Chapter 2

Where am I? I wonder as I struggle to sit up with the help of the male paramedic. He offers me some water which I take, gratefully slurping down half of his water bottle before I pass it back. Using the heel of my hand, I rub at my heavy lids and try to clear my blurry vision.

I was bleeding, right? But why? It was the lawyer who was bleeding earlier, not me.

I squint at the paramedic, blinking him into focus only to wish I hadn’t done that. He has a huge gash on his forehead, a waxen expression, and pursed lips. Mostly it’s the fear in his eyes that makes me wish I was still having trouble seeing.

“What’s going on?” I ask, wondering which parts of my delusion—the strange sign, the mention of fighting off things, and the spaceship—are real, and which are fake. Hopefully, I just imagined some gross middle-aged lawyer cupping my ass and mocking my food. “Where are we?”

I look around, noticing that we’re in a tent of some kind. Not like a small camping tent, but one of those big white ones used for weddings and other outdoor events. Only, there are no openings in this particular tent; it appears to have a large zipper in the center of one wall, like a raincoat or something. The fabric itself is translucent enough to allow light in, but only just. It’s a frosty, opaque material that reminds me of a shower curtain. Only the roof is see-through.

That’s where the sign hangs, a banner of white fabric with crudely drawn letters in at least half a dozen languages.

I drop my attention back to the paramedic, and then let it shift beyond him to where the lawyer guy is pacing a frantic back-and-forth, his hairpiece missing and his fingers playing in the thin strands that circle the crown of his head.

Tabbi is sitting about a dozen feet from him, stone-still and staring at the dusty gravel beneath us like it holds the answers to the universe’s most poignant questions. Madonna the Possum sits stiffly on her shoulder like a pirate’s faux parrot prop in some community theater production.

I don’t see Jane, but the female paramedic is applying a bandage to my upper right thigh, fingers stained with blood. Actually, she’s wearing a lot more of it than makes me comfortable. I glance down to see that there’s an IV in my arm, a bag attached to it that the male paramedic is currently holding in his right hand, keeping it aloft for gravity’s sake.

Speaking of, I feel so damn heavy, like the weight of the world is perched on my shoulders.

It takes me three tries to get the question out.

“Where’s Jane?” I ask, and that’s when things get scary. Male Medic glances over at Female Medic, but neither of them chooses to answer my question. The former offers me the water again while the latter secures the bandage and then sits back on her calves.

“You should take it easy for a while,” she tells me, but I’m already getting dizzy from the implications. There’s blood everywhere. Jane is missing. Someone … kidnapped us? I flick my eyes around the confines of the tent again as my mind races with horrible possibilities.

Those weirdos that Tabbi picked up at the club did this to us! Surely there was no spaceship—we’ll chalk that sighting up to blood loss—but the fact that we’ve been kidnapped is undeniable. I just stare at the lady medic until she finally looks back up and accidentally catches my gaze. Her cheeks immediately turn pink. For this woman who just saved my life to look sheepish about something, it must be bad.

“Jane …” I start again, and the dude medic sighs heavily.

“I don’t want to upset you considering the state you’re in, but there’s no point in sugarcoating it: you’ll find out soon enough whether you like it or not.” He sets the water bottle aside and pushes his glasses up his nose. I realize now as I sit here that his hair isn’t black; it’s a very pretty blue-black. My vision narrows in on that color before I force myself to inhale and blink through the urge to pass out again.

“Sugarcoat what?” I whisper, already anticipating what he’s going to say. Kidnapped by some of Tabbi Kat’s crazed fans. Kidnapped by some of Tabbi Kat’s anti-fans. Kidnapped because of Tabbi Kat since there’s no way this isn’t one-hundred-percent her fault.

“We’ve been abducted by aliens.” Medic Guy isn’t smiling. That’s what makes it so damn funny, the way he delivers the words totally deadpan like that. I laugh at him. What he says makes me feel so much better. If he can joke about our situation, then I don’t have anything to worry about.

