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Angel wasn’t the same as he had been a month ago, before he’d met the Haywoods. Em’s therapist-slash-hookup had told him that it was trauma or PTSD or something, but that wasn’t it.
He didn’t know how, but Angel was sure something had changed. Something physical. That alien did something to him. His skin didn’t itch like this before.
Maybe he was hallucinating. Maybe. After all, Jean Jacket had already fractured his mind, right? He couldn’t look people in the eyes without panic flashing through his veins anymore, got nervous when the wind blew too strong. Or maybe this was like the scars from barbed wire: embedded in his flesh and impossible to undo.
When Angel finally realized what it was, it was too late.
Em still hadn’t gotten her driver’s license, so he was driving her back from an interview. She was laughing, lighthearted like OJ said she used to be, until the sky started to darken. His hands only shook a little as he reached to turn the volume of the music up. Her voice faded as she stared out the window, breathing shallowly. It was fine. Everything was fine.
Then, the wind started.
It was California. Tropical storms were rare. So really, it wasn’t Angel’s fault, and the whole situation had more to do with climate change. Nevertheless, he could feel a pit growing at the bottom of his stomach. He had to pull over.
Put the hazards on. Close his eyes. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. The music is still playing, so Jean Jacket isn’t—
Bang.
The music skipped. He heard it, he knew he did. A pause.
It was back.
His gaze lifted, ever-so-slowly, to meet Em’s. She nodded upwards towards the sky, a question Angel couldn’t answer.
“I don’t know,” he whispered. As if he could stay quiet enough to keep them safe.
“I watched it die,” Em whispered. “I got photos. I— It’s dead, Angel, I swear.”
“I know.” He broke eye contact with her. “We’d better hope to God it’s not another one.”
As long as he’d known the pair, Em was the chatty Haywood. Right now? She was silent. Her gaze lay on him, a feeling that scratched at the base of his brain. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.
“Em? You’re— what is it?”
“Look at me.” He complied, and her breath caught in her throat for a second. “Your eyes,” she said slowly. “Have they always… When did that start?”
“Always what?” The music skipped again. Was it flying over again? The car was a safe place to stay, until it left. He’d survived once, and he could do it again. Jean Jacket was dead. A new one wouldn’t— they could deal with it. “Since what started?”
“Don’t freak out.” The music slowed. Stopped. It was dark, but Angel could still make out the worry in Em’s eyes. “I don’t think there’s any more of those things—not on this planet. But you—”
“You can’t know that. I mean, unless you think Jean Jacket came back from the dead—”
“Just look, okay?” She reached over him, flipped down the shade, and opened the mirror.
He wasn’t any more of a mess than norma. Panicky, fucked up hair, crying a little bit—that was all normal. Maybe he’d gotten scrawnier? This was normal for him, right?
“It didn’t just let you go, I don’t think,” Em continued. Angel wanted to yell at her to shut up, that she was wrong, that it wasn’t possible. If he looked anywhere else, counted the raindrops on the windshield, scanned the sky for signs, it. This wasn’t happening.
“None of us came out unscathed. Not me, not OJ, and not you.” Her tone was quiet, uncharacteristic. Like Angel was a scared horse.
An animal. One that she wasn’t sure could be worked with.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he weakly offered. They both knew it was a lie, and deep down, Angel also knew Em wouldn’t take the getaway. It wasn’t who she was.
“Yes, you do.”
At long last, his eyes drifted into focus. His irises were supposed to be a deep shade of brown, not-quite-black, which almost blended into his pupils. Instead, what stared back at him was a too-familiar shade of grey that made him want to hurl. The ashen shade was in stark contrast to his pupils.
All the willpower in the world make Angel look long enough to tell if they had become hollow. If the resemblance could be even close to a coincidence.
He'd seen those things before, in the sky.
“Em, what the—” he whispered. “Em, what the fuck.”
“I don’t know!” she cried. “It just— you panicked and it just happened, and like, that thing ate you, right? That shit don’t happen without consequences. Me and OJ probably got some weird shit from Jean Jacket too, and we just don’t know about it yet.”
“Ok, yeah, at least it didn’t lay its fucking eggs in you!”
“It did not lay its eggs in you,” she scoffed. “It tried to eat you. Why would it lay eggs and then digest them?”
“Em,” Angel shook his head. “It’s in me. I— Something’s been wrong. It’s this, isn’t it? And— and I’m this thing’s plan to keep the species alive. I have to—”
“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t—”
Her voice couldn’t compete with the static in Angel’s head, a buzzing drowning out even his thoughts. He shut his eyes, desperately, and they felt different. The only way out would be to find a way to separate Jean Jacket from him, wasn’t it? If it was the last thing Angel did, he would cleanse himself of that thing. Get away from Jean Jacket if it killed him.
Some part of him was dimly aware of his hands clawing at his face. He was definitely aware of Em trying to grab his wrists, and maybe he wasn’t quite sure how or when he left the car, but he did know that he fell out of it, on his hands and knees. “Get out,” he panted. “Get out!”
“You need to stop—”
Em was frozen. Probably. Angel wasn’t really aware of what she was doing anymore, but there were no hands trying to tug his eyes away as he pried his right eyelid open. One hand held it open, the other reached in, ignoring the pain. He hadn’t expected it to be hard to grab, slimy and warm and oh-so-painful. His nails grasped at the back, nerves reacting to stimuli they never should have been able to feel. Something trickled down his cheek, maybe blood or maybe tears or maybe just warm rain.
It wasn’t his eye. It wasn’t. That wasn’t an actual part of him, and he had to remove it, or the alien would feed off of him. He had to live with the nightmares and the interviews and the fame and the flashbacks, he couldn’t… couldn’t give it a part of him. What if it was like a cancer, determined to spread?
Maybe Jean Jacket wasn’t an alien. Maybe something turned a regular person into it, and now it was determined to do the same to Angel.
Something snapped. Everything was black and red and pain, and maybe pain wasn’t something you could see but he knew he could. With a final tug, he could feel it leaving the socket. If he could just beat himself, he’d be halfway there—
It killed Otis Sr. Killed so many horses. Tried to kill Angel, and it did kill Holst. It couldn’t get Angel, he couldn’t live with himself if he became the thing the people most important to him feared so much. Jean Jacket had no right to do this to him.
A cry left his throat. Something loud and ragged, probably. He couldn’t get the muscle to just let go. No matter how much blood he wiped off his face, more kept flowing, flooding his mouth.
He was so close, if he could just— If the pain would stop just long enough for him to—
Something hit his head.
He woke up in the hospital. One eye not working, radiating only pain. With a groan, he tried to sit up.
“Em?”
“You’re up!” She jumped up from her seat.
“Did I get it out? Is that thing gone?”
“Girl, what are you talking about?”
“The… the eye? Is it gone?”
She took a deep breath in. “Yes, your eye had to be removed. That wasn’t an egg. It’s something with bacteria? A doctor’s gonna explain.”
“Oh.” So there weren’t traces of Jean Jacket, not broad strokes he could remove. It was tiny pieces, like microplastics, spread throughout all of him. Staining him with what had happened. “How’s…”
“I called an ambulance. You think OJ’s coming anywhere near this on my watch? All he’ll see is Pops.”
“Shit.”
“What the fuck were you thinking? Just…” she shook her head. “Jumping the gun like that?”
He tried to smile. It was more of a grimace, but it was the thought that counted. “Can’t let Jean Jacket win.”
“I already won, you bitch.” She moved to playfully slap him, before stopping herself. “It killed enough people while it was here, you better not give it one now that it’s dead. So listen to those doctors, kay?”