3. Chapter 3

I had parked my car a couple of streets down when I drove to the poker party to make sure nobody followed me—old habits were hard to break. Not in a hundred years would I have expected that I would be followed back after meeting military contacts.

The men following me didn't even try to mask the noise they were making. I wondered if it was Tony and his friends. Were they coming after me to continue our chat? I dismissed that idea. If they had wanted to do that, it would have been only one of them following me. Not three. Three leaving after my departure had surely aroused the suspicion of the others. That they didn't care about that gave me pause.

They hadn't shot me in the back yet, leading me to believe that they came to deliver a message—probably a very painful message—one I really wasn't in the mood for.

Cody, my uncle, had always told me that offense was a much better defense. I had long ago learned that he had been a very wise man. I hadn't spent nearly as many years with him as I would have liked to, but those years had left a lasting impression on me. Enough to have joined the Navy to impress him, even though he had been dead by then. Many of the things he taught me had saved my life many times over the years, and his advice had been spot on, just like that one.

So, when I turned a corner, instead of moving on, I pressed my right side against the wall to teach the men a lesson in surprise. Quickly, I ripped the seam of my tight, black skirt to give me more maneuverability and patted myself mentally on the back of my shoulder for having chosen black flats instead of my customary high heels—I hadn't seen any sense in looking too sexy for this party.

The first of them received a well-aimed fist against his throat, which knocked him down. The second one, I recognized immediately by his scarred face, Russ was smarter but not smart enough to avoid a hard kick in the groin that sent him tumbling to join… I risked a quick glimpse, Tony!

The third was Sven. Now, that was interesting. It seemed as if I had poked a hornet's nest. Sven pulled a knife and leered at me. "Well, let's go, little kitty!"

He knew me well enough to know how much it pissed me off being called kitty . All these alpha a-holes in the Armed Forces and Intelligence community thought of women as weak, barely good enough to serve them a blow job. It took years of hard work to earn the modicum of respect they gave their peers automatically. Any women in my industry had to nip these derogatory name-callings in the bud the first opportunity they had. Otherwise, they would never make it.

"Meow!" I intoned. He hadn't anticipated that, and it distracted him just long enough for me to step forward right at the knife.

My left arm flew forward, and my palm struck his fist, holding the serrated blade up. The impact bent his wrist while my right palm clapped against the inside of his forearm, keeping it steady enough that his grip automatically loosened, and the knife went flying.

He might have been a bit rusty from desk duty over the past years, but he recovered quickly. His left fist came for me. I managed to duck in time, and he struck empty air, losing his footing in the process from his forward momentum—enough for me to deliver a kick against his side, sending him flying against a parked car.

The car's alarm went off just as a hand viciously pulled at my long hair. Russ had gotten back on his feet. He wasn't the first to try that move. All my instructors over the years, beginning with Judo when I was seven and going all the way to the Navy Intelligence, had warned me many times to keep my hair short, but I'm stubborn that way. Instead, I used it as a trap, drawing in idiots like Russ, who saw me as a weak, pretty girl, even after all these years.

I twisted around while ducking. His hand pulled even harder on my hair, and I felt strands coming loose, raising my fury even more. I had just spent a grand time getting it pampered and done. While I moved under his arm, my right fist shot forward, hitting him square in the jaw, bruising my knuckles .

He staggered for a moment. I was about to deliver a roundhouse kick to finish him off when Sven approached from the side. Changing direction, I kicked at him instead, but opened myself up to Russ, who jumped on my back, grabbing me into a bear hug.

They must have practiced this move because Sven managed to evade my kick, waiting for Russ to squeeze me like a lemon.

"Nice try bitch!"

"Remember, we want her alive," Tony, slowly recovering from his blow to his throat, wheezed, getting on his knees and holding his hand against the wall to support himself.

All the while, the damn car's siren beeped into my ear, and I hoped to God nobody would call the fucking cops. The last thing I needed was an investigation.

"You're gonna be in a world of pain when we're done with you, bitch," Sven mused, stepping closer.

I rolled my eyes, leeching off Russ's strength as he was still holding me from behind. I lifted my legs off the ground, ramming them into Sven, who had made the mistake of coming too close. He fell back, holding his stomach, fighting to catch his breath. When my feet hit the ground again, I angled my arms up just enough to force Russ to tighten the grip he had around me. Turning on my hip, I moved one foot behind both of his legs, while simultaneously swinging my left arm to force him to stagger back over my legs, hitting the ground, and pulling me on top of him. I rolled out of his grip, getting on my feet just as Sven made another jump for me.

