1 Cylene

Tathe, my half-brother, knows I'm up to something he isn't going to like. In fact, he's going to hate it. But I can't let him find out what it is until I'm gone. I need his customer, Mr. Faerlin, to give me a ride to town tonight, or I'll miss my chance at freedom for good. I know he's probably going to demand a favor, but it's taken two years of careful planning to orchestrate my escape. I'm willing to pay the toll even if it disgusts me.

My half-brother hasn't said a word to me all day, and he's been extra short with me since I had to go to the doctor last month for an infection. But I really went to get an exam to be sure I qualified for the Alien Bride Race. That is my ticket out of this shit hole.

Tathe's glare says he's trigger-happy this afternoon.

The collar around my neck beeps faster, in warning, as I scramble through the muddy drainage ditch after a color changing lizard. It will make him and our father 5,000 credits each. But if I can get out of here, I've got a good chance at a million.

Sweat and silt blur my vision. My clothes stick to my skin and swim in every deep spot I have to wade through. If I catch the creature, I get to eat. That's the only motivation my father and half-brother provide other than not getting shocked. They don't pay me. So I have to make my hunt look good, even if food isn't on my mind tonight.

Mutant chameleons are rare, exotic animals, just what Tathe's family specializes in illegally acquiring and selling on the black market. The biowarfare used centuries ago, rendered many dead but also a number of adaptations in wildlife.

Naturally, I have to catch whatever freakish crossbreed, glowing, and possibly radioactive but definitely deadly creature their clients want.

Tathe doesn't risk it. Our father runs the business and finds clients.

I'm the outcast simply because of my mother, a one-night stand my father regretted until he found out about his potential source of free labor—me.

A ripple in the cloudy water catches my attention. I pray it isn't another horned snake chasing the same thing as I am. Venomous bites are not my favorite, but poisoned thorny punctures in my hands are much worse. One time was all it took for me to devour every book on mutant species of earth my father would let me get my swollen, itchy hands on.

My legs burn from exhaustion, but I won't lose my chance to be free to some slippery lizard. I launch myself forward into the water, grasping for the tail. It thrashes in my hands, splashing dirty water in my face.

It's just trying to be free.

I hate myself for what I do to survive.

"I know!" I hook an arm around its belly and stroke the mating marks on the back of its neck. It instantly calms. "I get it, buddy. No one wants to be captured. But you lucky fuck get to eat good and be on display like everyone likes you."

I rise out of the water and adjust the chameleon in my arm. "They'll pet you and play with you and keep you safe. In a cage, but safe. No more worrying about pesky snakes."

Tathe hovers our Mountain Climber down the creek to where I stand, a grin on his twisted face. He taps the device on his belt, and my collar stops beeping. I won't get shocked unless I fail or mouth off to him.

I hate the greed in his dark brown eyes and the cocky way he peers down at me as he lowers a cage.

My heart breaks as I look at the door of the metal basket swinging before me.

"Cylene—" My collar beeps again.

I grit my teeth, hug the chameleon, and open the door. "I'm sorry, truly."

When the chameleon is inside and on its way up to Tathe, I grab the railing of the lower cargo deck and haul myself into the compartment.

"What makes you think you're getting a ride back?" He says the same thing at the end of every long chase. "I'm sure I could find someone faster than you. That took forever. Maybe I should make you walk."

I tuck myself in the corner, so I won't fall out when he shocks me. He will. It's just a matter of time.

I'm on edge tonight, hoping I haven't missed my ride out of here. "No one wants to work for you because you're a pissy little child with a hard-on for attention, dollar signs in your eyes and a heavy hand when it comes to animals. Our father doesn't let you touch the animals because you damage them before delivery." Like all the women in your life.

He glares back at me, and a prickle circles my neck. My body tingles. Every muscle tenses. White spots fill my vision. Breath locks inside my lungs, and I wonder if it is the end.

Then the shock fades, and I rest back against the deck, straining for air. Sense comes back to me. Tathe won't kill me because then he'd actually have to do the work himself. And that's not going to happen. The only other person in our neck of the woods is the old trader over the hill. And she couldn't catch anything if she tried. I've seen her whack a raccoon with her cane, but that's the extent of her strength.

"He is Orell to you," Tathe sneers. "You were the mistake. Your mother was a whore. And I don't damage the products before I sell them. I just like to play with them first."

Tathe gets us on a course for the shop at the edge of town, then reaches toward the cage.

