Chosen by the Alien Above Part 3: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance Serial Read Online Free Page B

The most dangerous time to embrace hope was when everything inside you knew it was pointless.
    Small streams guttered down my cheeks. I snorted as an especially wrenching bubble burst in my throat.
    Noah was at my side in an instant. He knelt on the floor, his head not much lower than mine. He was crazy big.
    "What hurts you, Cora?"
    Every fiber in my being wanted to spill the beans. Wanted to pour my tragedy into his large hands. I didn't harbor any false hopes that he could change it. But getting it out would've been something. Just sharing it would've been a comfort.
    The words choked in my throat. This wasn't why I was here. I wasn't three hundred miles above the surface to dump my troubles on the richest, sexiest recluse to ever float above the face of the earth. And I didn't want to give him leverage. Something he might find useful in manipulating his questioning.
    "It's nothing," I said.
    He took my trembling hands in his rock-steady ones. His skin was soft despite the obvious strength lurking underneath. He looked up into my eyes. The room faded around us.
    "That's not true, Cora. I know it's not because I've been in your shoes. I know what it means to carry the burden of a death sentence."
    He placed both my hands in one of his and cupped my cheek. I'd never been treated so tenderly. Certainly not by the doctors when I got the news.
    "You're destined to die, Cora. Not in some far off, ambiguous way. Death stalks near and your body grows weary of the chase."
    He wiped a tear from my cheek.
    "You're going to die soon and not a single soul on earth can do anything about it."
    I was truly a mess now. Rivers of tears and snot drew deltas on my chin and flooded the plains of my chest. Wet drops tinted the suit a slightly darker purple. My breath came in painful, racking sobs.
    "Why are you telling me this?"
    He lifted my chin and touched my lips.
    "I'm telling you because I think I can save you."

CHAPTER NINE

    I slapped his face. Hard. Not as hard as I wanted to though. On any normal face, it would’ve left a red print that perfectly fit my hand like the slipper to Cinderella.
    Astro growled and flashed a red eye at me. Her mangled mouth of parts gnashed the air. She started toward me.
    “No Astro!” Noah yelled.  
    The she-monster went back to her place by the door. A low growl echoed in her metal throat.
    Still no red print emerged. Noah’s wasn’t a normal face. Mainly because it spewed lies offering hope where none existed. Where it was better off not to go looking.  
    False hope was a soul splinter I didn’t have the strength to endure.
    I raised my hand to slap him again. Rage vibrated my arm in the air. He didn’t move an inch.
    He offered himself to me. A lamb for the sacrifice. More like a bull.  
    His calm acceptance stayed my hand.  
    “How dare you!” I shrieked. “You have no idea what I go through just pushing forward. How impossible it is to simply live. My life is a black sky and still I struggle for breath.”
    “I know exactly how you feel.”
    “Shut up! You don’t know shit!”
    “Meristatic Cranial Cystosis,” he said.
    The floor dropped out from under me. My stomach fell three hundred miles down to the surface. How did he know?  
    “Right, you hacked my medical records. Asshole.”
    “I apologize for peeking into your personal data, but my intrusion may save your life.”
    “Stop saying that!”
    It was like he enjoyed stabbing a blunt club through my heart.
    “I know how you feel,” he said.
    My fingernails seriously wanted to drag furrows through his cheeks.
    “I had the same condition,” he said. “I, like you, was given a short window for life.”
    My stomach felt like it dropped through the surface and further still to the core of the rocky ball below.
    “What are you saying?”
    My brain wasn’t working right. His words couldn’t mean what they said.
    “I was in the same exact situation you are in now,” he said.  
    “When?”
    “Ten years ago.”
    “Why