My elbow hurt from where it had hit the hard concrete, but I had learned long ago to suppress any distracting pain. Uncle Cody had actually been the first to teach me. Back then, he still held hopes that I would change my mind about joining the Navy. He had wanted me to go to college like Dawn. Be an intellectual, not a fighter. Yeah, that backfired on him big time. Whatever he threw at me, I took.

He did draw the line when I asked him to shoot me—I thought I needed to know what it felt like. That lesson waited a few more years and taught me that there was a threshold to pain. That there were some pains you couldn't fight through, but it also taught me that as long as nothing was broken or cut off, it was still usable.

The wailing of sirens stopped all four of us cold. None of us wanted to deal with the cops. Too much explaining.

"This isn't over." Tony wagged his finger in the air, daring me to make a grab for it.

"Looking forward to it," I yelled, already running across the street, away from the three of them. Running away wasn't my style, and I would have loved to question Tony about why they came after me, but for now, I was worried about Dawn. Not many people knew I had a twin sister, mostly because she had kept our father's name, and I had changed mine to our mother's maiden name, but these guys did. If they came after me, they would go after her next. I wasn't sure why, but I would find out. For now, I needed to make sure she was safe.

I reached my car, and as soon as I drove down the streets, called Dawn. She picked up even before the phone had a chance to beep on my end.

"… Pierre. I don't know anything, please. "

Fuck! She sounded terrified. I didn't dare say anything; there was nothing I could have done through the phone, and she obviously wanted me to hear this conversation.

A muffled man's voice said, "Pierre won't help you and we can't take that risk."

I hit the brakes in the middle of the road. Thankfully, I wasn't on the freeway yet, and there wasn't much traffic. One car honked at me, and I hit the mute button. Whatever was happening to my sister, there was absolutely nothing I could do besides listen.

"Oh no, oh please! Amber! Amber!"

A chill ran down my spine. "Give me something, Dawn," I whispered, "I need a name."

There was a loud crash, "Fight, Dawn," I urged, but my voice didn't go above a whisper. She wasn't a fighter. I was. She had refused to go with me to any of the courses I took. Judo, karate, taekwondo, kickboxing. Anything that might have saved her life now. For a moment I considered calling the cops, but what would I tell them, that I thought my sister was being murdered at IC headquarters? Even if they followed up on a call like that, they would arrive too late.

My brain urged me to call IC. I put Dawn on speaker and entered IC's address and phone number with trembling hands. In the background, I heard another scream, cut short, ending in a rattling sound that was all too familiar to me.

"Dawn," I choked out, knowing full well someone had just cut her throat .

With a bang, her phone hit the ground; she must have dropped it.

Fuck!

Tears burned in my eyes. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Suddenly, there was deep, heavy breathing on the line. Her attacker must have picked it up. My finger shook when I took my phone off mute. "Hello?"

Heavy breathing, nothing else. And then the phone disconnected.

I realized I had been holding my breath and pulled a heaving lungful of air in; it stuttered through my throat, getting caught a few times, feeling as if someone was choking me.

The only time I could remember feeling helpless and this emotional was when the cops stormed our house and pulled Dawn and me out.

After the killer cut the connection, my screen turned to my last search, giving me the number for IC. My finger hovered over it. They were not shaking any longer.

I wasn't sure why I wasn't pressing it. The security guards, I was sure worked there, might rush into her room. They might still find her murderer.

And then what? An ice-cold voice inside me whispered. The same voice that had been with me for a long time. Ever since the day my childhood ended in a police raid. So the security guards rush to Dawn's room, find her dead, and might even find her killer. What are they gonna do?

Wipe it under the rug , I answered .

Because IC didn't need that kind of publicity right now, not hours before the next team went to Vandruk. They sure as hell wouldn't stop it.

They might have even okayed Dawn's murder.

With ice running through my veins, I put the phone in the charger, knowing what I needed to do if I wanted any chance of bringing my sister's killer to justice.

"Asshole," I called the name I had given my car's computer. "Give me directions to Denver."

Seemed I was going to Colorado to find my sister's killer.