Deep inside, I realize how much of my blood is on Medic Girl; I feel Jane’s absence like a thorn in the side. Some irrational inner protection system clicks into place, and I can’t seem to stop myself from laughing until I’m coughing. I gesture for the water, and the male medic hands it to me.

He watches me carefully as I drink it, but Medic Girl just leans in with an austere expression on her face.

“Jane was taken a little while ago; we weren’t prepared then, but at least we know what’s coming now.”

“Would you guys please stop?” I snap, irritation threading my veins. I’m just pissed the fuck off now. “Where is Jane? What’s going on?”

The zipper near the front of the tent begins to slide down with the click of metal teeth.

The two medics exchange a look before pushing up to their feet.

“Take this,” Medic Guy hisses, gesturing at me with the bag of fluids. I’m so surprised by his anger that I grab onto it as quickly as I can, holding it up to keep the flow going. Pretty sure I won’t be awake for long if I miss getting whatever’s in this bag.

The pair of them head straight for the lawyer, grabbing onto his arms as he tries to jerk back and away from them.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” he shouts as they drag him forward, shoving him suddenly toward the tent’s fabric as it begins to gape open.

One of the muscular guys from earlier on the roof steps in. Only … he looks a little different. His skin is a pale green color, his hair a spiky mess of emerald shards, his mouth far too broad to be human. My eyes open wide, and my hand begins to tremble as it clutches the bag. Cosplay? I wonder, even as I know I’m denying an itchy, impossible reality.

No, Eve, this isn’t some guy in an alien suit; he’s an alien who was wearing a human suit.

“Trevor!” Tabbi shouts, shoving up to her feet. Madonna hisses again, but Tabbi ignores her, stumbling over to the green-skinned dude and clutching onto one of his massive forearms. He has four of them, by the way. “Trev, you gotta tell me what’s going on. Is this a reboot of Punk’D? As long as Justin Beiber isn’t the host anymore, I can deal. If it’s Ashton Kutcher, then … well, I don’t like him either.”

I stare at Tabbi as she babbles on incoherently.

The guy—Trevor, I guess—shakes her off with a growl that’s nowhere near human before turning to the front of the tent. I notice then that he steps halfway in front of her, as if to keep her from whatever it is that’s coming in here.

There’s this horrid sound, like a slug scraping its slimy body over broken glass, that precedes the creature’s appearance. As soon as I lay eyes on it, I understand what Medic Girl meant when she said that they needed more humans to fight those things.

There’s no other way for me to describe what I’m looking at other than to say … it’s weird. And disgusting. And terrifying. I almost scream, but the lawyer beats me to it, turning around to see what everyone’s staring at.

After the medics shoved him forward, he spun around like he was planning on fighting them, but they wouldn’t let him close. One of them even wielded a scalpel in his direction, like she might actually cut him with it.

Now, I get why they did what they did.

The creature—a horse-sized slug thing with pustules and compound eyes and antennae—opens up its giant mouth like a snake, unhinging a jaw I wasn’t even sure it had. Until just now, it didn’t appear to have a mouth at all. It opens wide, proving me wrong, and reveals a slimy, gummy pink mouth and a fat tongue like a frog.

That tongue lashes out like a whip and curls around the lawyer’s middle as he screams. If he hadn’t touched my ass I might’ve felt sorry for him as he’s tipped headfirst into the creature’s throat. With a disturbing undulation, the monster contracts and swallows the man down whole.

The really messed-up part is that I can still hear him screaming.

Trevor—I highly doubt that’s his real name—barks something out in another language, and puts a hand on the weapon at his side while the slug turns its eyeball-topped antennae in the direction of the Male Medic. The guy is trembling, but to his credit, both he and his partner seem to be handling this situation admirably well.

If someone had to go, it needed to be the lawyer.

And that isn’t just a bad lawyer joke: he was an asshole.

