Chapter 2
TWO
Amelia
Amelia woke up with a cottony mouth, a blazing headache and feeling like she had a roaring hangover. Only, Amelia hadn’t gone out the night before, and she never drank to excess.
She rubbed her face and groaned. Hadn’t she been working? Maybe it was a dream. All she knew was, she was lying on a soft couch, cheek smushed into the cushion.
Wait. This was not her couch. It was too quiet to be her city apartment. Slowly, she pushed herself upright. Her head spun. Her stomach wasn’t in great shape, either. She blinked in the dim light. A blanket of icy panic fell on her.
Not only wasn’t she in her apartment, she wasn’t on her planet.
This was the room she’d brought Kimberly Humphries to, but now she was the only one in it. Kimberly, Jacob, and the alien facilitator were gone. A glance out the narrow clear pane revealed nothing outside but blackness and stars.
“Oh God.” Amelia lurched to her feet. Lightweight fabric swished around her shins. She looked down and gasped. Her feet were bare. Someone replaced her sturdy uniform with a white dress, exactly like Kimberly’s. Just like all the other applicants for the Virilian Match Program.
That couldn’t be right. She wasn’t one of them. She was a guard.
The thing that sent fear straight to her gut was the long chain hanging around her neck. At the end dangled a beautiful pink stone.
“No,” she breathed, struggling to keep air in her lungs.
Her heart beat so hard, it thundered in her ears.
She lowered herself back to the sofa and tried to think back on what happened.
Memories surfaced, fuzzily. Kimberly looked frightened at something behind Amelia.
Then, there was a prick of pain on her neck.
Amelia ran shaking fingers over her neck. There was a bump, and the skin was tender.
“No, no, no.” Trembling everywhere, she got up again. She had to tell the operator what happened. He had to take her back to Earth. And what had happened to Kimberly Humphries?
She walked to the stairs that led down to the control deck, lifting each foot carefully and trying to ignore the fact that her body felt very weird.
It was as though her feet were being sucked to the floor, but the rest of her felt weightless.
Well, she was in space. This was better than floating.
The stairs were a smooth, spiral column.
She paused, palms slick and hands trembling.
Fear coursed though her. Her one glance at the operator had hardly been thorough.
He looked like a standard Virilian male—dark hair, muscular, handsome.
He hadn’t been shirtless, if she recalled.
Usually, they only wore these crisscrossing straps across their torsos.
Amelia pulled in a deep breath and placed her foot on the top step.
She was half afraid it was the operator who had done this to her, while desperately hoping he hadn’t and would be willing to help her.
She stepped onto the control deck. It was much smaller and not as tidy as the main chamber above.
Amelia could only see the back of the operator’s head.
He sat in a wide chair, surrounded by screens of different sizes and colors.
He hadn’t yet seemed to notice she was there.
His dark head was lowered. She quietly stepped forward, peering over the chair at what he was doing. He wasn’t moving. Maybe he was sleeping. Maybe he was dead. Then, she heard some noises and shifted closer. He had a screen on his lap. What was on it was eye-opening, to say the least.
Two puffy pink aliens—females, presumably, considering the three sets of massive breasts on each of their chests—were being fondled everywhere by a large, tentacled thing that had one giant eye on the top of its globular head.
Amelia’s mouth dropped open as she watched, along with the operator, in frozen fascination.
Good grief, the tentacled creature had its appendages in every orifice, and the females were clearly enjoying every second of it.
This, apparently, was porn—the extraterrestrial variety. It was oddly gratifying to see that even far out in space, some things were exactly the same as they were on Earth.
She shifted closer to get a better look and bumped a stack of parts. They rattled and the operator jumped out of his seat with a yelp. The screen, still playing, bumped off his lap and floated, turning end over end in slow revolutions.
Amelia held out her hands and winced at the wild-eyed look on the Virilian’s face. “Oops. So sorry!”
He let out a heated stream of words in a language—Virilian, she assumed—that she didn’t speak. Meanwhile, the screen with the alien porn passed between them, bumped against a wall, and began floating back the other way. High-pitched moans and slurping noises battled with the operator’s tirade.
He was understandably mad. Nobody enjoyed being startled, especially in the middle of watching tentacle porn.
He was absurdly handsome, though. Expressive, bright green eyes were rimmed with the dark, smudged-looking skin that made Virilians look like punk rockers.
He had high cheekbones, a powerful jaw, and a nicely shaped mouth, even if it was shouting undoubtedly nasty things.
How fortunate that she couldn’t understand a word he said.
“Yeah,” she said after he wound down. “I didn’t catch any of that.” He probably couldn’t understand her, either.
He made an exasperated face and turned to his console.
She watched him dig around in a small bin of mixed bits and bobs and finally come out with a button-sized, round, silver thing.
He wiped it off on his shirt. She watched with horror as he poked around the back of his head and stuck it in a slot he apparently found there.
“What the hell,” she said. “Did you just…? Ew.”
He shook his head and gave her a stern look. “Do not sneak up on me. Never sneak up on a Virilian,” he said in clear American-style English. “It’s a good way to get yourself killed.”
“I didn’t sneak,” she said, recovering from the shock of hearing English come from his mouth.
“I just walked down here. You just couldn’t hear me over the moaning and slurping noises of your adult alien movie.
” She gestured to the floating screen. The action was getting louder, with each female reaching climax and convulsing as the tentacles worked their magic.