I had a lot of time to think during the long drive. I tried to figure out what Dawn could have possibly known to warrant her death.

I didn't know much about this alien planet and had only followed the news haphazardly. What I did know was that ten years ago, a scientist, Professor Carl Weidenhof, used a lot of money from the government and private investors to open a wormhole to another planet. Vandruk or Hope One, as it had been called at the time. The project had nearly died, but the surprise arrival of one of Vandruk's inhabitants changed that. Until then, nobody, or at least the public, had known about any intelligent life on Vandruk. It had been quite the shocker .

The alien's condition for allowing another exploratory team to come to Vandruk had been twenty women as brides for him and his men. In exchange, he would protect a team of researchers sent to collect data about the planet.

Something that should have been outrageous enough in this day and age to stop negotiations right then and there. Surprisingly, women from all over the globe had flocked to the idea. Thousands had petitioned to volunteer.

Dawn was the only woman going to Vandruk, not as a bride. She and I weren't particularly close and hadn't talked in a few years other than a quick text on our shared birthday. We were just too different to get along and had been from the day we were born. According to Aunt Helen, I was a fussy baby, whereas Dawn was an angel.

Growing up, when Dawn wanted to play with dolls, I wanted to play a board game. When Dawn wanted to go swimming, I wanted to ice skate. When I wanted to eat mac and cheese, she wanted ice cream. Neither one of us had ever been willing to give in to the other. Still, I loved her; she was my twin. Just like she loved me because I was her twin. We just didn't like each other.

Grief sat with me through the three hours drive. To distract myself, I ordered my phone to read me anything and everything about Vandruk that had ever been published, or at least the broad gist of it. Thankfully, the streets were empty this time of night, so every once in a while, I stole a glimpse at some pictures. There weren't many. Mostly, the direct view from the portal at different times of the day and night .

Now that I had some time to think about it, I found it curious that there weren't any pictures of any alien life forms. Or of the expedition teams as they left. We took video of the first steps on the Moon, right? I realized that metal disintegrated on contact, but they could have filmed from our side of the portal like they did with the other images. Since there was at least one intelligent being on Vandruk, it was safe to conclude there were others. Others who would have been as curious about us and the portal that had suddenly popped up in their world. Others would have congregated around the portal at one point or another, a gathering that would have been recorded.

Also, if there were people or aliens there, I was pretty sure it meant there was some kind of wildlife. Wildlife that would have been captured by the twenty-four-hour surveillance.

This reiterated the question of why the public had never seen any sign of life—no cute critter, nothing.

Following that, I also noted that the Vandruk had assured the safety of the expedition in return for his demand. This translated to me that the powers that be at IC had to know there was a threat they needed protection from . If they knew that, it also reinforced my assumption that they had withheld information from the general public. Vital information.

The only reason for them doing that was to cover up something. Otherwise, they would have used it to keep the public's interest in the project going, and it wouldn't have been threatened to be shut down .

Again, I wondered what my sister had gotten herself into. She was the most idealistic person I knew; if she found out that IC was planning an attack, she would become a whistleblower. If she informed the public about possible battles having been fought on Vandruk, she was a potential liability. In my experience, liabilities didn't live long, especially not when money or power was involved, which both were clearly at play here. Whoever took over an entire planet… my head swam just from the possibilities. From selling settler rights to selling exotic pets, not to mention new resources.

Fuck! Dawn had already been a target, even before I blabbed to Tony. But our conversation might have been the tipping point. Dawn had been set to go to Vandruk tomorrow. She would have been away for at least a year. A year during which she couldn't have caused much trouble. Unless she had a file ready to send or something like that. But when I poked the hornet's nest tonight, it had tipped them off that Dawn wasn't the only obstacle. They were probably ransacking my apartment right now, trying to find evidence. My sister wasn't the only one with a target on her back. So they had accelerated their plans, getting her out of the way first and me second. The drive took three hours, and it was past two o'clock in the morning when I pulled into IC's headquarters parking lot. It was filled to the brim with people.

Shit, I hadn't expected that.

I should have, though.

Tomorrow was the day the first expedition in years would leave for Vandruk, not to mention twenty voluntary brides, who had become small celebrities over the past few weeks. I thought it was a sad statement for human men that thousands of women flocked for the opportunity to marry an alien they hadn't even met.

