Like an alien’s.
“Oh shit,” she said breathlessly, body going slightly lax so that he had to tighten his grip around her, practically holding her up now.
“What?” her captor snapped. “What happened?”
“Ruckus,” the other soldier said, drawing his attention and pointing upward. “We should get to the ship. Fawna’s detecting enemy soldiers approaching quickly. We don’t have much time left before they’re—” His words were abruptly cut off by the sound of gunfire.
Only it was a bit different, the sounds more like pings that whizzed through the air toward them. A few bullets embedded in the stone walls at either side, sending clouds of dust into the air.
Delaney regained herself, straightening and gripping the guy—Ruckus, she assumed—tightly. She couldn’t muster enough guilt not to use him as a shield; it was either that or get shot herself. She tucked herself closer, risking a glance over his shoulder at the opening of the alley, where three men were slinking their way in.
Using her sudden compliance as an opportunity, Ruckus rushed them toward the dead end while the other guy opened fire on their pursuers. Lifting his arm, her captor gripped a black metal bar that she hadn’t noticed hovering down from the sky, and tugged once.
“Hold on to me,” he ordered against the crown of her head, bringing her up high enough so that she could wrap her arms around his neck. She hesitated and he shook her. “It’s either this or die here, Olena,” he hissed. “They will kill you.”
“Thanks, Captain Obvious.” They were shooting at them, after all. “I’m just not sure what makes you a safer option?”
Before he could respond, another round of gunfire went off, and Delaney’s panic spread. She linked her arms around his neck without further protest, her only thought on getting out of there intact.
“Put your legs around my waist,” he asserted, and this time she didn’t hesitate. The second he was satisfied that she was secure, he pulled on the metal bar.
“Activate extraction shield and pull us up, Fawna,” he said, and it took Delaney a second to realize he must have a communicator in his ear. A thin, see-through beam wrapped around them and the man still on the ground. It was green, and from the other side she saw the men shoot at it, bullets bouncing off as if hitting bulletproof glass.
When they started rising, she yelped and tightened her arms and legs around him. She thought she heard him chuckle, but she couldn’t pull her eyes off the slowly receding ground to check.
They were high enough now that she could see over the tops of the buildings, and more soldiers dressed in all black were approaching the mouth of the alley. She counted a dozen before stopping, not wanting to waste her time. Another black bar on a long silver string zipped past her head, and she watched it drop to hover over the guy who was firing on their attackers.
Without looking, he reached up and grabbed on, yanking once before it started pulling him up toward them. He continued to fire his weapon, a gun she’d never seen before, the color of melted silver with a line of bright red lit up on its side.
“Hurry it up, Fawna,” Ruckus growled.
This time she did look up, and sucked in a deep breath. The ropes were being drawn into the underside of a large ship she hadn’t been able to make out from the ground. It reminded her a lot of a jet plane, except three times the size and with circular wings instead of sharp-tipped ones. It was black but had somehow been programmed to camouflage with the night sky. Stars winked back at her from its metallic surface as if really there.
A bottom hatch opened up when they were only a few feet away, metal doors sliding to the sides to expose a deep beige room. The ropes bringing them up were attached to the ceiling of this room, and instead of a crank rolling it, the line merely disappeared within the metal.
“Oh shit,” she repeated, vaguely recalling she’d already said that. She was so distracted by the gaping mouth of the alien ship she was headed toward, she didn’t notice the green force field around them flickering and then disappearing.
She totally felt the bullet that sliced through the side of her left arm, though. It was a searing sensation, like someone was branding her with a hot knife, and it shot bolts of fire that immediately spiked through her bloodstream.
She cried out, saw a burst of red stain the white leather of her jacket, and had one last moment of panic before her vision winked out and everything went black.
CHAPTER 3
Delaney moaned and shifted, wondering why she’d fallen asleep on the hard couch instead of going to bed; sometimes she fell asleep in front of the TV in the living room. Her mind searched for details of last night: she’d gone out with Mariana to celebrate, so she had to have been exhausted when they’d gotten—
She shot upright so quickly, she saw stars.
Mariana.
Last night.
It all rushed back to her. She hadn’t made it home because she’d been frickin’ kidnapped by aliens. And shot at. Her gaze went to her left arm, recalling the pain and the blood she’d seen before she’d passed out. Only, there wasn’t so much as a scratch now.
Someone had removed her jacket, and she was left in her short-sleeved navy shirt. There wasn’t a speck of blood on her bare flesh, no scar, nothing. It was as if it had never happened. Her gaze trailed over to the other side of the compartment, landing on her jacket. The left arm was shredded.
Confusion set in, and she was still rubbing at the spot when she stood and did a slow circle in the center of the room. It was white metal, with two cots on either side. She’d been sleeping on one of them, the thin pad so far from the comforts of a mattress, she actually snorted. Sure, they could travel across space but couldn’t come up with a better version of a cot. That made sense.
There were no windows, but a small sink was built into one end of the room. On the wall across from it there was a wide door, big enough to fit two grown men shoulder to shoulder. She’d just taken a step toward it when a beeping sounded and the door whooshed to the right faster than she could blink.
The one who’d taken her stood there, watching. His oddly colored eyes scanned her once, as if searching for imperfections.
Damn, he was gorgeous. If not for the fact that the guy was a total psycho, she might have looked at her circumstances a bit differently. Unlike back in the alley, there was enough light here for her to get a good look at his features.