Grounded (Grounded #1) by Heather Young-Nichols Page A

I’d kicked their asses. Yet the minute I had to tell a boy I liked something important, I could barely put a coherent sentence together.
    “Okay, well, I know you’re not pregnant.” He snorted at his joke. “So, out with it.”
    With one deep breath, I used all that air to spit it out. “I’m Gremalian, and so are you. We need you to come home to help save our people.”
    That’s when I finally looked at him. He didn’t believe me, or he didn’t understand, because I’d explained nothing and sounded psychotic. The entire sentence came out as one word.
    “Gremlin? Like Gizmo?” He cocked his head to the side and smirked.
    A nervous laugh came out, but I rolled my eyes. “No, those gremlins are the bastardization of our people. I’m not small and green, am I?”
    “You are pretty small,” he teased.
    “Jensen,” I sighed, “I’m serious.”
    My face pled with him to listen. He stood up to leave instead.
    “I can see that you think you are, but you’re also making no sense. I’ve got work to do. An old carburetor is calling my name.”
    Then he was gone.
    When I thought about this conversation beforehand, I was afraid he wouldn’t wait for an explanation. Gremlins, as he called us, did sound crazy if you grew up in the human world oblivious to anything out of the ordinary, but I also hadn’t planned on sounding like a moron when we talked. This one was on me. When I saw his motorcycle pass the front window, I had to act.
    Shit. I tore out of there like my pants were on fire and sped through town, trying to beat him back to the shop. I failed. His ten second head start was all he needed. So, instead of busting in there to haul Aric out, I loitered at the corner until I caught his eye and waved him over.
    “Some kind of lunch, I guess,” he called out before getting all the way into the parking lot. I shushed him with a finger over my mouth and gestured for him to hurry.
    “I told him.”
    “What?” Aric’s voice dropped the way it should have.
    “I told him. He didn’t believe me and he left. Of course, I really explained nothing, which I’m thinking was the wrong way to go.” Deflect with humor; that’s the Alyssum way.
    Pushing his shoulders back to stand tall, he said, “That explains his weirdness.”
    “What?” I pulled him by the arm to the other side of the building in the hopes Jensen wouldn’t see us. That would be the last thing I’d need at that point.
    “He’s been weird since he’s been back. Slamming drawers, cursing under his breath. Everyone’s kind of keeping their distance. They think he’s had a stroke or something because that’s not like him. I mean, me they expect it from. Not him.” He paused to look at me. I tried to envision a pissed off Aric tearing apart the garage. “Do you think he thinks he got stuck with the crazy chick?”
    “Probably,” I muttered. “What do we do?”
    I still couldn’t believe I was asking a Gobel for advice. My father would roll over in his grave and he wasn’t even dead yet.
    “Okay, I’m supposed to go to his dad’s with him to watch the baseball game—”
    “I never understood the appeal of that game.”
    “Not really the point here, Alyssum. It starts at seven. We’ll have to lay it all out for him.”
    I agreed. In the weeks I’d known Aric, he became one of the most trusted people in my life. Jensen too, of course. I trusted both of them more than my own parents. It didn’t help that I thought my parents would feed me to wolves if it suited our people. Our people came first. I came last.
    Aric went back to work, pretending he knew nothing, and I went around the other side to sneak back to my car two blocks away. Just as I passed the entrance, his dad caught me. I turned with a smile. After a nice, short conversation that left me believing Jensen told him we were officially together and he was happy about it, I went on my way.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Ten
     
     
    It had gotten harder and