Chapter 2
Luna shivered and clutched the blanket around herself.
Her mind was foggy, and her abdomen was sore.
She glanced around the stark white room and tried to focus on the huge oak tree just beyond the barred window, but the effort made her nauseated, so she closed her eyes and tried sifting through her most recent memories.
Each breath hurt. When she ran a trembling hand over her abdomen, she encountered a large bandage. Her throat clogged with emotion as a wave of helplessness swept over her—but it was quickly followed by a surge of anger.
They’d taken another organ.
How she was still alive, she wasn’t certain.
All she knew was that every few months, she awoke with a fresh bandage, weaker than before.
The doctors and scientists who occasionally visited always assured her that whenever an organ was removed from her body, a lab-grown substitute would be surgically implanted.
They kept promising she wouldn’t die, and they also kept promising that one day she would be released—and well-compensated for her “contributions.”
But Luna didn’t believe them. She was fairly certain that the only way anyone ever left this place was zipped into a body bag.
What if her body eventually rejected one of the lab-grown replacements? Lab-grown organs weren’t as reliable as real ones. They broke down faster and failed more often. And when they did, they had to be swapped out all over again.
Not for the first time, she found herself wishing she’d never heard of Zalora Biotech. She had walked through the building’s doors of her own free will, lured by the promise of a massive payout for donating her blood plasma, only to lose consciousness the moment the IV was placed into her arm.
She’d awoken the next day to discover one of her kidneys was gone.
At first, no one would tell her what had happened, nor would anyone tell her why she wasn’t permitted to leave the facility. It had taken weeks of relentless questioning—pressing orderlies, nurses, doctors, and the occasional scientist—before she’d pieced together the horrifying truth.
Zalora Biotech was a government-funded lab that supplied healthy organs to patients willing to pay top dollar.
A nurse, long since gone from the facility, once informed Luna that she possessed rare compatibility traits—genetic markers and immunity factors—that made her an ideal candidate for repeated organ donations.
Her body recovered faster than most, and her natural organs were far less likely to be rejected by the wealthy recipients who bought them from Zalora Biotech.
Five surgeries. She’d survived five so far.
At some point, she would run out of the organs she’d been born with.
How long would she last with nothing but lab-grown replacements keeping her alive?
She doubted Zalora Biotech would offer long-term care once she was finally barren—the cold, clinical term they used to describe a patient who’d been stripped of every natural organ they were born with.
The door creaked open and a nurse entered the room. The woman looked frazzled as she scurried inside and placed a laptop on the bedside table. She hummed a dissonant tune under her breath as she withdrew an infrared thermometer from her pocket.
Luna remained quiet and motionless as the nurse took her vitals, but her eyes kept darting back to the laptop. Her heart raced—prompting the nurse to cluck her tongue in mild annoyance—as she wondered if maybe she would get a chance to use the laptop today.
Sometimes the nurses got distracted and left their laptops or phones behind in Luna’s room.
She’d never managed to get any of the phones to work, since they were password protected with the emergency call feature disabled.
But last week, she’d managed to sneak onto a nurse’s laptop—just long enough to fill out an application for Vaxxlian Alien Mail Order Brides.
Her stomach flipped at the memory of that drastic act. She wondered if her application had been processed yet, or if she’d already been matched to a Vaxxlian warrior.
Unless… unless the Intergalactic Dating Agency, which ran the VAMOB program, had rejected her application based on her current address—Zalora Biotech’s main research facility in Colorado.
The Vaxxlian warriors needed human females for companionship and procreation.
If the IDA or VAMOB didn’t think she was healthy enough, they might have already denied her application. Her heart sank at the thought.
In the two years she’d been here, Luna had tried to escape countless times.
She’d fought nurses and orderlies, stolen keycards, and even once tried to walk out wearing a doctor’s white coat…
only to be caught every time. After each failed attempt, she’d been kept in a near-sedated state for at least a week.
Eventually, she’d decided that if she was going to escape, she would probably need help from the outside. Like the help of a Vaxxlian warrior.
In addition to her desire to survive, her longing for a normal life outside the cold, sterile walls of this facility had prompted her to fill out the VAMOB application.
