“Don’t worry, wedari, we have you,” the voice says as my hair is brushed back from my face. I sense another being near my feet.
“She’s tiny.”A female voice.
“Yes, as depicted in the animations,” a new voice answers evenly, on my left side this time.
I feel a hand on my arm. I want to push it away, to sit up, but my body is still frozen. My eyes manage to blink open again, still painful in the spotlights. As my mind unfogs, I realize I am butt naked.
I gasp, sitting up and scrambling off the gurney. I immediately fall, my legs unsteady. The giant blue aliens make shocked sounds, but I scramble backward like a crab into the corner, not at all worried about my body being on display. All I can think of is to get farther away from them.
Backed into the corner of the room, I cover my breasts with one arm, my other hand on the cool, stone-like floor. My eyes dart around as my heart pounds. The tailed aliens stand around the metal bed under the exam lights, and a big winged alien is on the other side of the room.
The three that stand closer to me look positively horrified. The guy with wings clears his throat. “Here is a blanket. Since her vitals look alright, I’ll leave you to it...”
Well, the implants work unless they speak perfect English here across the galaxy.
The one alien with horns that look like deer antlers squats down, his hand held out to me.
Like I was a stray dog.
My chest tightens, my heart pounding harder.
“Easy, little one,” he says in a deep, silky voice. “We’re your pack.”
I press further into the corner, eyes searching for my inhaler.
The alien that is slender and the color that I remember the ocean to be, on our family vacations on the Florida coasts, kneels next to the other, holding the blanket out.
“Come here, omega,” she demands, though her voice is soft.
I know an order when I hear one.
I don’t move.
My breath becomes wetter and harder. I scan the room again, searching for my bag. Nothing.
I give up, finally, saying pathetically, “Please, I can’t breathe.”
Deer-antlers stands, striding toward the door.
“She should be alright in our atmosphere,” the woman says, more to herself.
“Oh, fuck,” the third, another male, curses from where he stands, hand on the gurney. “Her chronic disorder. The paperwork stated she’d be coming with human medication.” He turns just as the winged guy comes back into the room. “What does it look like, sweetheart?” the blue-gray alien with chiseled cheekbones asks urgently.
I realize he’s got my bag from the prison and is pawing through it.
“Blue. Inhaler.”
The winged guy comes over as the woman protectively throws the blanket over me.
“This?” the third blue male asks, holds up my inhaler, his small horns tilted and worry clear on his face.
I nod, and he hurries to me. I snatch it out of his huge hand and inhale two puffs quickly. When my chest starts to loosen, I take a third hit. My breathing slows, as does my frantically pounding heart. I catch a whiff of pumpkin pie and I frown, incredibly confused.A side effect of being split into a billion pieces and zapped across the universe?
Winged guy is holding a device to my wrist as I breathe slowly.
“Her heart is beating fast for a human, but otherwise, her vitals seem fine now.”
Deer-antlers answers, face obviously displeased, “Great. I suppose you can go, unless there is other information we should have about our omega?”
