From the Stars Read online

  Contents

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  Beyond the Stars

  Also by C.S. Wilde

  Thanks for Reading

  Get Your FREE Book

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  FROM THE STARS

  * * *

  C. S. Wilde

  FROM THE STARS. Copyright © 2016 by C.S. Wilde.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  To Stephan, for being everything and beyond.

  1

  -James-

  I wake with a gasp. I’m strapped onto a chair, the metallic surface so cold it stings against my arms and legs. Metal cuffs strap down my wrists and ankles. Rattling clangs in my ears as I try to break free.

  A beacon of light shines from above, blinding me, and for a moment I wonder if I’m at a dentist appointment from hell.

  I look down at my white shirt and blue boxers, the clothes I wore to bed. I could swear just a moment ago I was sleeping peacefully under my comfortable sheets. Now the hairs on my arms stand on edge, adrenaline rushing through my veins.

  This is a nightmare. It has to be.

  There’s something sticky on my forehead, well, several sticky things, like tentacles sucking on my skin. They venture across my hair too, pulling strings as I assess what’s visible of the dark room. Not much, considering the light blinding me above.

  Am I having some sort of brain exam?

  “Hello? Where am I?” I say to the empty room, my eyes narrowing under the light.

  “The male is fearful.” The deep and hollow tone rings in my mind, not my ears. Like a lost memory or a thought.

  Someone shoves the light away, and then I’m staring up at Miriam, the most incredibly gorgeous creature ever created.

  She gives me her dazzling smile, the one that puts any supermodel to shame. Her sleek brown hair hangs in a low ponytail, and brown freckles lightly pepper her nose and cheeks. Her green eyes shine with something between curiosity and excitement.

  “Hi, James.” Her tone is calm, soothing, and my heart slows, which is a first. Every time I see Miriam Haworth back at the office, my heart races so hard, it might be trying to achieve the speed of sound. “I know this is odd,” she continues, “but you’re safe, I promise you. It’s just a dream.”

  My mind’s fuzzy, blurred, so this could definitely be a dream. It doesn’t feel like one, though. If anything, this is a nightmare.

  Except for Miriam, of course.

  I still remember the day I was called to set up her computer, six months ago, when she joined Weltman & Co.

  Miriam was waiting for me when the elevator door opened. She wore a black skirt and suit jacket, and beneath it she had a white T-shirt that featured Spock saying, “I’m a Vulcan, not a Vulcan’t.”

  It’s hard to explain how awesome that was to me.

  She shook my sweaty palm, her skin soft and perfect. I was used to the inevitable jittering stomach and cold sweat caused by the sighting of a pretty girl, but this? This was different.

  “Call me Mir,” she said with a dazzling smile. “Like your earlier space station.”

  I chuckled. “No one told me I owned it.”

  “Oh, my apologies. I meant the space station.”

  Beautiful and nicknamed after a space station? Right there and then, Miriam was the epitome of amazing, at least to me.

  I can’t explain why she captivates me so much. It’s something that just is, like boson particles or my dad’s talent for baking apple strudels.

  “Mir, what are we doing here?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at the pitch-black corner of the room where a dark figure stands almost imperceptible against the darkness. “Oh, wait, dreams don’t make sense, right?”

  She nods. “That’s quite correct.”

  A beep rings from somewhere, and then the rough, hollow voice says, “His state of infatuation for you is confirmed. Congratulations, Miri’et-eh, you have succeeded in acquiring a test subject.”

  She looks to the same dark corner and bows her head slightly. “Thank you.”

  “I still can’t understand why these filthy creatures fascinate you researchers so,” the voice continues, disgust in his tone. “They’re pathetic.”

  Before I can give him a snarky reply, Miriam glares metaphorical ice daggers at the dark spot. “You’re not supposed to understand. You’re a security officer.”

  He shrugs without moving, and it’s extremely odd, feeling a shrug in my head. “It makes no difference.”

  I wriggle against the restraints that strap me to the chair. “Hmm, can I just…” I shake my arms, the rattle of chains clanging at my sides.

  “Not a chance in all the—”

  Miriam clicks something on the chair, and the cuffs drop on the ground. Rubbing my free wrists, I’m about to thank her, when I feel a presence beside me accompanied by loud breathing akin to Darth Vader’s.

  I look up to a figure at least six feet tall, probably higher. He has a black helmet shaped like a squared heart, and his entire body is wrapped in a black bodysuit that mingles with the darkness of the room.

  He lifts his hand and I’m shoved toward the ceiling, a scream ripping through my throat. Right before I hit the hard surface, I brace myself for impact.

  Only nothing happens.

  I open one eye to see I’m hanging in midair. Floating. “What the fuck!”

  “He’s broken protocol.” The figure’s voice booms in my mind. “He must be eliminated!”

  Below, Miriam faces off with the mysterious creature who’s at least three times her size, my empty chair the only thing between them. Some wires similar to those of EEG machines dangle from where my head was, so I was definitely having some sort of brain exam.

  “He simply wished to be released,” she says. “James Bauman is my test subject. You cannot hurt him.”

