Chapter 11
Morgan's people had arranged a hotel room for her—the Ritz-Carlton in downtown LA, the kind of place Serafina had only ever seen from the outside. The lobby was all marble and soft lighting, the staff polished and discreet, the room itself larger than her burned apartment had been.
She barely noticed any of it.
The bed was king-sized, dressed in crisp white linens that probably cost more than her monthly rent.
Floor-to-ceiling windows offered a view of the city sprawling out beneath her—glittering lights, endless traffic, millions of lives unfolding in patterns she would never know.
The room was quiet, insulated from the noise below, the kind of silence that money could buy.
She sat on the edge of the bed, still in her clothes, staring at the wall without seeing it. The ten thousand dollars sat in her bag on the floor. The white card with the phone number sat on the nightstand.
Sleep wouldn't come.
Her mind kept circling back to the same impossible loop.
The frosted glass going clear. The massive figure behind it—armored, inhuman, those red eyes glowing in the dim light.
The slender blue-skinned attendants standing motionless behind him.
Morgan's calm voice explaining rituals and hunts and choices.
They hadn't even told her what kind of alien she was supposed to hunt.
That came next, as part of the training. Morgan had been clear about that—and clear that Serafina could still back out at any time. No pressure. No consequences. Just walk away.
It should have been reassuring. Instead, it felt like a door left deliberately open, daring her to step through.
What if this is all some kind of hoax?
Her brain kept trying to reject it, to file it away as an elaborate scam, a fever dream, a breakdown brought on by stress and grief and too many sleepless nights.
Reality didn't work this way. Aliens didn't stand in office buildings in Los Angeles.
Women didn't get recruited to hunt alien warriors in exchange for their sister's medical bills.
But the aliens she saw were real. There was no doubt about that.
No makeup, no costumes, no special effects could create what she'd seen behind that glass.
She knew it in her bones the same way she knew when a suspect was guilty, the same way she knew when a crime scene held secrets the evidence hadn't revealed yet.
And the information she'd searched on her phone since leaving that building.
.. it was all there. Alien contact. Distant planets.
Trading stations. Alien life scattered across the galaxy and beyond.
She'd seen the photographs, the footage, the official reports from governments that had spent years denying any of it existed. It was real. All of it.
She'd just never paid attention before.
And something strange was happening. Humans were being taken—or leaving voluntarily. Moving off Earth to places with names she couldn't pronounce, for reasons she couldn't fathom. Some came back. Some didn't. The reports were vague, the details scarce, but the pattern was undeniable.
People were leaving.
And now she was about to be a part of it all, too.
Crazy.
She lay back on the bed, still dressed, and stared at the ceiling until the light outside shifted from black to grey to pale gold.
She didn't sleep.
The drive back to San Diego took just over two hours.
Serafina pulled into the hospital parking lot with gritty eyes and a caffeine headache, running on nothing but adrenaline and the stubborn refusal to collapse before she saw her sister's face.
Angelo was already there when she arrived, slumped in the chair beside Aria's bed, his reading glasses crooked on his nose, a paperback open and forgotten in his lap.
He looked up when Serafina walked in, and something in his expression shifted—relief, maybe, or just the exhaustion of a man who had spent too many nights in hospital waiting rooms.
"She woke up about an hour ago," he said quietly. "Doctor said everything looks good. No complications."
Serafina let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
She moved to the bed and looked down at her sister.
Aria looked small against the white sheets, her dark hair disheveled and fanned out across the pillow in tangled waves.
A hospital gown hung loosely on her thin frame, the pale blue fabric washing out her already pallid skin.
Dark circles shadowed her eyes, bruise-purple and deep, the kind that came from days of pain and fitful sleep.
A white bandage wrapped around her throat, stark and clinical, covering the incision where Dr. Rao had cut into her to remove the goitre that had been slowly strangling her.
Monitoring leads snaked out from beneath her gown, connecting to machines that beeped softly in steady rhythm.
An IV line ran into the back of her hand, the tape holding it in place already peeling at the edges.
But her eyes were open—tired and confused, but open.
Serafina felt something loosen in her chest, a knot she hadn't known she was carrying. Relief flooded through her, and for a moment, the weight of the past few days slid off her shoulders.
She let out a slow, shuddering breath. Aria was fine. The mass around her neck—the thing that had been constricting her like a python, slowly strangling her for months—was gone.
Life could go on.
