Page 17

How many aliens are on this heap of junk?

It’s difficult to get a sense of the scale of this operation.

Is our abduction the act of a band of pirates or an organized plot from some alien civilization?

What if this is a precursor to a mass invasion?

I look through the metal bars, once again studying the area.

This spaceship’s in poor condition, with its dusty, broken so-called healing pods and rusted corridors.

I’m leaning towards the idea that they’re just pervy, poor, space pirates.

“He’s like some freaky, big version of them,” I mutter, sharing a confused look with Sandra and Kazumi. They exhale deeply, their shoulders relaxing.

“Who, Dracoth?” Sandra asks, shuddering as she resumes her usual spot on the floor.

“Overgrown, pendejo !” Carmen snaps, shaking with impotent fury. No doubt she was ready to release a torrent of abuse at whoever dared enter our cell.

The others who just passed by, along with Demon Egg-Head, are all huge—over seven feet tall—but Slasher Dracoth towers over them. He’s like a monstrous red mountain of muscle.

“Yes, him,” I spit, a little less annoyed since he didn’t completely destroy my Chanel after all. “Maybe we’ll be, okay? So far, they haven’t harmed us,” I suggest, feeling the faintest glimmer of hope, desperately trying to banish the dark future of sex slavery and who knows what else.

Kazumi and Sandra perk up at my words. But they are more a wishful thought than anything tangible.

“Yeah?” Carmen tuts, shaking her head and popping our fledgling hope like a party balloon. “Or maybe they’re moving us to a space market, where we’ll be bought and sold like cerdo !” She waves her arms for dramatic emphasis.

Why can’t she just let us hope for two seconds? “What is cerdo?” Kazumi asks, her voice barely audible over my pounding heartbeat.

“How you say?” Carmen makes snuffing noises. “Oink, oink, like farm animal.”

“Pig,” I mutter absently.

“Pig! Like farm animals, you entiendes ?” Carmen retorts, glaring at us like an angry drill sergeant in her camouflage fatigues. She sighs after a moment, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Don’t get it twisted because they haven’t done anything yet.”

We all avert our gaze from Carmen’s intense glare. But she’s right. Dracoth didn’t just snatch random women—he sought us out, traveling across space and the entire globe, selecting specific young women.

“Wait, wait!” I exclaim as a thought strikes me like a lightning bolt. “If he wanted sex slaves, why didn’t he just raid one place? Why go to the trouble of flying across the entire world, taking just one of us each time?” I glance at the others, searching their faces for answers.

Carmen frowns but remains silent for once, lost in thought. I turn to Kazumi, struggling to recall what our captors told her. “Didn’t they say something about you being a bonded female? Maybe it’s like a marriage thing, not some weird, kinky sex deal?” I suggest, clinging to the sliver of hope.

But instead of hope, Kazumi and Sandra’s faces reflect only terror.

They clutch themselves tighter, their skin growing pale.

Carmen emits a deep laugh, oozing bitterness and mockery.

“This is better?” she asks incredulously.

“Being raped by that giant pendejo , or by the other one—the one from infierno ?”

I meet Carmen’s mocking, intense brown eyes, undeterred.

“Of course, it’s better than being used by a whole horde of aliens or sold to creepy, bug-eyed, slime monsters,” I argue, my mind racing with horrifying images of all manner of grotesque, terrifying creatures.

“Or worse—gooey, tentacled aliens that’ll eat us after fucking us. ”

Kazumi bursts into sobs at my words, and Sandra immediately wraps her arms around her, trying to offer comfort. Carmen just scoffs, “Bullshit.”

I sigh, regretting wasting my time trying to instill some hope.

Why does everyone always misunderstand me?

It’s like I’m speaking an alien language myself!

Suddenly, the dim purple lights of the ship flicker off, plunging us into total darkness.

“What’s happening?” I whisper, panic rising my voice and heart rate.

Deafening silence engulfs the surrounding darkness. “These space hillbillies probably forgot to pay the power bill,” I mutter, earning a sardonic chuckle from Carmen.