  “You shouldn’t have—”

  Miriam raises and lowers her arm, and the dark figure slams brutally against the ground as some invisible force smashes against him. “Threaten my test subject again, and I will report you. Do you understand?”

  He growls something akin to a bark, but Miriam ignores him. She looks up at me and twists her fingers. Slowly, softly, I land back on the chair.

  “Mir, what’s going on?” My breaths ring in my ears, chest heaving up and down.

  The black figure stands up wearily and crosses his arms. I wait for an attack, but he doesn’t move toward me. Instead, he keeps a safe distance.

  “Who or what the fuck is this thing?” I ask her.

  “A dream, James,” she says, her hair slightly disheveled. “It’s all a dream.”

  “But he was going to kill me.”

  “No.” She cups my cheek and my vision becomes blurry, my mind dizzy. “I’ll never let anyone hurt you.”

  I blink at her, my eyelids heavy. “You know, the guy’s supposed to do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Protect the damsel in distress.” The words come out drowsy
, drawled.

  She smiles. “You should sleep.”

  I try to fight the invisible power that presses over my thoughts, forcing sleep on me. “Mir, I… why am I your test subject?”

  She opens her perfect, kissable lips to reply, but before she does, I drift into unconsciousness.

  2

  -James-

  The alarm clock jolts me awake, and I glare around my empty room, sweat beading on my forehead. I take a deep breath, clutching my gray sheets.

  “It was a dream,” I mutter. “Just a dream.”

  The white alarm on my bedside table keeps ringing until I slam a hand over it. Then I take a nice, long shower—my entire body was sticky with cold sweat—and get ready for work.

  I choose a sleek blue shirt that matches my eyes and pair it with dark-gray pants. Next is my hair. It’s a shaggy mess, too curly and too wild to tame, but I kind of like it. It supports itself with zero chemical help and only occasional curls fall over my forehead. I thought about shaving it when I was younger, but Mom told me to keep my ’do because you never know when baldness might strike. Old fashioned Bauman humor through and through. Never shaved my hair, though.

  I take the train and, soon enough, arrive at the office.

  The IT department sits somewhere between Hell and the building’s garage—a pokey little hole with no windows. A hole I share with Charlie, my colleague who resembles a Grass Head—he says I’m a brown-haired version of Carrot Top, so we’re even.

  He nods to me an absent good morning, then says, “Seeing Miriam, today?”

  A violent blush rises to my cheeks. “How do you—”

  “Dude, you look way too sleek for an IT guy. Plus, everyone knows you’ve got it bad for that girl.”

  I flop onto my chair and turn on my PC, hoping he’ll drop the subject.

  “I can understand.” Charlie lifts a finger. “One, she’s super-hot, and two,” he raises another finger, “she listens to your senseless babbling. I say marry her.”

  I snort. Marry her. Yeah, right. As if Miriam would ever want that.

  After she joined Weltman & Co., Miriam quickly became my friend—don’t ask me how. Pretty, unobtainable girls like her usually run away from nerdy guys as if we have leprosy, but Miriam broke the trend. And this is exactly why she’ll never know how I feel about her.

  I’m fully aware of what happens when a guy like me reveals his feelings to a girl like Miriam—I’ve got twenty-four years of experience with that. He hears the usual, “Oh, but we’re such great friends,” or “You’re like a brother to me,” and then she never talks to him again.

  Nope, thank you very much. Platonic works fine for me.

  “I had a weird dream about her last night,” I say as I begin scrolling through my to-do list.

  Charlie types furiously on his keyboard and then hits enter. “Do tell. Was she a sexy Amazon trying to have her way with you?”

  “Dude, no.” I begin typing an email. “She was examining me, I think. And there was this weird, huge guy all clad in black who breathed like Darth Vader.”

  Charlie frowns at me. “Did you watch Star Wars again, you traitor?”

  “Hey, Trek or Wars, both franchises have their merit.” I give him a shrug. “You’re right, probably too much TV.”

  “About the examination part of the dream.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me. “Was it a naked examination?”

  I grab a company-gifted stress ball and toss it at him. “Shut up.”

  Turning back to my computer, I see I have one hundred and fifteen e-mails. Fuck. I’m swamped.

  The morning goes by in the blink of an eye, a profusion of endless emails, network checking, and system configurations. I then proceed to visit three different desks with employees complaining about problems I’m able to solve within ten minutes. Well, the last one took me half an hour, it was a rerouting issue.

  By the time I return to our office, dropping on my seat with a deep sigh, Charlie grins.

  “You’ve got mail.”

  The green messenger icon on the bottom of my computer screen beeps. It’s Miriam. Her little chat bubble says, “Lunch?”

  My heart does the usual split leap in my chest, because Miriam Haworth, the most incredibly gorgeous creature God has ever created, has asked me to lunch. Every time we go out, my reaction is the same—racing heartbeats followed by a sensation close to flying.

  I’ve come to call it the Haworth Effect.

  Okay, be casual, James.

  “Sure,” I type. “Meet you in the lobby in five.”