Tabbi collapses on the ground again as the slug monster reluctantly leaves and Trevor stalks off, zipping up the tent behind him. Both medics rush forward and attempt to drag the zipper back down to no avail, cursing and looking at one another as they murmur to each other under their breath.

I’m still sitting there trying to understand what’s happening when they approach me again.

“My name is Avril,” the woman says, putting a hand to her chest as she gets to one knee beside me. She nods her chin in her partner’s direction. “This is Connor. Your name is Eve, right?”

“Jane is … she was eaten?” I whisper, immediately hating myself for even asking the question. I shouldn’t have gone there. I can’t think about that. Isn’t it more likely that I slipped and fell off the roof? Maybe I’m lying in a hospital in a coma?

Does it hurt if I pretend the aliens are real and try not to die?

“She wasn’t eaten,” Avril offers cautiously, as if she isn’t sure how much more to say. “You don’t remember?”

I squeeze my eyes shut—not because I think I can actually summon the lost memories—but because I don’t want to consider any other possibilities. Being eaten alive is horrific, but there are worse things. Aren’t there? Maybe not.

I open them again to see that Avril’s waiting for me.

“You were drifting in and out of consciousness, so I’m not surprised. She wasn’t eaten, just … sold, I guess.” Avril sighs and reaches out, placing something into my hand. It appears to be a large needle. “We don’t have a lot to fight back with, but it’s better than nothing.”

Without waiting for her to suggest it, I turn and try jabbing the needle into the tent’s fabric. Instead of tearing the plastic like I’d hoped, the needle scrapes along it with a shriek, almost as if it’s metal-on-metal.

“We’re not getting through the tent,” Connor explains, shoving his glasses up his nose. He remains standing, pacing a tight circle on my right side. Just seeing him do that makes me realize how weak I really am right now: I couldn’t get up and pace if I wanted to.

How am I supposed to fend off an alien if I can’t even stand up by myself?

Shit. Oh Jane, where are you and what the fuck do I do?

“Listen, Eve. You’ve got a nick to your femoral artery, and you’ve lost a ton of blood. We stitched you up and wiped you down, but you’ve got to—” Avril cuts off abruptly as the zipper at the front of the tent comes down and she stands up, spinning to face the oncoming threat.

I smell him before I see him, a cardamom and honey laced punch to the gut. The fine hairs on my body stand on end, and my throat gets tight. My wounded leg throbs, like my very blood is staging a revolt to escape my skin. What the hell? My body comes to life when I suck in a breath that’s heavy with humidity and desire, igniting this violent ache in my chest that has no discernible explanation.

Trevor the Unfriendly Green Giant steps into the tent first, followed shortly after by a man with large, dark eyes and a white fur cloak slung over his shoulders, trimmed with red at the throat.

I drag my limp body back until I’m pressed up against the plastic wall. There isn’t a single part of me that isn’t trembling, and I can’t exactly explain why except to say that the air smells different. Feels different. He’s making it taste this way, I think as I inhale and find myself sampling a strange musk on the back of my tongue. It fills the space and makes me even dizzier than I already am.

The man standing beside Trevor isn’t a man at all, is he?

While unmistakably male, he’s as alien as the rest of them.

His pale hair—or is that fur?—falls around a face carved of milk white jade. A black V-shaped mark dips between his eyes giving the illusion of a nose along with slits that might be his nostrils. And that pretty mouth? Ash-pink and pouty and kissable and … the fuck is wrong with me?! His eyes are solid black, twice as large as a human man’s. He sweeps the room with them before allowing his attention to rest on me. With no pupils, I’m not entirely sure how to meet such a stare. This is the gaze of a nocturnal god, the endless ebony of a night sky devoid of stars.

I fall right into those eyes, so hard and so fast that I know it’s not in my best interest to hold his stare.

My eyes water as I force myself to break his gaze. I look at Avril instead, standing firmly in the center of the tent with her scalpel clutched in a shaking fist. She, on the other hand, has no problem meeting the alien’s demonic stare, the bare skin of her arms and face stained with the sticky red of my blood.

