He Comes in Peace

Words left Skye's mouth as they landed safely in the tree opposite the pine she had just fallen from. The boy thudded directly into the tree, and Skye almost laughed when pine needles showered down onto the ground. She would have been giggling if the air hadn't escaped completely from her lungs.

The boy laid her down on the thick, gnarled branch of the new pine tree, pushing gently on her shoulders so her back rested against the trunk. He looked down at her, studying her face with his creepy green LED eyes.

The spikes on his back started to retract a little, and Skye watched them sink partially into his skin. He looked like he lived in the wild, or at least lived in a forest. The boy was only half-clothed, and his pants seemed very tattered.

He reached out with his hand and carefully touched her elbow, flinching back when she did.

A crash came from the perimeter of the forest, the side they were closer to. The police must have circled around and met them on the other side.

From their spot in the tree, Skye couldn't see a thing.

The solid, hard fins on her captor, or possibly her savior's back shot fully out again, and his eyes were torn away from Skye's face, and were now on full alert. He became very still, and watched the lower, rustling branches of the trees growing a stone's throw away. The way he was positioned made Skye think about a hunting dog ready to shoot off towards a fox.

Without warning, his arms were around Skye again, and he slung her across his shoulders, yet again. This time he moved gentler, scaling up just one tree until they reached the top branches again.

Once they were to a certain point where the branches weren't collapsible, he laid her down again, and propped her up against the tree trunk, again.

He glanced down at the forest ground; no policemen yet. He turned back to Skye and unzipped her jacket.

"Whoa!" Skye scrambled away from him and almost fell off the tree.

Whatever this boy was, he seemed to be very up-to-date about being a typical teenager and everything, because he rolled his eyes. Skye wondered whether he could speak or not; he certainly could growl.

The boy reached out and tapped her elbow.

"Oh."

Skye hesitantly took off her jacket, immediately shivering. She let the boy examine her skin. She twisted her arm around at his request, but she definitely wouldn't have done it if she had known he was going to go and place his mouth over her elbow.

She started to jerk her arm back when he gripped her shoulder tightly. Skye got the message and stayed still. She could feel his tongue brush over her bloody skin, and she shivered.

He took his mouth away after a moment and let Skye examine her elbow. It felt cool and fuzzy and tingly all over. And the scratch wasn't there anymore.

She was just about to look up into his eyes in utter bamboozlement when he ducked back down and cured her other elbow.

By the time he was done, the police had arrived already.

Sweeping his eyes over her one last time, he shoved the jacket into her arms before letting her climb onto his back once more. He waited stealthily, silently, until the police had traveled far enough away from their tree.

Skye's legs were starting to cramp, and just when she was going to climb off his back to stretch her legs a bit, the boy jumped down about five feet, landing rather elegantly on a thicker branch.

She clung onto his neck, locking her hands together while he basically gave her a piggy-back ride all the way down onto the forest floor. The police had their back turned to them, and they made it to the ground without having bullets fired their way.

The boy set Skye down softly in the grass, and Skye gasped.

They were near the lake, and her house was just a few minute's walk away from here; of course, she did not have any aspirin or kibble, but she was safe.

"Thank you," she whispered to him, locking eyes with the boy for a second before he looked away, the spikes sinking slightly back into his skin again. His ears flicked a bit and after gazing down at her for a few more seconds, he darted off into the forest again.

Skye felt a sudden whoosh of emptiness, as if the boy, just by spending about fifteen minutes with her, already had a place in her heart, as dorky as that sounded.

"Oh, this is poo. He did save my life," she mumbled, getting up, brushing herself off, and heading towards the little path to her lake house.