Page 5

ALICE

Let me do some research. I’ll tell you if I find anything , he said. That was two days ago. Two! In the meantime, more marks appeared, slithering up and down my arm, side, hip, and thigh.

I wasn't a tattoo girl. I wasn't against it. I had just never wanted ink that would be permanent on my skin. Markings that would be there for the rest of my life. And look at me now. My entire left side was filled with swirls and lines that made absolutely no sense to me.

To stop myself from losing my mind, I took one of the cleaning drones apart to figure out how it worked and then put it back together—mostly; only three parts were left when I was done. Oops.

It still worked, though.

The hardest part was keeping the damn marks hidden from my fellow passengers. We were all crammed together like sardines in a can. There was no reprieve. Anywhere. The ship had seemed so large when it came to our rescue, but it had shrunk a little more with every passing day. The only place for solitude was in one of the three bathrooms, but it was hard trying to take advantage of it when there was always a line of people waiting for their turn.

After some altercations, Tom put a twenty-minute limit on the time spent inside. How he figured he could keep track of it, I didn’t know. Nobody had a working watch. But it worked for the most part.

It wasn't only the lack of privacy, there was also a lack of clothing. Had I not been wearing a long-sleeved shirt when I was abducted, I would have been shit out of luck right now.

I lay on the cold, metallic floor like most of the others, with no pillow, no blanket, and nothing but the clothes on my back. At least your arms are no longer bound , my cheerful side piped up. Yay, me , I snarked right back.

My head rested on my arms, and I closed my eyes, trying really hard to ignore the press of over two hundred bodies around me. Someone snored, someone farted, someone was crying. Always noises now. After several weeks of it, I still wasn't used to it. Ever since I worked my way through college taking shifts in a garage, I had become extremely noise-sensitive, making it nearly impossible for me to get a full night's rest with all these people.

It wasn't just the noise, either. Anytime I managed to get comfortable, someone would step on my toe, hair, or hand and kick me in the kidney on their way to the bathroom. The days weren't much better. Most of us were tired and grumpy from our ordeals and restless nights. Even the lucky few who seemed unfazed by the crowded conditions couldn’t escape the nightmares. The human mind is a fascinating thing, but it has an inherent flaw; it tries to work through your trauma at night, thereby increasing your overall anxiety.

With a sigh, I turned on my side, just to have Ava, who was lying next to me, take advantage of the few inches I had just vacated and scoot in. Great, now I was completely wedged in. A foot kicked me in the head from the person lying above me. I scooted down, only to kick whoever lay at my feet—resulting in a curse being sent my way—just another night on this damn ship.

It wasn't like I wasn't used to being crowded. I had six brothers and sisters, and we all lived in a tiny apartment. But even that hadn't been as crowded as this ship.

Thinking of that place made me think of my family, something I usually avoided. But once my mind drifted there, unpleasant memories took over. My parents were meth addicts, and so were my six siblings. Lying and thieving were second nature to them. I cut ties with them when I was fifteen. I slept at shelters, on benches, and sometimes, when I was lucky, at high school friends' houses. I made money by repairing anything and everything from cell phones to computers. I fixed motors, small machinery, bikes; you name it. Luck was on my side when I took an engineering class in high school and caught Mr. Morton's eye. He enrolled me in STEM classes and even got me into a private high school on a scholarship that focused on STEM. From there, it was a straight scholarship ride to Georgia Tech. Not far from campus, I found a part-time job at a local garage. That paycheck, plus what I earned from doing the odd repairs here and there, paid for what the scholarship didn't cover. I finished college and got my first job within a week at VegaTech Innovations in Vegas.

The company paid for my relocation, a house, a car, and a salary that exceeded all my dreams and expectations. Here I was, a twenty-two-year-old making over eighty grand a year without housing or car expenses, doing what I loved to do. I didn't think life could get any better, but in the back of my mind, I always feared something would happen to bring me back down. And it did. Not even two years later, the Cryons invaded.

At least I was safe now, albeit uncomfortably crammed. In the dim light, I carefully rolled up my sleeve, remembering all this had distracted me from the black lines, which I noticed were still growing. Two days later! Thankfully, they hadn't spread past the one side. My left side was all the canvas it seemed to need. Or so I hoped. I had no idea when they would stop or if they would spread.

Tomorrow. I promised myself once again, like I had last night, that tomorrow I would go talk to Xyrek if he still hadn't sought me out. I liked that plan; the only problem was that I didn't particularly look forward to talking to him again. I wasn't a coward by any means; I had never backed down from a challenge or verbal disagreement, but Xyrek unnerved me on too many levels to make talking to him a pleasant undertaking, from the hero worship syndrome to him being a cold ass. I was simultaneously attracted to him and wanted to rip his head off whenever he opened his mouth. And with those damn marks spreading over our bodies now, it made the entire situation only worse. Like… like there was a connection of some kind.

Hah, a disease, more likely , my snarky side interjected.

Unfortunately, I was a logical person—that came with the trade—which was probably the reason I had been able to cut ties with my family more or less easily. Anyway, the logical part dictated that if these marks were indeed due to some alien disease, I wouldn't be the only human affected by it. There were over two hundred other people on this ship with me, and we all shared very close quarters. So why was I the only one getting those marks?

Maybe the others are hiding them, just like you . Hmm, good point. I would keep my eyes peeled in the morning .

Xyrek hadn't explained this whole morning/night thing in space to us yet. Only said that it was bedtime when the lights started dimming and get up time when they began to illuminate again. I didn't know much about space, but for sure, there wasn't a sun to tell us the time of day. Making it a logical conclusion that the ship dictated it.

With those thoughts, I finally drifted off into another night of interrupted sleep.