The tentacled creature itself had changed from dark blue to aqua.
He snatched the screen out of the air and turned off the sound, appearing not the slightest bit embarrassed to be caught watching it. “What are you doing up anyway, Kimberly?” he asked irritably. “The sedative should have kept you out for another couple hours, at least.”
Rage flooded her, hot and sharp, making her miss the fact that he called her Kimberly. “So you did this to me?” she shouted, fists raised. “Why? And where is Kimberly?”
He looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “What are you talking about? Is this translation chip working?” He rubbed the back of his head, looking confused. “He said you were overwrought, and that you asked for a sedative to calm your nerves. When I checked on you, you were sleeping.”
Overwrought? Her vision tinged red. “Who told you that?”
“Your guard. The human male who helped escort you on the ship came down here and let me know. Kimberly—”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, cutting him off.
“What is wrong with you?” His eyes narrowed. “Is this a matter of cold feet? Am I using that term correctly?”
Amelia shook her head. “No. I mean, yes, you’re using it right. What I’m trying to say is, I’m not Kimberly.”
He blinked at her, then smirked. “Yes, you are.”
Oh, my God. She was going to kill him. “No, I’m not.
My name is Amelia Ward. I have worked as a hired security guard for the Virilian Match Program for three years.
I escort women to and from the transports and assist during the selection and screening process.
I was drugged, dressed in her clothes, and now Kimberly is gone.
” She pressed one fist into the opposite palm.
“The trainee,” she snarled to herself. “Jacob. He was in on it. I’d never seen him before, and now I know why.
Asshole probably wasn’t a trainee at all. ”
The operator shook his head. “I’m telling you right now, I’m not turning this ship around.
You can act as crazy as you want. My job is to deliver you to Klae Rillim, Virilian trade merchant, and I don’t get paid until that happens.
You changed your mind? Fine. Change it when we arrive at the Delra-E2 station, then I’ll happily take the job to deliver you back to Earth. ”
“That’s nice,” Amelia said, gritting the words through her teeth. “But I’m not Kimberly. You saw me bring her on the ship.”
He waved a hand. “I saw two guards bring a human female in a white dress on the ship. You were her.”
“I wasn’t. I’m not.”
“You look just like her.”
“Why do people keep saying that?” She flung her arm wide. “We have similar hair color. That’s it. Everything else is different.”
He shook his head and sighed. “Okay, we can play this game. It’s more entertaining than what I was doing before your interruption.” He raised one patronizing eyebrow. “You’re wearing the white dress. And if you’re not Kimberly, then how did you get that necklace?”
She knew deep down that she was losing this battle.
It was also apparent that he wasn’t part of the scheme.
His bafflement appeared genuine. Here they were, in the middle of space.
What would be the point in perpetuating the farce?
“I told you—that guard, and probably the facilitator, too—was in on the plan and switched my clothes with Kimberly’s. ”
“No way.” He waved off the suggestion. “Sulot wouldn’t jeopardize his facilitator job to engage in some crazy, complicated kidnapping plot.
Besides, he’s a friend of mine.” He smoothed a hand over his chest, which was clad in a bright, white T-shirt.
“He always brings me a fresh pack of tagless crew necks. Nice, right?”
“No, no.” An alien with a pocket tee obsession? She could not process how weird that was. “Not nice. And not reassuring.”
He spread his hands. “Hey, your planet is the only place that makes these. They don’t let Virilians shop.”
“Can we stay on topic? Someone drugged me. Look.” She pointed to the painful bump on her neck. “I was injected right there.”
He looked at it and winced. “Ouch. That’s a nasty pimple.”
“It’s not a pimple.” She was beginning to think maybe she was losing her mind. “Don’t you have a file or something with a picture of Kimberly Humphries? You can see that I’m not her.”
“We can do that.” He sat back down at his console and swiped one of his screens. It displayed fuzz for a moment. He knocked it a few times with his knuckle and it came into focus. “Ah, there you are, Kimberly.” He looked up at her. “Isn’t that you?”
“Damn it.” The picture was of her laughing face.
She recognized it, in fact, as one taken at a friend’s wedding a few months earlier.
Someone had copied it off one of her social media accounts and Photoshopped it onto Kimberly’s shoulders in her official picture for the application process.
“They altered the picture,” she said weakly.
“Sure they did.” He spoke with a gentleness reserved for overtired preschoolers and horses. “Look, why don’t we start over, okay? My name is Taron Ba—”
“Taron Bando. I know.” Amelia closed her eyes.
She felt as though the floor had dropped out from under her.
This just wasn’t right. She did her job.
She followed the rules down to the exact words they wanted her to say.
Inexplicable tears burned and her head felt light.
“Look, obviously you don’t believe me. I can’t say I blame you.
But I am not Kimberly Humphries. I am Amelia Ward.
I am a hired guard from Minnesota and I never applied to become a match for a Virilian male.
” She placed a hand on the back of his chair as a wave of vertigo swam through her.
“The real Kimberly has been abducted, and I don’t know why. Oh.” She swayed on her feet.
“Hey.” His brows snapped together. “Are you going to pass out?”
“I never pass out,” she snapped, or tried to. Her words slurred. Her body felt oddly boneless.
Holy crap, she was going to pass out. “Shit…” she got out before slipping into blackness.