There’s a hissing sound, this soft, sibilant whisper that reminds me of the wind in the trees. It takes me longer than it should to realize that the new guy is talking. He says something to Trevor and the green-skinned twin responds in a clunky, thick-tongued growl.

I take slow, shallow breaths, ensuring that the beautiful alien man is no longer looking at me before I study him again. He has two black and white horn-like antennae, and a devastating frown on his perfect lips. When he parts them to scowl at Trevor, I see three canines on either side of his white teeth, like a vampire but with thrice the biting power.

He stays near the doorway, shutting his lips on a frustrated sigh and closing his eyes. His massive antennae shift forward, each as long as my forearm. No, longer than my forearm. Is he … smelling us? I wonder, scraping my fingers across the hot skin of my thighs.

He’s no pustule-covered slug, that’s for sure. If I have to be eaten, I may as well be eaten by him. Only … if he tries to meet my eyes again, I won’t look at him. I won’t. I might have the instincts of an overfed housecat, but even I can sense that something irreparable and ill-fated will tear through me if I look at this man too long.

He opens the cloak on his shoulders, and I feel this strange dizziness sweep over me. I realize then that not only isn’t he wearing a cloak—those are wings on his back—but I’ve dropped the bag of fluids to the ground, and my IV is no longer working.

My mind goes to strange places in that space between reality and dreams. I once dated an entomologist who bred moths. In particular, he bred vestal tiger moths, these cute little fuzzy white and red moths with black spots. That’s what this alien reminds me of, a moth.

My head spins, and I blink away several seconds, finding myself on my back as Connor struggles to lift the fluid bag up amongst all the chaos. When I come to, Avril is screaming as she’s dragged across the gravel floor of the tent by Trevor. It feels like I should stand up and offer myself in her place. I owe her for saving my life. Or … maybe some strange part of me wants to go with the moth man?

If you give into him, that’s it. He will own your ass, Eve.

The alien with the pretty (if terrifying) mouth is frowning as he carefully tugs one red glove off, digit by digit, revealing long fingers, two of which have sharp-tipped red claws. He clacks them together in thought, gaze drifting briefly to me. I turn away again, shivering with revulsion at how easily he draws me in. I glance back only when he’s returned his focus to Avril.

Those demon eyes narrow dangerously as Trevor pushes the medic to her knees in front of him.

Moth Guy has this commanding look about him, this cavalier imperialism that matches his outfit. It’s crafted of an eerie, bejeweled black material, like fabric torn from the night sky and wrestled into a tight-fitting military jacket and slacks. A weapon hangs at his waist that I can’t identify, and which I’d like never to be able to identify. He exudes self-importance and privilege, but I can’t bring myself to look away, sweat dripping down the sides of my face. I’m having a physical reaction to either the blood loss or the alien, and I hate that I can’t decide which it is.

He reaches out and places his palm on Avril’s cheek, gently, reverently, like he actually cares about her. Jealousy spikes my gut, and I clench my teeth hard to fight back the disturbing surge. Moth Guy holds his hand there for a minute and then sweeps his fingers down the length of Avril’s jaw. She goes completely still, lips pursed, eyes wide and entire body vibrating with either rage or fear or a mixture of both.

When he draws his hand away and peers down at it, I see that it’s kissed in blood, a bright red that matches the fur neckline of his cloak. I mean … his wings. That fur might even be a part of him.

Those dark eyes of his remain fixed on the redness as he lifts a single finger to his lips, a long tongue unfurling from his mouth and wrapping around the tip. He licks the blood off with a lewdness I can’t bear to describe, and then pulls his tongue slowly back into his mouth—tasting me.

Moth Guy makes a sound that might be a reluctant murmur of confirmation, and then carefully puts his red glove back on. He lifts his eyes then to study me a final time, and I squeeze mine shut until I feel his attention shift. The heat of his gaze strays elsewhere, and I crack my lids open, not daring to miss a single second of this nightmare.

