The Oddities of Grand Marquis - Book 3: Elegant Armageddon 🪼✔️

Second

KOLE

I never thought I'd see him again and yet here he is right in front of me.

I didn't think he'd wake up before we got back to Earth and yet, again, he's right in front of me.

What am I supposed to say? How am I supposed to act? All I can do is stare at him as he stares at me with judgmental hazel eyes as he hangs onto Mars. I dropped my Twizzlers, trying to get away from him.

"Hi." He said, his voice sounding so real and firm and... disappointed.

It was that same feeling when you've done something and your parents are neither mad nor upset just... disappointed. It's an unnerving feeling of failure and confusion all rolled into one. You don't know if you should be begging them to say something or leave it alone; a nagging feeling of incompletion.

"Hi..." I eventually eeked out.

"If you're going to sleep in there then I would change the sheets. "Whatever Max was kept in smells like the inside of a constipated colon as well as his own BO. So..." he said, starting to take Max most likely to the showers.

If he was having such a hard time walking then maybe Max wanted the bed back? I mean, I didn't really want to piss him off. I'm not even sure if what happened to me was something the aliens did in my head or changed themselves to do to me, but there's a possibility that they may have tapped into Max's mind or something... I just got back to semi-normal... I didn't want to have to go through anything else.

"N-no... I'm good. Um... he can sleep in it if he wants..."

"You never change." Dawaen said with a roll of his eyes as he spun back around, putting his back to us.

Max asked a question but I was starting to feel sick and left to go to go to the room and try to calm down. I went into the room and then put my back against the door, breathing heavy and trying to gain composure. I thought for sure that Max would stay asleep at least a couple more days before I would have to see or talk to him. This was a disaster! I couldn't avoid him forever!

I started hyperventilating and I walked towards the small table in the middle of the room and leaned on it, trying to catch my breath. I gripped the sides and just stared at the table top, my eyes seeming to stay perpetually wide in shock? I guess? I'm not sure...

The door opened but I ignored it.

"You can't avoid him, Kole."

It was Mars, of course. I swallowed hard and stood up straight, turning to him. He watched me with an almost disgusted look and I really couldn't blame him. I know what I am, what I've always been. I've always been a coward and a weakling. My biggest strength was somehow befriending the strong ones but in that, I became lesser than myself. I was a lacky, a weasel, a bitch, a patsy, whatever you want to call me. I would do anything -anything- to keep from getting hurt. I would grovel and betray and do all the dirty little things people were too chicken to do if it would gain me immunity. Mars knew it as soon as I tried being friends with him after I saw him beat the hell out of these guys one time. I knew that I had to be on his good side and I thought that I could charm my way to doing that, but Marsden Holt was a completely different type of person. He could smell me a mile away, like I had rolled in shit and tried to say it was dirt, and so, I went after the next best thing: Max.

Max was lonely, introverted, and kept to himself but Mars was his best friend. I had watched them, trying to figure out what it was that made Mars want to be his friend, why Max Taylor was granted the immunity and protection that I so desperately desired... I had to be Max's friend in order to be Mars' friend... and Mars knew it. He knew that my friendship started shallow with Max and that's how it ended with Max. He was getting off on my pain like the fucking sadist he was.