“Shush!” Kazumi commands, her voice choked with tears. We fall silent, straining to hear something—anything. But there’s nothing. Just complete, unnerving silence. “Not just lights,” Kazumi whispers. “Engine has stopped.”

Her words only heighten the oppressive darkness, like a suffocating blanket I can’t cast off. She’s right. What the hell is happening? Urged by desperation, I struggle to my feet, groping my way toward the bars until they loom out of the dark, almost bumping into them.

“Hello!” I shout into the black corridor, my voice echoing uselessly in the void that might as well be the depths of space.

“Hello!” I repeat, my annoyance and fear growing in the cruel silence. Where is that giant bore when you need him? “He’s probably off abducting more females from some other planet,” I sigh, trying to mask my frustration.

“This cell’s going to get real crowded, real soon,” Carmen replies, though her expression is hidden in the pitch-black. “We should stick together.”

Ironic, coming from her. I can already picture the intergalactic squabble over which aliens control the hole in the ground that serves as our toilet—I could cry. I should be lounging on a yacht in the Mediterranean instead.

A sudden, blinding light stings my eyes. It’s Kazumi’s cell with the torch activated. “You have your cell?” I ask, feeling a pang of jealously. Mine was lost—along with my Birkin handbag, another tragedy. “Do you have any signal?” I add, already dreading the answer.

The cell’s light illuminates Kazumi’s face as if she’s about to tell a ghost story. “No signal, no Wi-Fi. I saved battery until now.”

No shopping, no social media, no nothing! Come on, Lexie, now’s not the time.

I struggle to suppress my trembling lip, on the verge of erupting into full-fledged weeping.

“Give me that,” Carmen snaps, grabbing Kazumi’s cell from her shaky grasp. Kazumi protests weakly in Japanese, her voice barely audible.

“Hey, give her back her phone!” Sandra challenges, looking like an angry pink fox, wearing those garish pajamas.

At this rate, the aliens might find we’ve all killed each other.

“I’ll return it soon,” Carmen waves a dismissive hand as she stalks towards the cell bars, leaving the three of us in total darkness.

“Let us out of here! Hijo de puta !” She squeezes the cell through the bars, shining the light as if it might reveal something.

Carmen sighs in frustration before unleashing more pointless verbal assaults.

I wince at the shouting. “That’s very useful. Yes, good job,” I say, dripping with sarcasm.

Carmen turns, the cell lighting up her face as it twists with impotent fury, now directed towards me.

“I’ve been listening to you three chicas cry like babies for days!

” she roars, thundering closer, urging me to steady myself, rapidly breathing, knowing she might attack.

“Now you tell me to be quiet!” she sneers, jabbing a finger in my face.

How dare this bitch threaten me! Fury overtakes my fear, even though Carmen’s probably military trained.

“Out of my face, dollar-store Gi Jane!” I snarl down at her. Kazumi and Sandra recoil in shock somewhere close to the cell walls. But I don’t care. I refuse to let this hateful woman bully me.

Carmen glares at me, practically shaking, contemplating her next move. She looks ready to use violence like some brutish man, rather than words. She might know Kung Fu or whatever. But I’m bigger. If she tries anything, I’ll sit on her.

The tension is thick, the light from the cell blinding.

“You listen?” Kazumi chimes in, evaporating our awkward tension to mist. Carmen and I break our tense stand-off, turning our attention towards Kazumi—I’m for one glad of the interruption.

“Noise like banging,” she suggests, her stare distant, straining to hear.

What the hell is happening now?

Exasperated, I hold my breath, wondering if Kazumi has super hearing. Initially, the only noise is our nervous breaths and shuffling feet. Then, far off into the distance, a dull clanging and banging almost inaudible reaches my ears.

“Wonderful,” I start, my tone sarcastic.

A spine-chilling scream echoes ominously through the darkness, making me wince. “What the fuck was that?” I ask, casting frantic glances around, seeing nothing.

“Something’s coming!” Sandra exclaims, sounding as frantic as my pounding heartbeat.

I’m trapped in a horror movie!