Chapter 3
ALETTA
She could have been running for a few minutes or a few hours; she had no idea. The adrenaline that flooded her body had kept her barely ahead of the giant bug that wanted her for its next snack.
You’re going to have nightmares about this for the rest of your life.
That was if she could live for longer than the next few seconds.
Her feet ached from running in her old sneakers. Sneakers that had seen better days since she’d bought them second-hand, but she was alive for now. Her feet pounded against the concrete, skidding on something gloopy. She didn’t look down.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.
The problem with telling yourself not to think about something is that you always end up thinking about it. If she stopped, she was dead.
So don’t stop.
The creature screamed again, and Aletta turned to look behind her. She had to get away from it. Far away. She couldn’t see the bug, but her relief turned to shock as she ran flat out into a wall.
“Oof!” She bounced off and landed on her butt on the hard ground, her tailbone smarting at the contact. She looked up, and up, and up…into purple eyes.
Purple? Nobody has purple eyes.
Not a wall. A giant. One of the same ones that had taken Dylan.
The bug screamed again, this time closer, and her heart pounded with terror.
“Help me!”
At this point, he could have been the Devil himself, and Aletta wouldn’t have cared. She was not going to die today.
He had a gun, and he looked scary. He looked past her to the bug alien thing, his expression darkening as he scowled. He stepped around her and fired. The two others with him just stood there, gaping, so she leaped to her feet and yanked the weapon from the hands of the nearest one.
“Don’t just stand there!” she shouted, turning and firing at the giant cockroach that was advancing on them, albeit with a new limp.
The big one she’d landed at the feet of was taking out its legs one by one with precise, controlled shots of blue light.
Fuck that.
Aletta pulled the trigger, releasing a blast of energy that sent the bug screeching and turning toward her.
The weapon was jerked from her hands by the third of the giants, who smirked as he passed it back to the one she’d stolen it from. He said something, but it wasn’t in English, before turning to the bug and firing at it in a way that could only be described as lazy.
The trio formed a wall in front of Aletta, blocking the bug from her sight. The smell of ozone—like after a lightning storm—filled the air as they blasted the monster in what felt like a never ending barrage.
And then it was all over. With a final loud bang, the thing exploded, releasing its guts in a spray that covered her from head to toe.
She gagged, swiping at the gelatinous mass that stunk like rotten shellfish had a mutant baby with hot garbage.
She gasped for breath, coughing as she gagged on the smell of bug guts and death.
Oh, lovely, and with an undercurrent of feces and rotten eggs.
Aletta dropped to her hands and knees as a wave of exhaustion and nausea hit her. “I’m ok. I’m ok.”
She could feel herself slipping away from reality as the shock of seeing a giant alien that looked like an ant crossed with a cockroach, but eight feet tall—she shuddered—exploding in front of her after trying to eat her.
She was vaguely aware of the men—aliens?—talking nearby, but it wasn’t until one grabbed her arm, pulling her to her feet, none too gently, that she snapped back to the present.
“Let me go!” she shouted, not expecting the man to release her and falling back when he did, hands lifted with palms toward her. She looked him up and down warily as she rubbed her arm.
The smiling one nudged the one she’d stolen the gun from, his eyebrows waggling, and she scowled. “Don’t even think about it, buddy.” She pointed her finger at him. “I don’t care how many protein shakes it took to get you lot that size, I’m not going to let you push me around.”
But her bravery left her when the sound of another screech filled the air. She turned to face the way she’d come, stepping back until she landed against the solid strength of the one with the purple eyes.
She started shaking when another followed the first screech, and then another, until a chorus of bugs and their chittering filled the air.
Oh god. Oh fuck. I’m going to die.
She bent over and vomited on the broken concrete under her sneakers. Now the smell of bug guts and vomit filled the air, and she didn’t even have her mask to block the stench, not that the flimsy things did much of that.
The three men started shouting, then one of them took off at a run so fast that Aletta screwed her eyes up in disbelief.
The remaining two spoke quickly, the first one with the purple eyes looking at Aletta with a scowl before grabbing her arm and dragging her along with him as he ran.
They’d barely taken ten steps when he huffed in frustration, muttering under his breath, before grabbing her with one muscular arm and lifting her into the air and over his shoulder, one thick forearm over the back of her thighs.
“Hey!” Aletta tried to shout, but having all your breath knocked out of you by a hard shoulder and—oh god, what was digging into her boob?—it sounded more like ‘yay’.
She kept her stomach tense and gripped his belt to keep herself from head-butting his back with every step as he pounded along the pavement. The chittering screech of yet another bug came from behind them—close behind—and, against her better judgment, she looked up.
There were so many of the bugs that she couldn’t count them all, and they were much bigger than the one that had chased her. She gaped as one stood on its rear legs to leap over a city bus. Had the bug chasing her been a baby?
Aletta pounded on her rescuer’s back.
“Run! There’s too many! Run!” She didn’t care where he was running to; she was not going to be a bug meal. Not today. Not any day.
Aletta’s hand brushed against something on the guy’s hip. A gun. She pulled it free from the holster, prepared to fire if—when—the bugs gained on them.
Then she was swung from his shoulder to his front with an ease that had her head spinning.
They were under one of the freeway overpasses, standing next to some swaying ropes.
She watched as the other alien jumped as high as he could, grabbing the rope in both arms and pulling himself up hand-over-hand without using his legs.
Then the purple-eyed one pulled her to his chest and placed her arms around his neck.
“Buddy, not the time—”
He barked something at her, scowling and dragging her legs up around his waist before freeing his arms. She would have fallen if she hadn’t gripped him with her arms and legs, riding him like a front backpack. He gripped the rope and heaved them off the ground with no sign of effort.
Ok. That’s kind of hot.
