Falling Skies Invasion Alone

Too Trusting

"So, you were one of those kids?" I looked at him as kindly as I could, hiding fear.

"Yeah. I was away for months, longer than a lot of the other kids were with them." His voice was hard, almost emotionless, as if he didn't really like talking about it, but he wanted me to know.

"And the harness, it just came off?"

"They don't pull it off anymore, it was killing them- us. They cut it out. Cut the spikes that have grown into us." At that, he shrugged off us jacket. The collar of the jacket had hidden the three metal looking spikes which were implanted into the back of his neck in a perfectly straight line heading down his spine.

My lips parted and a deep breath came out of me, in shock but not fear. "Holy shit."

A small half-laugh came from Ben as I looked at him.

"Sorry." I said quickly so he didn't think I was being awful. "Are they sore?"

"Not now." He shook his head and pulled his jacket back on to hide them before I could get a closer look. I could understand, he hid his scars, I definitely hid mine. "I just wanted to tell you, before someone like Pope said something and made me seem like a monster."

"I think that you're the least monstrous person I've ever met." I told him. I then thought about how I had ended up in the camp with them and then stood up from the camp bed. "Possibly slightly too trusting, but definitely not monstrous."

"Too trusting?" Ben raised an eyebrow, watching me, scanning my face; my eyes and lips.

"Well, you invite a practical stranger into your camp and agree to be alone with them. I could be a serial killer." I stood in front of him with my hands in my pocket.

He thought for a moment before saying, "I mean, it's possible, but what are the chances of both of being serial killers?"

I just rolled my eyes and laughed softly. "Come on, serial killer, take me to the medical bit. I guess it's time to start working."

I shoved my backpack under Maggie's bed and followed Ben out. He was quite tall, maybe not quite six foot but he was near it. He was also very broad shouldered and lean, giving him the impression of being bigger. But maybe he hadn't finished growing, I didn't even know how old he was.

"How old are you?" I looked up at him.

"I'm only fifteen." He said, almost sheepishly. Well it made sense seeing as Hal was younger than I was but was Ben's older brother.

"You don't seem it." I pursed my lips. "I guess ages don't really matter nowadays."

He pepped up at that. "So remind me again why you won't take a bed?"

It would sound so stupid when I said it out loud. Even in my head it sounded stupid. "It's nothing, I just don't want to take from someone else."

"You wouldn't be. We could probably-"

"I really just don't want to sleep in a bed. On my own. Right now." I stretched my fingers out and retracted them repeatedly as I spoke, something I did in stress.

He took it as a sign to shut up but when I looked up at his face, it made me feel like I had just kicked a puppy.

"Okay. This sounds totally stupid, so don't make fun of me for it because I know that it's ridiculous." I ran my tongue over my teeth. "I haven't slept in a bed, on my own, since before the invasion. It was just always safer for me and the two kids to share a bed." My mind flashed back to scenes of the three of us curled up in the one bed; after breaking into abandoned houses, in converted barns, in hospitals left in disarray. "So I haven't slept in a bed since the kids have died."