We Make Mayhem [boyxboy]

Chapter Forty-Three

"Wha... where am I? Who're you?" He dropped his head into his lap, groaning. "Yo, I don't feel so good..."

"You're okay," I said hurriedly. "You're safe. Um, what's the last thing you remember?"

"I think I watched a movie with my brother, smoked a blunt, and went to sleep." He looked up and glared at me. "How'd I get here? Who the fuck're you, man?"

Uh oh. He slid into a corner of the back seat, looking all around, like a trapped animal. The car wouldn't allow the door to open—I didn't think—but it wasn't good for either of us if he started to panic. I held out my hand in what I hoped was a very chill, comforting way.

"My name is Riley Axford," I said. "I can explain everything, but I need you to promise you won't freak out, okay?"

He nodded warily and reached out to shake my hand. As soon as our hands were clasped, I felt him freeze.

He was staring at his own hand. Decker Lord's body hadn't exactly lived a hard life in the past seventeen years, but still, that hand definitely didn't belong to a teenager. It was dry, calloused and crepey in places, and a thin scar dashed across the thumb that probably wasn't there the last time he had seen this hand. He blinked slowly. It was so strange to see that face, the face that had stared out from the pages of business magazines and threatened to strand me on an island forever, animated with a young person's fear.

"What... what happened to me?" he whispered.

I took a deep breath, madly trying to measure the words I was going to use, desperating hoping I wasn't about to fuck it all up. But, hey, he wasn't a powerful billionaire anymore. He was a kid my age. Maybe I should talk to him the same way I'd talk to Josiah.

"Do you want the softball version or real talk?" I asked. "Because this is some fucked-up shit. I'll sugarcoat it if you want, bro, but if you can handle it, I'll just lay it all out there."

He gave a curt nod. "Lay it on me."

I nodded back. "Let me know if you want me to stop at any point."

"Just tell me what the fuck is going on."

"Your body was possessed by an alien. For... quite a while."

"How long?" he asked. "Dude, lay it the fuck on me."

I swallowed. "Seventeen years."

He blinked. Sat back in his seat. Raised his hands, turning them over and over. "Do you have a mirror?" he finally asked.

I flipped down the passenger seat's visor. He leaned forward and stared at his reflection for a good minute. He didn't have to much to be upset about, physically. Decker Lord was good-looking, and if you had to guess his age, you'd peg it at least a few years lower than thirty-five. Still: staring at your own face and seeing crow's feet and a line between your forehead when the last thing you remembered was falling asleep after smoking pot at age seventeen must be heavy shit.

"I'm thirty-five," he said.

"Your body is, yeah. Inside, you're you. Whoever you were when he took you over."

He sighed and sat back, pushing his hands through his hair. "Fuck, this feels like a bad trip."

"It does to me, too."

"Who are you?" he asked. "How do you know what happened to me?"

"I'm... a friend," I said carefully. "I saved you from the alien planet. They extracted the one who possessed you."

He shook his head in disbelief. "Well, shit. You'd better just tell me the whole story."

So I did. In the twenty minutes left before we arrived back on earth, I told him about who Decker Lord had become back on earth. He dissolved into a fit of laughter when I told him he was a billionaire CEO of some of the world's most influential tech companies. I showed him the car we were travelling through space inside, and I brought up Temptr on my phone and told him about all the havoc it had wreaked back home.