?" When alone with me, she had no problem with speaking up. "I never get to spend time with you."

That would be mostly because outside of school I avoided her like the plague. But maybe this was best. I needed to have a conversation with her and it was best if it wasn't done here, where there was too big a chance for listening ears.

"Fine, but I'm going off the compound." I warned her, knowing more than likely she would shy away from any sort of adventure.

Surprisingly she seemed to steel her spine after a moment of hesitation. "Lead the way."

I had planned on going to my beach. To spend the day thinking about my time with Amber and secretly hoping that maybe she would show up. But that wasn't a place I was willing to share with Soza. So instead I turned down an earlier path.

As we dodged fallen limbs and plants that had grown into the path, due to it being so infrequently used, Soza followed in quiet contemplation. That was one point in the girls favor at least. She may be clingy as hell but she didn't talk my ear off. It was like having a mute shadow.

"Where exactly does this lead?" She asked after a while, some of her natural nervousness resurfacing. I wondered if she was considering the possibility that I was taking her out to the middle of nowhere to get rid of her for good. I flashed back to the last girl I lead to a spot deep in the woods, her confidence as she all but raced me up the hill, only faltering at my teasing about kidnapping her as my love slave.

"Alek?" Soza called my attention back to the present when I failed to answer her.

"It's not far." I responded after clearing my throat. We were almost at the end of the trail that lead out to a peninsula sticking out in the waterway. There was a small clearing with a downed tree that I had formed into a sitting area a couple years ago. As I stepped out, the water glistened and a breeze threatened to blow me over it was so powerful. It was perfect.