Then they were rising steadily in the air, and she gasped, staring over his shoulder as the bugs rushed toward them like a surge of over-enthusiastic marathon runners at the beginning of a race. She would never look at a humble cockroach the same ever again.
Then she was grabbed under the arms and hauled over the concrete side of a highway, before her scowly, purple-eyed savior climbed over with her. Then they were running, his hand gripping her arm, toward what had to be a spaceship.
Her second one of the day. Of her life.
There was no time to stop and take it all in, as the sounds of screeching filled the air. Was she imagining it, or did the bugs sound angry?
The roaring sound of the ship’s engines was almost deafening as they raced up a ramp and into its depths.
Flashing orange lights and the wail of a siren sounded as the ramp lifted behind them. The alien—because they had to be aliens, right? No humans were this size and with purple eyes?—barked commands into his wrist. No, not his wrist, a watch of sorts.
Like the other guy. The one who had taken Dylan.
Then he grabbed her around the waist and, holding her against his hip like a misbehaving toddler, raced through the ship.
“Hey!” Aletta’s attempts to get his attention were ignored, so she kicked and screamed. That did it.
He looked down at her briefly, not breaking stride, and barked a command at her.
Oh, buddy. You didn’t just try to tell me what to do, did you?
She scowled. “Hey! Put me down!”
He shook his head.
She gaped.
“You utter, disbelieving ass!” She was midway through every curse she could think of when he stopped in front of a wall and swiped his hand over a recessed panel.
The only reason Aletta saw all that was the way he was holding her—how strong was this guy? She wasn’t a small woman—had her face barely above the panel.
Lights flashed, and then the wall slid open with a happy little chime that had Aletta grinding her teeth. No, a door. She was unceremoniously put back on her feet, and a big, warm hand between her shoulder blades gently nudged her into the room.
She staggered slightly on tired legs, then spun to face her rescuer-captor, but the door slid shut, blocking him from sight. The last she saw of him was a grim scowl as the muted metallic chime of the door closing sounded.
She raced to the door and tried swiping her hand over the recessed panel on this side of the wall. But nothing happened. She stepped forward, then away, hoping some kind of sensor would trigger the door.
Nope.
With a frustrated shout, she resorted to banging on it with her fists. “Hey! Let me out!”
When nobody came and the door didn’t open, she slid to the floor in a heap.
I will not cry.
God, she was exhausted. It felt like days since she’d last seen Dylan when it couldn’t have been more than a few hours.
What was it they always said about abductions?
Don’t get moved to a secondary location or something.
She shook her head. Either way, aliens had abducted Dylan—she choked on a hysterical sob—and now Aletta was on an alien spaceship after being chased by one lot of aliens who wanted to eat her, then rescued by another lot who wanted…
What exactly did the big scowly guy with purple eyes want with her?
Was she a fool for thinking he’d rescued her? Had she been abducted, too?
She frowned, thinking of the way their leader had argued with the others and how reluctant he seemed to be to take her with them. Had he wanted to leave her to die? Because that’s what would have happened.
These guys were dressed the same and looked the same as the ones who’d taken Dylan. She had to be on this ship. Aletta’s lips lifted in a fleeting smile. She had to get out of this room and find her sister.
But her body betrayed her, the adrenaline that had flooded her body fading to a bone-deep exhaustion, and she slid to the floor in a heap.
She’d just close her eyes for a minute while she came up with a plan.
The wail of an alarm woke her with a jerk. Her neck jarred, sending a hot pain into her skull. Aletta groaned as she sat up, rolling her head from side to side to ease the stiff feeling from sleeping on the floor. She blinked against the orange lights flashing in the room. Something was wrong.
How long had she been here? She hadn’t meant to fall asleep.
Dylan!
She had to get out of this room and find her sister. She would be somewhere on this ship, she just knew it.
Aletta tried the door again, but it still wouldn’t open. Turning her back on the locked door, she scanned the room, taking in everything she had missed in her exhausted state.
It wasn’t big, with only enough room for a bed, a small table attached to the wall, and a folding chair hanging up out of the way, which she assumed was to save space.
If she took three paces, she’d be at the bed that took up the entire length of the wall opposite the door.
The table and chair were to her left, and another doorway was to her right.
Another door! How had she missed that?
She dashed toward it, waving her hand over the recessed panel, which, this time, opened. Her relief was short-lived, though, when the smallest bathroom she’d ever seen—and that was saying something as she and Dylan had lived in some hovels—was revealed.
The whole space looked like a wet area. A toilet bowl swung out from the wall as she stepped into the tiny room.
The urge to pee suddenly hit her, and Aletta made quick use of the facilities, relieved to see the toilet flush automatically and then swivel back into the wall.
A hum sounded and, on a whim, she waved her hand over another panel near where the toilet had hidden itself. It swung out, clean and sparkling.
Oh. Self-cleaning toilets were certainly something she could get on board with.
A small sink, with a small, mirrored cabinet built into a wall, frightened her when she caught her reflection.
I look like shit.
She shrugged. What did it matter? She had to get to Dylan; it didn’t matter if she looked like death warmed up. Her sister was all that mattered. If she couldn’t find Dylan, then she’d never forgive herself.
Aletta was the big sister. She was the one who was meant to make sure her little sister was safe. She had taken care of her for years, ever since their parents had died and they’d been left with their grandmother.
Everyone she loved left. She rubbed the center of her chest. Dylan was all she had left. Who was she without her sister?
She didn’t want to contemplate a life without her only family. Dee was her best friend. And she wouldn’t let her down.
Aletta left the bathroom and tried the hallway door again. Nothing.
She banged on the panel, sending sparks flying. The lights flickered and then went out.
What the hell was happening?
She banged the panel again, and this time the door opened.
She didn’t waste a second. Aletta was going to find her sister.