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

47. Fairytales Come Crashing Down

Consciousness returned with shredded nerves and burning pain. Bo hacked back from the blackness, feeling as if her lungs were turned inside out and rolled around in the dust fields for a few days. Her eyes came open to blinding light, but as she slowly adjusted she saw the wide expanse of the orange sky directly above her. For a moment, she thought she must have fallen off her hopper while she was on patrol, but then a corner of a tree branch swayed in the breeze at the edge of her vision. Not just any tree branch, but one with green leaves that contrasted sharply with the orange sky.

Her memory of the destruction rushed back on her all at once. Adam's home!

Bo jerked upward, but stopped when her legs protested in waves of pain. She collapsed to her back again, and her face crumpled as she rode out the pain.

When her mind finally cleared again, she stared up at the burnt sky. It was impossible. How was the sky orange here? It should be startlingly blue. Panic fizzed in her chest, and she forced herself up as best as she could. Propped on her elbows, Bo surveyed her surroundings.

A few feet away, she saw the sparking remains of a Service-Maton under a hunk of the mansion wall. She realized with a jolt that it was Madame, and she bit back on a lump that formed in her throat at the sight. Quickly, she moved her eyes away and onto something else. Namely, the state she was in herself.

She was gray and red, covered in the dust of bricks. The entire front of the house lay in piles on the lawn, revealing the interior just as dusty and ruined as everything else. Bo choked at the sight of more mangled Service-Matons, spotting Fil and Dent amongst them. The home and its denizens were all in ruins, and now Bo felt a numbness in her lower body that signaled to her that she was also damaged.

The last thing she remembered before she blacked out was the sight of the falling chunk of wall, and now she saw where it had landed. From the knees down she was completely buried in heavy brick and stone. She wasn't even sure she could feel her feet, which should have caused her more panic than it did. She tried to pull herself free, but the wall was too heavy. It crushed her fingers when she tried to shove them under the lip, so she gave up and instead frantically looked around for Adam. She couldn't spot him at first, and before she had much time to look closer, she heard something on the wind-- something that was as impossible as an orange sky in Adam's world. Her dad's voice.

"Bo!"

Bo struggled to her elbows. "Dad?" she yelled. He was still far away, his voice faint, so she kept yelling his name to help him find her position. And then he was there.

He hobbled into view, leaning heavily on a walking stick. His face was pale and drawn, but when he saw Bo his eyes brightened and he dropped the walking stick to run as fast as his failing strength would allow to her side. On his knees, he grabbed her head and cushioned it on his lap as he laughed and cried at the same time.

"Oh, you're alive," he breathed, kissing her forehead and wiping the tears that leaked from her own eyes.

"Dad," Bo sobbed, gripping his arm with shaking hands.

"You're all right now, darling." He patted her cheek, but frowned when his hand came away red. He pulled a bandana from his dusty pocket and pressed it against her temple, though she couldn't even feel the gash that must be there.

"How is this possible?" she asked, staring at her father's face as he tried to clean her face and not look at the heavy wall pinning her legs to the ground.

"Aston had a plan to find you. I didn't know about it until just an hour ago when he—" Dad trailed off as his eyes settled on something on the other side of Bo.

"What?" She turned and followed his gaze.

Adam.

He was mostly buried in the bricks, which is why she couldn't find him before. He was so much worse than she. The wall landed on him up to his chest, surely making it almost impossible to breathe. A gash on his forehead spilled blood down the side of his face and over one of his closed eyes. What made Bo's breath catch and sent a stab of pain through her stomach, was the way his skin bleached to a color almost human. It looked sickly on him, dead. The illumination was gone, leaving him dull and colorless. Bo choked and tried to pull herself toward him, reaching out for his arm just a few feet away from her own.

Her fingers grazed his skin. Ice cold. She whimpered. "Don't be dead, don't be dead." She repeated it as if he might somehow hear, though he didn't even stir as she shook his arm.

Her dad shifted, placing her head gently on the ground as he stood. She rolled to look up at him, try to plead with him to help her push the wall off. If they could only free Adam she was certain she could fix him. How many times had she fixed a machine beyond repair back at the camp? How many times had she pulled someone from the brink of death after an animal attack or a hopper crash? Now was no different. They only had to get him free...

Against the glare of the orange sky and the green leaves, she looked back up into not her father's face, but Aston's. He wore a rifle over one shoulder, a militia jacket, and rage across every feature. "What is this?" he snarled, his eyes snagging on Bo's shaking grip on Adam's arm.

"Please help me get him out," she said, looking from Aston to her dad and back again. Both of them only stared at her in silence. Dad's expression confused, Aston's looking only too clear.

"I'm not helping that thing." Aston raised his gun, leveling it at Adam.

"No!" Bo lurched up, fighting to free her legs.

Dad crouched back to her side, pushing on her chest to force her to lay back down. He cut his glance up to Aston, shaking his head. "Put it down, Aston," he said.

"The alien needs to die."

"Aston, don't!" Bo said, panic lacing her words. "He's not going to hurt anyone. He's been left behind by his people and he only wants a life like all of ours."

Aston snorted. "He can't have our lives. He already took too many by force. He's an alien, and that's all I need to know to kill him."

"He's not just an alien," Bo protested through gritted teeth. She hated that she had to use Adam's heritage to somehow justify his life, but she knew it would be the only way Aston could understand. Could maybe feel mercy.

"He looks an awful lot like an alien to me," Aston replied. "Especially since this just happens to be the place where an alien kidnapped not only you, but also your dad."

"He's part human, Aston. He's one of us."

Disgust played over Aston's features. He pressed the gun tighter to his shoulder. "A hybrid? That kind of abomination should never have existed. Part isn't whole." His finger twitched, touching the trigger.

She had to act quick. Grappling in the dust around her, Bo's hand landed on a loose brick. The rough edges cut into her palm as she clutched it and propped herself back onto her elbows. Twisting, she hauled back her arm and threw the brick as hard as she could right as Aston squeezed the trigger.