Two years. She’d been stuck here for two long years.
“How are you feeling today?” the nurse asked.
Luna barely lifted her eyes, nor did she bother answering. She was exhausted and sore, and she had no idea which organ they’d removed this time. She was too afraid to ask.
“Not very talkative today, are we?” the nurse said with a chuckle.
Another surge of anger flared in Luna’s chest.
The people who worked for Zalora Biotech were monsters. They were liars too. They’d lured her here with false promises when she was desperate to earn some quick money so she could pay her rent. No matter how much she begged, they wouldn’t let her go.
The door of her room was always kept locked. The windows were barred. She was a prisoner.
And she had no idea if they really intended to release her—or compensate her—once she was barren.
Raised voices floated in from the hallway. The nurse had left the door slightly ajar. Luna held her breath as she listened to what sounded like an argument unfolding. She couldn’t tell whether the nurses or doctors were arguing with each other, or if a patient was involved.
A sudden crash echoed through the corridor, followed by a scream. Someone shouted, “Get him!” and then footsteps thundered past the door.
The nurse taking Luna’s vitals cursed under her breath and rushed out of the room, slamming the door behind her and locking it with a sharp click.
Luna immediately reached for the laptop, exhaling a shaky sigh of relief when she successfully guessed the nurse’s password—Password123. Her hands trembled as she opened the email account she’d used to apply for the VAMOB program. Please, she thought. Let there be a response.
Even with the door closed, the crashes and screams in the hallway grew louder.
Luna silently thanked whoever was causing the chaos, though guilt tugged at her when she considered the likelihood that a patient was involved.
Whoever they were, if they were trying to escape, they wouldn’t make it.
And for their troubles, they would spend the next week heavily sedated.
The shouting eventually faded into the background as Luna focused on the dozens of emails in her inbox.
In addition to applying for the VAMOB program, she’d also sent a few desperate emails to old friends she’d hoped might help her—as well as a few senators—but none of them had replied.
How strange. Perhaps the messages had never reached them.
She continued scrolling, sifting through junk mail, until she saw a familiar blue icon.
The subject line read:
Congratulations! You’ve been matched to a Vaxxlian warrior!
Luna gasped and her hands trembled harder. She clicked open the email. She was so excited—nervous, relieved, and hopeful all at once—that she had to force herself to slow down and actually read the words.
Balarr.
A strange, unexpected warmth blossomed in her chest.
That was her Vaxxlian mate’s name. Balarr.
According to the email, she should anticipate his arrival within days. Since the message had been sent two days ago, that meant Balarr might arrive at Zalora Biotech at any moment—searching for her.
Tears burned in her eyes. She prayed he would come soon. Maybe, just maybe, this long nightmare was about to end.
Five organs. She placed a hand on her bandaged abdomen.
Would Balarr care that she’d been an unwilling participant in an organ-harvesting enterprise? Would he worry that she wasn’t strong enough to bear his children?
Did the Vaxxlians possess medical technology advanced enough to keep her alive? Eventually, the lab-grown replacement organs inside her would begin to fail.
She really hoped Balarr would understand her situation and agree to help. She hoped he was as kind and affectionate as the commercials promised.
Before her imprisonment at Zalora Biotech, she’d seen dozens of commercials on TV and on the Internet advertising the interstellar bride program.
Most of the commercials featured testimonials from human women who were mated to Vaxxlian warriors, and the women always claimed they were happy and in love with their new alien mates.
Even before Luna had come to Zalora Biotech hoping to sell her blood plasma, she’d given serious thought to signing up for the VAMOB program.
She only wished she’d done it the first time the idea had entered her mind.
She could’ve been spared years of fear and agony at Zalora Biotech.
She might already be on New Vaxx, living on a beautiful planet in a safe community alongside her alien mate.
She quickly logged out of her email account and closed the laptop, then carefully placed it back on the bedside table. Her pulse pounded in her ears, and she couldn’t settle her nerves.
Was this really happening?
Was a Vaxxlian warrior truly about to come to Earth—for her?