  Miriam waits by the lobby’s revolving door. Her hair is loose today, and she tucks a strand behind her ear in that typical girlie-girl fashion.

  “Hey,” I say, trying to sound cool, looking for that sweet spot between nonchalance and friendliness.

  “Hey,” she replies in the exact same manner, almost as if she’s mimicking me. “How’s the Batcave?”

  “The usual.” We leave the building and stroll toward a small bistro down the street. “I could use an Alfred the butler, though.”

  She lets out this unladylike laugh, something close to a pig grunt that magically sounds adorable. “Who wouldn’t, am I correct? That would be groovy.”

  Miriam gets common expressions wrong sometimes. She told me she spent her youth in Sweden, but she has no accent. If it weren’t for the misplaced slangs and her overly formal speech, anyone would think she was born and raised in America.

  I chuckle. “I don’t think anyone has used ‘groovy’ since the seventies.”

  She frowns. “Are you certain?”

  “Yup.”

  “Then what do humans—I mean, people—what do people use?”

  Typical Miriam, calling people “humans.” I guess sometimes she’s a little lost in translation. “‘Cool’ or ‘awesome’ would’ve been fine.”

  She nods to herself. “Interesting… ”

  We reach the restaurant, sit down, and order. While waiting, we discuss several topics, from Doctor Who to Star Wars to comic books. I’m teaching Miriam the way of the Geek, and she even calls herself my Padawan now.

  I don’t tell her about my dream, well, nightmare. It’s too weird, and I don’t want to seem weird, not to her.

  Once we’re done talking about Marvel vs. DC—she’s a DC girl and I’m a Marvel guy, kind of like Romeo and Juliet—, she leans in closer and whispers, “James, may I ask you a favor?”

  Anything. “Sure.”

  “Tell me about dating.”

  Shit, that came out of nowhere. Heat shoots up my head. “I-I, hmm, what do you mean?”

  That familiar sparkle shines in her eyes, the one that comes up when she wants to learn something new, and it’s one of those perfect moments that makes you stop and stare. “Explain to me what it’s like to go on a date.” She looks left and right as if we’re talking about something forbidden, but she smiles in the way of someone who’s eager to break a rule.

  “I-I…” Get it together, James. “It’s all right, I guess. I’m not exactly an expert. You probably know way more than I do.”

  “Incorrect. I’m the opposite of an expert in this art,” she mutters.

  I can’t help but chuckle. “Come on, Mir. That’s impossible. You’re the most fantastic girl I know.”

  “Whether this is true or not, it’s irrelevant.” She bites her lower lip and shakes her head slightly. “I suppose it’s better this way. I’ll keep being a loner like Bruce Wayne.” She winks at me. “Which is fine, considering he’s Batman.”

  I should’ve said I could be her date. Should’ve said I could show her. Instead, I said, “Welcome to the team.”

  Fan-fucking-tastic, James.

  Our orders arrive, and Miriam fills her mouth with a third of a hamburger that’s half the size of mine.

  Chicks and their tiny stomachs.

  Miriam looks so cute with her cheeks puffed up. Her looks might’ve captivated me first, but the full package is the reason I’m in this deep.

&n
bsp; “A buck for your thoughts,” Miriam says.

  Before shoving some fries in my mouth, I correct her. “It’s a penny for your thoughts, not a buck.”

  She looks down as if she’s mentally chiding herself. “Ah, of course.” When she glances at my burger, her brows furrow in the way of a curious child. “Do you have a black hole in your stomach?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Well, where do all the calories go? You eat like a bull, but you remain as thin as a stick.”

  Not the first time I’ve heard this. “Good metabolism, I guess.”

  She rolls her eyes. “And why don’t you wear glasses? You insist you’re a geek, though geeks wear glasses. I’ve seen it on TV.”

  I can’t help but smirk. Sometimes Miriam blurts out a swarm of questions about me, and I’m not what people would call an interesting guy. That’s part of Miriam’s magic: she makes me feel like I’m the most awesome person on Earth.

  Maybe, and that’s a huge maybe, she thinks I’m a cool guy. If that’s not proof we were meant to be together, I don’t know what is.

  And here I am again, wishing for the impossible. That’s the thing with hope: it has a way of growing in you like weeds have their way of growing everywhere.

  I dip a couple of fries into a puddle of ketchup. “Life isn’t like TV, Mir.”

  She takes another bite. “I’m simply stating that if you were like the geeks on TV, you’d have neat and tidy hair.” She looks up at me with those sharp green eyes that always seem to peer into my soul.

  I squirm under the intensity of her gaze. Being in the spotlight isn’t my thing. “Can we stop talking about me?”

  “Sorry if I made you uncomfortable, James. It’s just that you’re too attractive to fit the stereotype.”

  I turn to stone from top to bottom. I don’t think I’m even breathing, but I’m definitely gaping.

  Did she say she finds me handsome?

  “It’s fine,” I say, blinking back to life. “If it’ll make you happy, I’ll change my hair and put on some glasses.”

  She frowns. “Why?”