CHAPTER FIFTEEN #2
The massive hangar doors opened, letting in a powerful gust of cold air. The women cried out at the cold, but discomfort was forgotten as a large shuttle craft slid into the hangar.
The doors closed again. All eyes were on the craft.
Anna thought it looked pretty rough, rivets all over the hull, as if metal plates had been hastily welded together, but everything looked junky compared to the sleek, beautiful Baylan ships belonging to the other alien race that were all over Earth now.
A ramp lowered. Anna drew in a collective breath with the group of women.
Instead of seeing a rowdy group of Virilian males, an older Virilian female descended.
She was tall and strong. Her skin held only the slightest of creases, and a long flow of hair fell down her back, which ended in a long, blue tail tipped with a sharp barb.
She walked slowly. Two serious Virilian males accompanied her.
Each carefully held one of her arms as they guided her down the ramp and onto the concrete floor.
The males were breathtaking, honestly. Even Anna had to admit that.
Tall and muscular, with strong bones and the faces of Roman gods, they wore a mix of bands around their wrists and snug leather pants that outlined enormous packages between their legs.
Tattoos slithered over their chests and down their arms. These males were not for them, though.
They were this female’s personal guards. They kept their gazes straight ahead. It became apparent why the female needed the assistance: she was blind. Her eyes were opaque white and unseeing as her gaze passed over them without focus.
In her hands were a collection of chains bearing pendants with different colored stones. Realization slammed into Anna—this blind female would be choosing them. How, she couldn’t fathom, but the female walked slowly down the aisle, passing her milky gaze over them all.
The female stopped. She felt through the necklaces and carefully chose one.
Then, she turned toward a woman standing there and raised her hands to fasten it around her neck.
Anna saw the chosen one—a beautiful, tan-skinned woman with long black hair—clutch her hands in front of her.
She was nervous, obviously. There was no word from the Virilians, who simply continued their slow march down the aisle.
Shortly after, the female chose another necklace, for another woman.
Anna could hear the sighs of relief; she could see the physical relief in many of the women who were passed over. They would be grateful to leave here with five thousand dollars in their pocket for one day’s humiliation.
The Virilian female drew closer. Anna held her breath.
Her heart made a wild, thunderous beat in her chest. So many had been skipped, surely she would be, too.
The woman next to her whimpered as the Virilians stopped in front of her.
The female shuffled through her necklaces.
Anna could see that they had short chains with thick links.
A medallion hung from each with a different stone in the center.
The female drew one out that held a smooth clear stone.
Anna was frozen. The female could turn to the woman across from her, or either of the women next to her. Surely it wouldn’t be her. Surely it couldn’t…
The female turned to face her directly. Close up, Anna could see the milky haze swirling over the female’s pupils, and the gentle smile that did nothing to ease Anna’s rising panic. A warm, floral scent enveloped her. Still, she thought, it can’t be me.
She watched, frozen, as those long fingers reached out with the necklace and clasped the cold metal around her neck.
The female murmured something she couldn’t understand.
Warm fingers briefly touched her cheeks, and then the female and her male escorts turned away and continued down the line of women.
Anna couldn’t breathe. Her vision was all but grayed out as the reality of her situation slowly sank in. One of the women standing next to her rubbed her arm reassuringly, but she barely felt it.
Five million dollars would be her ultimate prize and she would be earning it.
She needed the money, for sure. Her brother wasn’t going to get the proper treatment for his rare cancer without it.
Not with the constant insurance battles that were holding up the process, and not with their father’s debts and fines and current incarceration.
This would solve all their problems. Anna should feel some happiness about that, but she could barely breathe.
Anna stood there. It could have been minutes.
It could have been hours. At some point, the Virilian female gave out all her necklaces and made a slow path back to her shuttle.
Another gust of wind and it was gone. The women who were chosen were grabbed roughly and pulled away from the group.
Anna only vaguely registered the chaos. Women struggled to put their robes back on as military personnel poured in.
They herded all the women back to windowless vans to be returned to wherever they had come from—all except for the women with necklaces.
Two men dressed in military gear seized her arms and propelled her outside. Naked, in the freezing cold, Anna’s fear took over. Yes, she knew what she’d signed up for, but they were not told it would be like this.
“I—I need to say goodbye to my brother,” she protested, teeth chattering. “T-they told me I could s-say goodbye.”
“They told you wrong,” snapped one of the guards in an accent she didn’t recognize. Outside was a barren stretch of desert that seemed to go on forever. It was night. She could see little aside from a semicircle of shuttle ships hovering a few feet above the ground.
The ten women chosen were separated and each loaded onto separate ships destined for their Virilian mates. Aliens of all different types, including Virilians, emerged from the shuttles. They checked the women’s necklaces and brought them aboard.
Anna was the only one with a clear stone in hers.
The military guads handed her off to a pair of aliens.
She’d never seen aliens like this before.
They were short, with pale gray skin and piglike snouts that took up most of their faces.
They communicated in a series of clicks and hisses, and they were rough as they grabbed her arms and pulled her aboard one particular shuttle.
Inside, it was dark, cluttered with shuttle parts, and it smelled of fried electronics.
One of the aliens grabbed her ankle and fastened a shackle to it, connected to a two-foot-long chain. The alien threw a scratchy blanket to her, then disappeared with its partner to another part of the ship. Anna stumbled to the floor and wrapped the blanket around her. The shuttle began to move.
She could feel it lifting, taking her away, even though she couldn’t see out. With hard metal grating beneath her, and no idea where she was going or what was going to happen to her,