In some of the VAMOB commercials, the human women had gushed about how their Vaxxlian warrior had swooped in and rescued them from a war-torn city. Would Balarr have to fight his way inside Zalora Biotech? How would he even find her?
Doubts began to creep in. What if he walked into the lobby and asked for her by name? The receptionist would likely feign ignorance. But would Balarr give up that easily? Or would he push further? Would he fight the security guards?
Her stomach dropped at the next thought.
Would he kill anyone while trying to reach her?
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She liked to tell herself everyone at Zalora Biotech was a monster, but the truth was much more complicated than that.
The entire country was in the throes of a severe economic collapse. Unrest had broken out in most major cities and even smaller towns. Some places resembled warzones, and food and supplies had become scarce.
Jobs were scarce too—a fact Luna knew all too well. Before trying to sell her blood plasma, she’d lost her position as a barista when the coffee shop was forced to close. She’d spent weeks trying to find another job, but no one was hiring.
Logically, she realized some of Zalora Biotech’s employees probably only worked there because they were desperate to stay afloat in a world that was quickly going to hell. Some of them probably had families and children to feed.
But organ harvesting… she shuddered.
She still had trouble believing a place like this existed, or that it was a secret government-funded program.
She thought of the tall doctor with long white hair who sometimes visited her. A couple of times, she’d pleaded with him to help her—pleaded for release—only for him to snap at her to shut the fuck up. He was one of the monsters.
Many of the other workers at Zalora Biotech, however, looked at her with compassion as they went about their duties.
None of them ever apologized to her, but they still often had a gentle manner, and there were times she could’ve sworn she glimpsed regret in their eyes.
They were still doing something terrible, but at least their conscience was weighing on them.
Maybe one day a whistle-blower would emerge and all the unwilling patients being held at Zalora Biotech would be freed. She could only hope.
But she also resolved that if Balarr managed to rescue her, she would do whatever she could to help the other patients.
Perhaps she could contact more senators, as well as news organizations around the world.
If the public found out a government-funded organ-harvesting facility existed in Colorado—and that patients were being kept there and operated on against their will—she had no doubt it would cause even more riots in the streets.
It would also cause the current administration’s power to falter, and given how corrupt the president was, maybe it would be for the best.
The nurse eventually rushed back into her room and grabbed the forgotten laptop. She turned to leave, then paused and glanced over her shoulder at Luna, who was still sitting quietly in bed.
Luna swallowed hard and prayed the nurse had no idea she’d just used her laptop. Her stomach plunged to the floor. Yes, there was a camera in the corner of her room. But since no one had noticed her using a different nurse’s laptop last week, she assumed the security guards weren’t always watching.
The nurse turned around and approached Luna, then she reached into her pocket and withdrew a candy bar. She held it out to Luna, her eyes heavy with guilt.
“Take it,” she said softly. “Your dinner tray will be up shortly, but it’s meatloaf night, and the meatloaf they serve is always terribly dry.” She wrinkled her nose briefly.
Luna wished she were too proud to accept the gift, but she was suddenly starving. She reached out and took the candy bar, then found herself blinking back tears when the nurse smiled at her.
“Thank you,” Luna whispered, her throat tight.
“You’re very welcome.” The nurse turned and headed toward the door. After she exited the room, Luna heard the telltale click of the door being locked.
She hated the slight click the door made each time it was locked more than any other noise in this wretched facility. It was the sound of hopelessness. It reinforced the knowledge that she was a prisoner.
As she thought about the email from VAMOB, however, she began to feel more optimistic. Balarr. She’d been matched to a Vaxxlian warrior named Balarr.
She peered out the barred window, straining for a glimpse of the darkening sky. It was her understanding that most Vaxxlian warriors arrived on Earth aboard their own sleek spacecraft. Would she see his Vaxxlian cruiser when he arrived at the facility?
She set the candy bar aside and eased out of bed. A spasm of pain ripped through her chest when her feet hit the floor, but she breathed through it and finally managed to stand up. She slowly crossed the room to the window.
She peered at the first star of the night.
Please come find me, Balarr.
Please hurry.