The few glimpses I had caught of the women weren't very favorable; none of them looked like the pioneer type or none that I had seen. The women who had been selected, according to IC, by psychology and physical fitness testing obviously didn't have to ace any IQ tests, which would have been on my priority list. Instead, each one looked like a supermodel, spending more time fiddling with a stray strand of hair than figuring out what they had gotten themselves into. Even the reporters and moderators of the news or talk shows they attended asked stupid questions. Nobody asked how do you expect your life to change ? Or Are you worried about setting foot on an alien planet ?

No, their questions were, What brand of shoes are you wearing ? Or Do you think you'll be alright without coffee ?

Well, that last one had some merit, but these women were going to a freaking alien world to marry a freaking alien!

Many of those reporters now hung out at the front gates of the IC building, but it wasn't just them. There were also hundreds of protestors.

My idea of bullying my way into the main entrance was shot. Security was tighter than any base I had ever been to, and I no longer had any credentials that would get me in anywhere.

Well , I won't be able to find a way in by sitting in the car .

During the drive, I stopped at a rest stop, where I replaced my ripped skirt with tight black leggings and a dark sweatshirt. Determined, I opened my car door and stepped out, but stayed in the shadows while I looked at the massive walls crowned with miles of barbed wire—probably electrified. There were so many people that I couldn't even see the entrance gate. With the bright halogen lamps illuminating this place, you would have thought it was daytime.

Shouting broke out ahead of me. Two men and three women swung signs like lances at each other, yelling obscenities. Curiosity was always one of my toxic traits. I needed to know all the details. I tilted my head to read the signs, which wasn't easy because they were in constant motion, but the lights helped. Stay away from Vandruk , one read. Whores , another. Don't pimp out our women on a third. Very original, I thought sarcastically, stepping deeper into the shadows to avoid the five people and their swinging signs.

Men and women in army uniforms appeared. They didn't fuck around; they used their fists and batons on the five aggressors, tied their hands behind their backs with zip ties, and deposited them into a waiting, open army truck already filled with banged-up-looking people.

No EMTs were called. Even from here, a few hundred feet away, I could see one man bleeding from a head wound. Interesting . I made a note of that, especially since all this was happening right in front of international media, who didn't even spare a second of tape on them. Even more interesting . This must have gone on for days or weeks for the participants to be this blasé about it.

My mind churned. It was just after two in the morning, and this place was swarming with people. I shook my head in disbelief. I could think of a hundred things I would rather do at two o'clock in the morning than hang out here.

Then again, today was the day the expedition was to leave for Vandruk—a big day—and I was running out of time. At best, I had three to four hours to get in there and find Dawn.

Not enough time to circle the humongous industrial complex in search of a side door or some other weakness. I was doubtful a weakness would even exist here. This place was tighter locked down than a maximum-security prison. But I visited my parents once when I was a kid.

I had only one choice: a direct approach. Maybe my days in the Navy would let me sweet-talk my way in. This didn't seem like a stealth situation, so I got moving.

I had barely reached the outer throng of people pressing forward, yelling and screaming, when shouts erupted.

"Dawn, that's Dawn!"

"Look over here, Dawn!"

"Alien bait!" Something hit my face, and something wet slithered down my cheeks. A tomato! Someone had hurled a fucking tomato at me. Outraged, I turned my head to find the culprit but was distracted by another shout.

"Doctor Wayland! Doctor Wayland, over here!" a man yelled Dawn's last name over the spectacle.

I pushed a reporter aside, who stuck her mic under my nose. When I looked up, a throng of soldiers moved my way. "Doctor Wayland! "

He was obviously confusing me with Dawn. After all, we were identical twins. That would be my way in!

The soldiers built a protective ring around me and ushered me toward the opening gate, allowing us to pass while the throng of protestors and reporters were forced to stay back.

"Thank you!" I uttered in the same breathless voice Dawn preferred to use.

"Why were you out there, Doctor Wayland?" a soldier with sergeant stripes asked me. He was a Marine, and the Devil rode me when I fluttered my eyelashes and replied.

"Oh, Sarge, thank you so much!" Marines hated it when you shortened their titles, hated it! But Dawn wouldn't have known that and would have gotten away with it. Keeping the enlisted man in charge a bit off balance would help me gain access to the building and hopefully distract him from his question.

My breathless, eye-fluttering, damsel-in-distress performance earned me the sergeant's goodwill, and he walked me into the building.