An odd forlorn regret grabs hold of me as Moth Guy turns away and takes off out the zippered doorway, dragging Avril the Medic along with him. As she disappears from sight, I see her struggling and thrashing violently. Not that it matters. In less than a minute, she’s gone, and it’s down to three of us in that stuffy tent.

Seconds later, I hear her blood-curdling scream echoing around outside.

It sounds like she’s being murdered.

“Fuck.” Connor grips his own weapon—it seems to be a knife—and turns to face the doorway. “We’re not getting out of here alive, are we?” He looks down at the weapon as if he’s considering harming himself.

“Don’t do it,” I whisper, voice hoarse and strange. There’s a messed-up part of me that feels envious of Avril, like maybe she got the best possible deal here. Moth Guy looked mostly human, didn’t he? He was the right height, had a nice broad chest, muscular arms. So what if he was sporting wings and demon eyes? He was a million times better than the alien slug with the snake jaw.

And yet … I couldn’t even make myself look at him. Why?

That feels like a problem for ‘Tomorrow Eve’. ‘Today Eve’ has a very simple task: don’t die.

What’s in store for the rest of us? I wonder as I try to figure out some way to crawl toward Connor. If I have to, I’ll wrest that knife from his hand. Not only am I concerned for the guy, but I also don’t want to be left alone with Tabbi. Hell, it’s as if she’s already given up, sitting in a slumped puddle with her pet possum.

“Why not?” Connor asks, still staring at the blade of the knife. “What’s the point of waiting? Do you want to be eaten alive? I’d rather bleed out.” He puts the weapon to his throat, but then pauses with it in place, gaze moving to me as I struggle to stand up and then stumble.

It’s as if some impossible instinct takes over him, and he sighs, dropping the knife back down before coming over to help me. Connor gets me seated properly again, and takes a turn with the IV bag, using his other hand to offer me more water.

“You saved me but sacrificed the lawyer?” I ask, trying to get some clarification at least as to what might’ve happened while I was passed out. “He must’ve really pissed you off.”

Connor sighs and looks away, almost as if he’s ashamed of himself.

“He tried to use this knife to hold Avril hostage, even shoved her toward the first alien that came in here.” Connor scoffs and finally, he too, drops from a crouch to a seated position. “The guy—or whatever it was—didn’t want Avril; he picked your friend, Jane.”

“Did it … he … whatever … look okay, at least?” I ask, praying that my friend might still be alive, that she didn’t spend her last few moments screaming inside the belly of a giant alien slug. “Like the moth? Like Trevor?”

“Trevor?” Tabbi asks, her head jerking up suddenly. She shoves up to her feet like she’s been electrocuted. “Trevor!” she screams, and then again. Actually, Tabbi just screams her damn head off, shouting and cursing and pacing as her poor pet scrambles into the pocket of her baggy jeans and peeks its head out.

“The alien that took Jane was … better than the slug.” Connor fixes his glasses again, and then nods sharply. “Much better. He spoke to the green-skinned guy. Obviously, I couldn’t understand him, but he was at least somewhat civilized.”

“That’s good,” I hedge, wondering how I can even say such a word in a situation like this. At any moment, I might wake up in a hospital bed, blinking blearily at my gathered family members. Mom and Dad will be there, of course, as well as my youngest brother, Nate. But the rest of my siblings will be there, too, I bet, all three of my sisters. My aunts and my cousins, Jane, maybe even Jane’s dad who I’ve been close to for longer than I’ve been close to Jane (after she kicked me in the va-jay-jay way back when, he wrote me an apology card and sent me flowers). Oh. I’ll bet my ex, Mack, is there, too. He’s been trying to get back together for the past three months, but I wasn’t having it.

“Eve?” Connor asks, and I realize then that I wasn’t entirely coherent for the past several minutes. “How many fingers am I holding up?” He lifts his hand, but all I can see are six fingers when there should be three. I’m in no condition to fight my way out of this, so I’ll have to improvise. With the same tenacity I used to start my catering business, I’m going to figure out how to wake up. If not that, then I’ll rescue Jane and … well, first I’ll just rescue Jane.