My mother wasn't a whore. She was a biologist.

The layers of skin folded along the creature's back rise like hackles, exposing red spots. It's a warning of acid spray. While I don't want to crash, I also don't mind the idea of Tathe getting a taste of his own medicine.

We're on autopilot by the light blinking on his dash, so I stay quiet.

The chameleon sneezes a red cloud that Tathe backs away from. He swears, covers his hand, and kicks the cage.

I chuckle to myself and roll over, eager for some rest.

Tathe curses me for not warning him but, thankfully, doesn't shock me again.

The breeze in the open cargo area is the closest to freedom I've felt in nearly a decade. My father took me from high school and brought me here. I close my eyes as the gentle fingers comb through my dirty hair, and I pretend I'm standing atop a mountain, my mountain, with a small town below of others like me: the lost, the weary, the broken, and the rejects. It was my mother's dream that we find each other and thrive together.

"Everyone has problems," she'd say when I was little and had made a mistake. "Some are just easier to see. But we all have potential if given the right opportunity. You just have to make that opportunity for yourself."

My clothes are stiff and nearly dry by the time we're back to the shop. Before Tathe can land the hovercart, I jump out and hurry toward the office. I've worked over my plan countless times.

Mr. Faerlin's speaking with Orell when I walk up.

I check the time on the bracelet I salvaged from a dumpster in town and know I'm down to the wire if I want my chance at freedom.

"Did you get it?" my father asks. He's a cold man with eyes as dark as a shadow at night. He's equally shady.

"Yes, sir."

Mr. Faerlin looks me over with lust like he always does. Silver threads in his short beard tell me he's older than I am by fifteen years, maybe more. Everything he owns, from his white suit to his black hover cruiser, is trimmed in chrome, silver, or platinum.

"Do you need something?" My father lifts his eyebrows and motions dramatically like I'm a pesky fly he wants to swat away.

For mom to have lived and you to have never found out about me. I stifle my urge to snap at him. The Alien Bride Race doctor said she could remove my heavy collar after I was out of the woods for good. But I can still get shocked until I make it to the meet-up spot in town.

"A ride to the store, please."

"Why?" My father demands. He is only such in the sense of DNA.

"Girl stuff."

Tathe sets the cage on the inspection table beside Mr. Faerlin and grimaces like he's grossed out.

"What's wrong with you, son?" Mr. Faerlin chuckles. "No consequences during that time. I think it's a rather primal thing to stir the paint and without the concern of—" he points between my father and me.

I shudder inside when he looks in my direction. It's not that time, just an excuse that has always worked to get me out of the house. Now I fear what's going through Faerlin's mind.

"I'll give you a ride," he adds with a sultry look.

I had a feeling he would offer. He usually does, but this may have been a mistake. "I am filthy, sir."

"Yes, you are." Mr. Faerlin motions Tathe to load the chameleon in his cruiser, then walks up to me.

Disgust turns my stomach as he looks me over, but I stifle it with the thought of getting free of this place.

"You can ride on the back into town. But after you get what you need, I'm taking you with me. My staff will clean you." He glances back at my father. "How much to rent her for the night?"

They negotiate a price that I ignore. I am not a beast of burden or a toy. My father lied to me, said he'd give me a better life after mom died, and this is where my trust got me.

Am I crazy for thinking the Alien Bride Race is going to be different?

Their sales agent assured me only vetted aliens that were successful and reputable got accepted. But as I witness the sale of myself, I wonder if Abr does the same thing with the alien males. Are we just being auctioned? Maybe this is a mistake.

But when my father agrees on a terribly low price for my services for the night, of which I'm not certain the extent of, I realize how little he values me.

I have no choice but to climb into the exterior cargo area of the cruiser with Tathe holding the controller to my collar in his hand. Every step aches with the desire to run. It doesn't matter that I could probably break his scrawny little neck. I'm a hefty, curvy woman that wrestles all manner of strange creatures, but I'm stuck inside this heartless, metal ring of fire.

My father smirks at the glass chip card Mr. Faerlin hands him, then walks away with my half-brother without a second glance at me.

Mr. Faerlin takes an uncomfortably long look, then lifts the clicker he's borrowed from Tathe. "Be a good girl."

This is never how the shift ends. I'm supposed to get kicked into the house behind the office where I make dinner and get to eat whatever my brother and father don't.

He closes the cargo door before I can formulate a protest, locking me inside and enclosing me in darkness.