"I know that was silly of me—stupid even." I forced a visible shudder to move through me. "But with us leaving tomorrow, I just wanted to be outside for a few more moments," I explained my sudden appearance.

"That is quite the mission you are embarking on tomorrow, Doctor Wayland," the sergeant acknowledged.

Doors hissed open, and we entered a large, glass-enshrouded, open area. Several metallic staircases led up and down. By a wall was a bank of at least ten elevators, all guarded by a man behind a round desk filled with monitors.

"Doctor Wayland!" He seemed as surprised as the sergeant to see me.

I pretended to search my pockets. "Oh no, I must have lost my card… again." I threw a helpless smile at the man behind the desk, using what I had been told was devastating beauty against him.

"Of course, hold on just a moment."

Bingo, I knew my sister would have lost her keycard ten times over by now, but the security guard was eager to help me and give me a new card.

"Do you keep them in reserve, just for me?" I asked, still fluttering my eyelashes.

His sheepish grin told me that yes, yes, he did, and I cringed internally, while forcing myself to say, "You are too good to me, thank you… Sean." I gleaned his name from the card on his lapel.

He handed me the laminated keycard with Dawn's name on it.

"Will you be alright, Doctor Wayland, or would you like me to escort you to your room?" the sergeant offered.

Had I been sure he knew where Dawn's room was, I would have gladly taken him up. Unfortunately, I wasn't, so I declined. "I'll be alright, thank you so much. I feel so much safer knowing you're all out there, protecting us."

"Yes, ma'am. Just holler if you need anything." Sergeant Belize, as his nametag read, seemed reluctant to go, so I waved, turned my back, and made my way to the bank of elevators, calling, "Good night," over my shoulder .

Now, I could only hope neither man would pay attention to where I sent the elevator, since I had no clue where I was going. My first dilemma was do I press up or down ? It was a fifty-fifty shot. I hit up and threw another smile at the sergeant and Sean, who were now talking over the counter like old buddies, watching me.

The elevator arrived, and on impulse, I hit the top floor, allowing the tastefully decorated box to take me all the way up. Soft music played in the background, grinding on my nerves. Mirrors reflected my image on the chrome-polished walls. I kept my gaze ahead on the panel, not wanting to stare at my reflection because all I would see was Dawn. It was already enough to catch the hint of flaming red hair and a quick glimpse at my green eyes. I was a nervous wreck, preparing myself for the worst when I did find her.

The elevator stopped on the fifth floor, and a woman in pajamas entered. " Are you going up for a drink, too?" she asked, eyeing the already-pressed button for the top floor.

"You know what, no, I changed my mind. Have fun, though." I waved at her and scampered out of the elevator. I recognized the woman from TV. Her name was Sandra something, one of the women who had volunteered to become a Vandruk bride. Her turning up in pajamas here could only mean that this was the floor where everyone slept. Hopefully, whoever managed this mission wouldn't have separated the brides from the other members of the team.

There was only one way to find out. I moved to the first door to see if it would open for my keycard and discovered that my work was even easier than I thought. Removable name tags hung to the left of each door, calling out last names.

A few minutes later, I stood in front of the metallic door tagged Dr. Wayland . I hesitated, wondering what I would find on the other side. If Dawn were well and alive, she would have a field day with this. She would never let me live this down. I could already see her telling her scientist buddies how I had snuck into her place of work pretending to be her. I found myself liking that idea very much. Because the alternative… Dawn dead?

My heart constricted at the idea. We might not have gotten along, but just knowing I had a sister out there had always comforted me. Dawn was the only person in the world who knew what it meant to be our parents' daughter. My hand shook, holding up the keycard. I didn't remember my hand ever shaking, nor had I ever before experienced this unease in my stomach. Not even when I had known from the start, I was walking into a bloodbath.

Fuck it. Hesitation had never been my MO. I always charged full speed ahead, but for some reason, the hairs on the back of my neck and my arm stood up.

"Well, shit, here goes nothing." I pumped myself up, holding the keycard to the reader underneath the nametag, and waited for a soft click to announce permission to enter.

The unmistakable smell of blood hit me first. The darkness of the room next.

With a click, I closed the door behind me, and when I took a hesitant step forward, the lights automatically turned on, brutally illuminating the small room .