"Hey," Aria said, her voice rough and barely above a whisper, strained from the trauma to her throat. "You look like shit."
Serafina laughed—a short, broken sound that caught in her throat. "You're one to talk."
Angelo shifted in his chair, setting the paperback aside. "Doctor did her rounds earlier this morning," he said. "Recovery's looking good. Blood tests came back normal, voice is fine—" He nodded toward Aria. "A little scratchy, but that's expected. Everything's going to be fine."
He paused, and something in his expression softened—relief breaking through the exhaustion.
"Pathology came back, too," he added. "Nothing sinister. Dr. Rao doesn't think it'll come back."
Serafina felt her knees go weak. She gripped the rail of the hospital bed to steady herself.
Nothing sinister. It won't come back.
For a moment, she couldn't speak. The weight of the last few days—the fire, the bills, the impossible interview, the aliens behind the glass—all of it pressed down on her, and this single piece of good news cut through it like light through smoke.
Her sister was going to be okay.
Whatever else happened, whatever insane path Serafina was about to walk down, at least this one thing was certain.
Aria was going to be okay.
Aria shifted against the pillows, wincing slightly at the movement. "Sera," she said, her voice still rough. "The bills. I heard the nurses talking. The surgery, the ICU... it's going to be—"
"Don't worry about that right now," Serafina said.
"How can I not worry?" Aria's eyes glistened. "I don't have insurance that covers all of this. My scholarship's gone. I can't even—"
"Aria." Serafina's voice was firm. "Stop. I'm handling it."
Angelo leaned forward in his chair, his brow furrowed. "Handling it how? Sera, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars. The loans alone—"
"I've been working on it," Serafina said. "I have a job. High pay. I can't say much about it, but I'll find the money."
They both stared at her.
"I have to go away for a while," she continued. "A few weeks, maybe longer. Angelo, you'll stay here with Aria. Help her through recovery."
She reached into her bag and pulled out the envelope—the ten thousand dollars, still crisp and banded. She held it out to him.
Angelo's eyes widened. "Where did you get this?"
"Something I saved for a rainy day."
"Sera, I can't take this—"
"Don't be stupid." Her voice was sharper than she intended. She softened it. "It's Aria. It's you. Of course you can take it."
He stared at the money in her hand, his jaw tight. She knew that look. He was a proud man. He'd worked his whole life, provided for his family, never asked for help from anyone. Taking money from his stepdaughter—even now, even for this—went against everything he was.
"You can pay me back later," she added quietly.
That was what he needed. His expression softened, the tension in his shoulders easing just slightly. He reached out and took the envelope.
"I'll make it up to you," he said. "Every cent."
"I know you will."
"Where are you going?" Aria's voice cut in, thick with concern. She pushed herself up slightly, wincing again. "Sera, you can't handle all of this on your own. Let's talk this through. Take it slowly."
Serafina leaned in and kissed her sister on the forehead, breathing in the familiar scent of her beneath the antiseptic smell of the hospital.
"Aria. It's okay. Trust me." She pulled back and met her sister's eyes. "Your dad's here now. He'll take care of you."
Aria opened her mouth to argue, but Serafina shook her head.
"Rest. Heal. I'll be back before you know it."
She wished she could tell them the truth. But they wouldn't believe her—wouldn't believe how crazy she was, what she'd agreed to, what she'd seen behind that frosted glass in a Los Angeles office building.
They'd think she'd lost her mind.
Maybe she had.
She stayed for a few more hours, sitting beside Aria's bed, listening to Angelo's quiet stories about nothing in particular, watching her sister drift in and out of sleep. The afternoon light shifted through the window, golden and warm, and for a little while, the world felt almost normal.
Then she stood, gathered her things, and said her goodbyes.
Angelo walked her to the door of the hospital room. He put a hand on her shoulder—rough, calloused, familiar.
"Be careful," he said. "Whatever this is."
"I will."
She pressed the Outback's keys into his hand. "Parking structure, level two. Use it if you need to."
He looked at the keys, then at her, questions forming behind his eyes. He didn't ask them.
"I'll be back for it," she said.
She didn't look back as she walked down the corridor, her footsteps echoing against the linoleum.
Outside, the sun was beginning to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. She pulled out the white card Morgan had given her and stared at the phone number.
Then she typed a message.
I'm ready.
The reply came within seconds.
Car will be there in thirty minutes.
She found a bench near the pickup zone and sat down to wait.