Chapter 1
Abduction is never great.
Well, this wasn’t ideal. I stood in a minuscule room made of rough metal with at least a hundred other humans. We were packed into the cramped space like cattle on the way to slaughter. I had no idea how I’d gotten here. One moment, I was getting ready for bed, and the next, an alien with a watermelon-shaped head on a toothpick body was screeching at me and shocking me with some kind of baton that sparked with green electricity.
Now, I was in this tiny room.
The room was so full that it was impossible to sit unless I flopped on top of the other people. I’d had to do that, though,when my legs grew too weak to support me, and the other people stuck with me had done it as well.
We’d had no choice.
Someone vomited and drew me back to the present hell we were all living in. The stagnant air from everyone’s breathing was mixed with the stench of sewage, sweat, and general B.O. It was enough to burn my eyes and send my stomach lurching with every inhale. I might have puked if I’d had anything in my stomach, so that was one benefit, if I wanted to find the silver lining of this horror.
The toothpick aliens, which seemed anatomically impossible, hadn’t provided food, water, or somewhere to go to the bathroom. As a result, we were all coated in things I refused to think about.
While I didn’t know how long I’d been gone, as the hours blurred together, I had a sneaking suspicion we weren’t on Earth anymore. Aliens. Weird ship. Humans in a hold. It wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened. We’d been abducted, and probably not for a good reason, since the aliens were treating us like shit.
But oddly enough, I didn’t care.
There was a disconnect between my emotions and my mind, like someone had snipped a thread connecting the two. I was frozen in place, unable to move. My heart was pounding and my breathing was shallow; all the while, a helpless feeling consumed me, but my body refused to move and my thoughts circled on the end of the journey.
Some of the people trapped with me cried, others chatted quietly, and some stared into the distance, rocking back and forth. Everyone was coping however possible. My method was not moving, I guessed. There was nowhere to go anyway, and perhaps being numb was better. There was no fear. No worries about what my family would think when they couldn’t get a holdof me. No cares about the people trapped with me. No panic about the end of this trip.
None of it mattered.
The ship shuddered, knocking me out of my frozen stance and allowing me to take a deep inhale and move. I thumped into the wall, which was growing hotter by the second, as the ship jerked hard once again right before a loud grinding sounded. People screamed, trying to scramble to their feet. I pressed against the warm wall, struggling to remain upright.
A guy toppled to the floor with a yelp, and someone stepped on him, making him cry out. Shaking, I yanked him up, and he clung to me. Together, we fought to remain upright while people tumbled around us, trying to stand, trying to get away, trying not to get trampled.
The floor jolted, sending more people to the ground, and then all vibration ceased, which was more terrifying than the constant rumble I’d grown used to.
“I think we landed,” the guy said.
I nodded.
“Vince,” he said.
“Bartholomew Reginald,” I replied.
His eyebrows lifted.
“My moms are weird. You can call me Teddy.”
Vince glanced at the door through the sea of filthy people. He didn’t act in a rush for me to let him go, and honestly, I wasn’t ready to release him. When the doors opened, I was fairly certain we were going to die. It was nice not to die alone, even if I didn’t really know the man beside me.
Panic, my first real emotion since this ordeal started, bolted through my veins and jump-started my pulse. I was going to die. This was it. My last moments, filled with terror and the smell of piss, awaited me as soon as those rough metal doors opened.
My companion squeezed me in a bruising grip and his heart thudded powerfully against my chest.
We were going to die.
I studied him, hoping his human face was the last thing I’d see in this world. It was a sight better than the watermelon-head aliens, or the metal room filled with screaming people. Vince was attractive, almost giving me romance villain vibes, with sharp features that were somehow delicate. While we were both white and had black hair, his hung to his shoulders, perfectly straight, and his skin was deathly pale. His dark brown eyes were almost black to my light brown, and they were wide with fear. The one thing holding him back from being a true villain in the romance novels I enjoyed was his height. Vince was short.
“What do you think is going to happen?” Vince asked, his voice soft, though deeper than his thin frame suggested.
“Death.”
“At least you don’t sugarcoat it,” he said, his words dripping in sarcasm.