The cruiser engines hum as the vessel lifts above the land. Even though we now drift like a ghost over Mother Earth's surface, there are still turns and hills I've mapped. I know where we are and how long I have to break free.

I have to find a way out without Mr. Faerlin's awareness. If he catches me, I'll get shocked and lose my ability to get to the meet-up site.

My father once locked me in a cruiser to keep me quiet. Then he forgot about me.

Running my hands over the wall, I find the panel concealing the cargo door hinge and pry the plastic up with a fingernail. The wiring harness inside controls the lock and the light. I count the wires as I feel them, wait for the last turn in the road before we hit town, then pull the second wire from each end and tap them together. It's a feat to do in the dark, but the door unlocks and cracks open.

Hope surges.

The cruiser slows.

Crap! I don't have a lot of time before Mr. Faerlin figures out I'm the reason the door malfunctioned. It's going to be a hard landing from ten feet up at such speed, but every second I wait is one less I have to run.

I leap out and tuck my head in my arms. It's a bruising roll across the pavement. The world spins. My body pounds from the hit, but I'm free—for the moment. I take my chance and run into the nearest alley.

The billboard by the back door tells me I'm between the pharmacy and the secret strip club Tathe likes to visit. Once I have my bearing, I bolt through the town in the direction of the church. Mr. Faerlin's cruiser parallels me three streets away. He's found me. But the collar doesn't light me up. I wonder if we're too far apart. I wouldn't know. I've never been more than fifty feet from my father or my brother.

I'm almost to the gate around the church when a meaty hand lugs me around a corner. Blue static passes over my body in a sheet. The soft whir of my collar dies.

"Hurry!" A woman drags me to a basement access door. Her beaded red hair swings wildly as she opens the panel with force. "Jump!"

I don't have time to ask if she's who I hope she is before the large man that's with her picks me up by my stiff shirt and drops me in.

My tired legs give out, and I crumple to the dirt beside a narrow rail car.

They follow me inside. The man slides a bar over the door, locking it shut.

I'm tired, out of breath, and disoriented. They push me to get me into the car.

"Wait, I'm not supposed to be here!" I resist.

The woman turns to me, and I change my mind.

Sia urges me in. "I've been looking all over town for you. You'll be late if we don't get going."

I climb into the car, and they join me. As Sia gets us racing through the tunnels, I check the time on my bracelet. I might just make it afterall.

"This is Etarin," Sia says. "He's mute, but he signs. I'm sorry if he startled you. Found him sleeping on the porch of the church's mountain extension service building. Neighbors' Protectorate took him in for training, so we're on the same team now, and it's all thanks to you."

I think back to defying Tathe to stop the assault on Sia outside of the grocery store a few years back. Tathe dragged me off before the neighborhood watch party could see us, but they found out through Sia. "I'm grateful for their help."

Sia takes a seat beside me, her green eyes serious. "In thirty minutes, you'll be at the shuttle depot and on your way to freedom. They'll have a doctor there who can take that collar off without you losing your head. Just promise me that if you get a mate, you get one who will respect you and not treat you like this."

The rail car moves faster than I've ever gone before. It makes my heart thump fast like the tracks we race over.

Etarin taps Sia and signs with his hands.

"He says that if you win, he hopes you teach self-defense." She turns to me. "Remember, like you talked about the last time I saw you in the store—between shelves?"

I nod and look down at my muddy t-shirt and pants.

"Cylene." Sia hands me a backpack. "Most people have things to call their own. So we pooled what we could. There are some clothes in there."

Tears fill my eyes. "I'd hug you, but I'm —"

Sia wraps her arms around me. "I don't care. I'm just glad you're getting out of there. And I'm forever grateful to you for what you did for me.

"You are not helpless. Just be smart about your freedom."

Etarin signs again.

"How did you pay your entry fee?" Sia asks.

I take off my boots and pull out a tiny gold rock. "I spend a lot of time with my face in the dirt. Sometimes, I find little gems. I sold them to a woman over the hill. Had to sneak out at night. But I made enough."

Handing the chunk of gold to Sia, I shrug. "That's payment. It's all I've got left. But after this, I'll either have a mate or a million bucks."

"Can't go wrong either way." Sia takes the gold. "I will be sure we use this to help save others."

I'm glad to hear she will use it wisely.

The only problem now is that I'm not interested in a match. I've been used enough. All I want is the money and my freedom.

I could go anywhere, do anything. The promise of the unknown scares me in a way I've never felt before. I think it's called hope.