Pristine white gleaming walls were smeared with blood. Dawn was sprawled on the floor. An overturned chair partially covered her. I didn't need to check her pulse. I knew she was dead. Nobody could survive having her throat slashed so deep.

Frozen, I stood there and stared at my dead sister in her blood-drenched nightgown.

My hands clenched and unclenched into fists. Rage rose in my chest, rage against whoever had done this to her. Rage was good. Better than grief, much, much better. Rage was a driving force. Grief paralyzed you.

"I will avenge you, sis," I swore, staring at her unmoving form. "Nobody messes with the Seymore sisters."

The memory of that phrase brought tears to my eyes. Dawn and I might have always been at odds, but nobody had messed with one of us without the other stepping in.

"Who did this to you?" I asked her stiff corpse, not expecting an answer. I pushed out any emotions welling up in me. I needed to keep a clear head. I needed to analyze the scene. This wasn't a murder of passion. This wasn't an argument gone bad. Not many people had the strength to slit someone's throat like this. Deep, precise. Someone with a military background had done this.

An argument getting out of hand would have resulted in a knife to the chest or stomach. There would have been defensive wounds on her body, which I saw none of. I had cut enough throats during my life to recognize that her attacker had to have been much taller and stronger than her. It took a lot of strength to cut that deep.

Most of the security guards here would have a military background; I mulled further. My mind replayed the moment Dawn picked up the phone … Pierre. I don't know anything, please. Had she called her murderer Pierre? Or had they been talking about a Pierre?

I looked for her phone, hoping to find some answers, but it, as well as her laptop, was gone.

A quick search on my phone for Pierre, IC, Vandruk resulted in one name: Doctor Pierre Delon, a biologist and a member of the team that was going to Vandruk tomorrow.

"Well, hello, Pierre," I purred, pulling up his photo. Thick glasses obscured most of his face. Brown eyes looked huge through the lenses. He looked slender. Too slender to cut Dawn's throat. I bit on my nails. He was a man, stronger than Dawn, but he didn't look like a killer.

Does anybody? The obvious question popped into my head. And the answer was not always, but… yeah, I had seen killers who looked like killers. Pierre didn't look like the type to slash someone's throat. He might have stabbed her, but he didn't look like he had enough strength to nearly decapitate her.

While I was at it, I checked on the other members of the team leaving. A low whistle escaped me when I came across a picture of twenty security guards who would accompany the team tomorrow. Any of the twenty could have been the one who killed my sister. Each one looked like Rambo. Neither one looked like active military. Private army came to my mind—hired to scope out Vandruk and the enemy's capabilities .

Which made sense since IC was privately owned.

Another thought hit me. Randomly, but that was usually how I did my thinking. Many people were upset about IC using women as bargaining chips. The government tried to stop them, but even though they had invested millions, IC was privately owned, and the government couldn't do anything to stop what was going to happen tomorrow. Lawsuits had been filed as well as injunctions, but those would take time, and by then… the expedition members and women would have left to where they couldn't just simply be recalled.

This also meant that Dawn's killer, no matter if it was Pierre or one of the security guards, would be on Vandruk tomorrow. Well outside any earthly jurisdiction.

I gnawed on my nail. If I called the police now they wouldn't stop the operation from going through unless the cops arrested everyone involved, which, with the clout IC held, I doubted they would be able to do. Most likely, IC would do everything in its power to wipe my sister's murder under the rug, just like they had covered the loss of countless people over the years.

No, I decided, if I wanted justice, I would have to do it myself. Dawn deserved that much.

I stared at her unmoving form, hoping she would forgive me for what I was about to do.

I would have to become her.

I would go to Vandruk, find and dole out justice to whoever was responsible for this. If her murderer wasn't among them, one of the men would still have some answers for me, and I would be back in a year, giving me enough time to fully plan my revenge.

I had never considered leaving Earth; going to an alien planet had been Dawn's dream, not mine. I wasn't sure how I felt about it. I had been deployed far away from home enough times to be used to being without a home, but all those deployments had been on Earth ! Well, it's not like you're going into space. I tried to pep talk myself. Might as well , I ruined the pep talk. Vandruk , I mused, I'm going to Vandruk . I tried those thoughts out in my mind, but didn't really feel anything. A vague curiosity about the alien men, but mostly nothing. Losing Dawn had affected me more than I had ever thought possible.