“I’m okay,” I reply, pushing his hand down. Connor frowns at me, but he doesn’t argue.

Eventually, we both realize that maybe there’ll be more time before the next alien buyer shows up. Connor takes that time to set me up with his medical bag on one side of me, Avril’s medical bag behind me, creating a makeshift sort of chair. He rests the IV bag on one of the duffels while he digs through the other, cursing and wondering aloud why he never did get that concealed carry permit.

“What’s happening?” Tabbi asks eventually, coming over to sit beside me. She even takes my hand in hers, and I look up to see that her blue eyes are brimming with tears. Her pink-tipped blond hair is mussy and tangled, a few stray strands stuck to her glossy lips. I realize then that she’s recently reapplied her lip stain. I’d call her out on it if I didn’t think she was in total shock; people do strange things when they’re in shock. “Evelyn, help me out here. Are we being filmed?”

“Tabbi …” I start, but I don’t have the energy to deal with her hysterics. She’s looking at me right now like I’m a life preserver, and she’s a drowning tourist on a Caribbean cruise. I toss her the flotation device she so desperately desires. “Yeah, we’re being tricked by some super talented cosplayers and Hollywood effects artists; it’s all being live-streamed on TikTok.”

“Really?” she asks, sniffling and pulling poor Madonna out of her pocket. She cuddles the possum to her chest and narrows her eyes on me. “If you’re lying, I’ll fire Jane tomorrow. I know you know how much work she’s put into my career, but you could mess it all up for her right now.”

God, I hate this woman.

“Oh, I could never lie to you.” I outright lie to her face and smile about it, too. Almost. I can’t really smile right now. When my lips try to lift at the corners, I remember that Jane is missing and that I saw a guy get eaten by an oversized alien slug. And then there’s moth dude … “It’ll all be over soon.” I offer Tabbi’s hand a pat, but she jerks it away from me.

Please let the next slug get her.

“Do you hear that?” Connor asks, just before the zipper at the front of the tent is pulled down yet again.

Humans … pets, meat, or mates must be a great sales slogan. I hope to hell that I’m chosen as a pet which isn’t a wish I’ve ever entertained in my entire life.

Trevor moves back inside, stepping to the left and crossing his bulging green arms (both sets). He eyes Tabbi, but she just glares at him and then flips him off. Another creature steps in behind him, and I’m relieved to see that this guy is also humanoid in appearance. Dark gray skin, gold markings that seem to glitter as he moves, plus two eyes, one nose, and a mouth (all of which are exactly where they should be). He does have two huge tusks protruding from his wide lips, and a pair of spiral horns, but that’s nothing compared to the slug.

I’ll take it.

His eyes swing to mine. They remind me of a goat—solid yellow with a square pupil—but they’re recognizable. I see understanding light in them as they meet mine.

“I’ll take both females,” he says—in English, mind you. Trevor offers him a look that could shake a mountain down.

“No. You can take the ugly one.” This is also in English which is annoying as hell. If these aliens are going to talk shit about me, couldn’t they do it in another language?

Tusk Guy and Trevor stare each other down, but in the end, the newcomer curses and reaches into his belt, withdrawing several coins and passing them into the other man’s waiting palm. When Tusk Guy stalks across the room toward me, I tense up, but I don’t try to run.

Where would I go anyway?

“Stay safe, Connor,” I whisper. I don’t bother with Tabbi because … fuck her.

“You know what? I don’t care what I said: Jane is so fired after this. Once I’m done smearing her name on social media, nobody in this industry will ever hire her again.”

I close my eyes as Tusk Guy leans down, but he surprises me by scooping me into his arms and lifting me up off the ground. As he does, the IV bag gets pulled taut, and the needle tears from my skin resulting in renewed bleeding.

That’s all it takes, and then between one blink and the next, I find myself on the back of a wagon.