Part 4 (1/2)

”Yes,” I said. ”Perfectly.”

”And you can break down my barriers.”

”Yes,” I admitted, though that was no secret.

”The members of the Commune won't be offended if you read them, however I recommend getting to know them before you do so in depth. Their all pretty open and honest, but you're new-”

I stopped him. ”I know. They don't know me, and I don't know them. I'll respect them. As long as they respect me.”

”They will.”

”I mean no questions,” I said firmly.

He glanced over at me then returned his attention to the road again. ”What are you afraid they'll find?”

”I'm not afraid of what they'll find,” I said, ”but about who will find me.”

”Chris,” he said.

”Don't call me that.”

”Christiana,” he corrected. ”You spent three years in a coma. A coma during which your only visitor was myself. If anyone was going to come and find you, they would have done so. They knew where you were. They left you alone. They probably thought you were as good as dead.”

Philip was right, and I knew it. If they, meaning the gov and Holt's operatives, the inevitable Men in Black, wanted me, they could have me. I probably was as good as dead. I probably should have died on impact. However, being me, I survived. I was left for dead on the side of the road, left for dead in a hospital room, and I was left alone for over three years. n.o.body now knew where I was going.

While these thoughts ran through my head, the logic of it all became clear. A comatose healer was useless. A comatose mind reader was useless. The most they could do was open up my head and see what dwelled inside, but that wouldn't tell them how it worked. Michael Daniels was pretty protective of me. Very few people were able to enter my room without his permission. He guarded me well without ever really guarding me. I began to feel somewhat safe. For the very first time in my life, I felt safe.

Chapter Eight.

I put my head against the window and closed my eyes as we drove on through the desert. My head still ached but the pain was subsiding gradually. I felt the desert breeze brus.h.i.+ng through my hair, blowing through the partially open window. There was the smell of water on the wind, and I smelled the freshness of the desert. I have a highly sensitive nose, so much so I could smell the dirt if I tried hard enough.

I opened my eyes when I felt the car leave the asphalt and hit gravel. A street sign flashed by and Cima Road would be forever engraved upon my mind. I watched as we drove down a long, empty stretch of dirt road. The world pa.s.sed by, and the highway disappeared as we rounded a corner and went behind some large hills. We drove at least ten miles off the highway, a trip that took about an hour, avoiding many a pothole, before the house began to loom up ahead. We crested a hill, and there it was, the Commune, sitting off to the side of the poor excuse for a road. What else could it be in the vast emptiness of the desert?

Fas.h.i.+oned after many an old farmhouse, there was a wrap-around porch with carved railings and posts. A small garden growing off to one side had what looked like tomatoes and herbs sprouting in it, though I could not fathom how anyone got those things to grow in a desert. The door and porch railings were painted a clean white while the rest of the place was cream-colored stucco. The color of the stucco was just such it made the building kind of blended into the desert beyond.

I loved it from the first moment I saw it.

Two cars sat parked outside the building; a beat up Mazda four-door and a white pickup truck. The truck's hood was up and someone was messing about beneath it. Philip pulled his bug up beside the truck and put it in park.

”That would be Jonas,” he said, nodding his head towards the man beneath the truck's hood.

He got out first, and I found myself hesitating, as I remembered Philip's description of Jonas. Philip appeared in my line of sight and opened the door. I took his offered hand and got out of the car. Philip went around the front to get my one and only bag from the trunk, which is actually at the front of the car, if you don't know Beetles. The man under the hood of the truck straightened as Philip said h.e.l.lo to him.

Philip gestured to me, and I went to his side for my first introduction. ”Jonas, this is Christiana.”

Jonas looked exactly as Philip described him. He held out a hand to me that I took tentatively. His fingernails were pointed, yet he shook my hand gently, well aware of his nails. When he took back his hand, he reached into his back pocket and produced a red cloth, which he handed to me. I looked down at my hands to see a streak of black oil on the back of the right one then took the cloth.

”Sorry,” Jonas said, taking back his towel so he could wipe his own hands. Then he tucked the cloth back into his pocket. ”We're all really glad you could come and join us out here in the middle of nowhere.”

I smiled at his joking tone of voice.

Jonas was five foot eight, about two hundred and some pounds of muscle and looked down at me with the most beautiful amber colored eyes I'd ever seen (and I'll go on and on about those eyes, I'm sure, so be ready for it). It was like looking into two pools of molten lava, white hot and yellow. Yet his eyes were gentle and kind, unlike his teeth, which were filed down to points just like his fingernails. When he smiled, I took a step back.

”Don't worry,” he said, ”I don't bite. Now Philip however....”

Philip only rolled his eyes when I looked his way.

Back to Jonas. His skin was covered in small, soft scales. I felt them when I shook his hand. It felt, to me, like the underbelly of a lizard. Scales covered his entire body, from head to toe. He had no hair anywhere, except for a layer of peach fuzz on top of his head. No eyebrows to speak of, but the ridges above his eyes were more prominent. I'd seen people like him on television, people who altered themselves to look this way. Jonas was real in every sense of the word, a human lizard, and I liked him right away.

”Where is everyone?” Philip asked, shaking me out of the daze I entered upon examining Jonas.

”Inside,” the lizard man said. ”Alendra, anyway. The twins are in the shed. Everyone else is out. Except me, of course.”

Philip rolled his eyes once more. ”Would you mind showing Christiana to her room?”

”Sure thing,” Jonas said. ”Come on, Chris.”

When he held out his hand to me, I only said, ”Don't call me Chris,” through my teeth. I didn't take his hand, but he grinned and motioned for me to follow.

”Phil, Allie's in the kitchen,” he told Philip, and I suddenly knew I probably couldn't keep this guy from calling me Chris if his life suddenly depended upon it. Not that it would, but still....

I followed Jonas inside the house, Philip walking behind us. He pushed past Jonas as Jonas stopped in the living room and the so-called vampire headed for the kitchen, leaving me alone with the lizard man.

”This way,” Jonas said, moving off down the hallway.

I took a quick look around the living room before trotting to catch him. The living room was typical and quaint. It had an *L' shaped sofa wrapping half way around the small room. There was a coffee table made of faded, dark wood with coasters stacked on it. I took notice of the water rings on the coffee table before turning back around to the task at hand, which was finding my bedroom. What did they need coasters for if they didn't use them?

”We all have our own rooms,” Jonas was saying. ”Not that anyone would mind sharing, but there aren't many of us here right now. Phil says you're a mind reader, and a good one at that.”

”Yes,” I said as I glanced in open doors and wondered about closed ones.

When Jonas stopped before the last door on the right, I nearly collided with him as I looked at a picture on the wall of Sir Frederic Leighton's ”Flaming June.” I'd always liked that painting, and it caught my eye and nearly caused me to crash into the huge man before me.

”Sorry,” I said quickly as I skidded to a stop.

Jonas only smiled, not showing his teeth. ”This one's yours.” He opened the door and stepped aside to let me in.

The room was simple. There was a bed with light blue linens. The nightstand was mahogany, and there was a chest of drawers to match. The closet doors stood open, and I saw clothes hanging inside.

I instantly dropped my bag and went to the closet. I am a girl, after all. I rifled through the clothing, surprised to discover s.h.i.+rts and jeans of all the right sizes. ”How'd you guys guess my size?”