PROLOGUE
“Zoey!” a booming voice bellows.
I glance up to see Rava looking at me with wide eyes. Lyra is next to her. Their gazes rise above my head, jaws dropping.
I don’t need to look over my shoulder to know what they’re seeing. My skin tingles with awareness. The black-dressed Venkorian guards. They’re coming for me.
Am I shocked? No. Eventually, the Venkorians are coming for all of us on this space station. So far, they’ve been taking us a few at a time. We have no idea where or how far away. We don’t know if we’re being relocated to another spaceship or a planet.
My friends and I are vastly ill-informed.
Headmistress Helena is the only one of us who wears a device that allows her to understand these giant alien men, but even she is told very little.
As far as I can tell, the Venkorian guards mostly grunt and scowl. It keeps all of us on edge.
It’s not like we have any other options. We can’t turn them down or deny them. For one thing, our space station is failing. It can’t sustain us for much longer. We’re running out of resources. For another thing, we’re all women, most of us in our earlytwenties. We don’t have any way to defend ourselves. We are not trained in combat or defense.
We’ve been living on this space station for over twenty years. The majority of us don’t remember Earth—the planet we came from. We were sent here in the late stages of Earth’s total destruction. The intention was for humanity to survive through us. Female infants who would one day be inseminated. But, tragically, the sperm specimens were destroyed.
We’re lucky. Someone found us. These aliens appear to have the same characteristics as humans. The only visible difference is their enormous size. That should be a relief. We should be grateful. What if we’d been discovered by something resembling the blue or green aliens of fictitious lore?Thatwould have scared us to death.
However, for some reason, I’m not comforted by these giants. None of us are. They don’t give me warm-and-fuzzy vibes.
Apparently, my number is up. I’ve been chosen. Resistance will accomplish nothing. I’ve watched some of my friends fight and scream as they were carried away. It did them no good.
Standing from where I’ve been picking potatoes in the dirt, I wipe my hands on my dress and turn to face my fate. “I’m Zoey.”
ONE
I wake to the sound of screaming and blink my eyes open. My head is pounding, and I’m nauseous. This isn’t surprising since the last thing I remember before passing out is being injected. That was in the space station’s medical bay.
Where am I now?
With my hands clasping my temples, I turn my head toward the noise. I recognize the voice. It belongs to Rava. Apparently, she was also forcibly removed from the space station.
Bile rises into my throat as I take in my surroundings. I’m in a cage like the kind zoo animals would be kept in. Lions. Tigers. Bears. The room is huge and filled with iron boxes like mine. They hang from the ceiling. We’re suspended above the ground.
I’m freezing, and I need to pee. I’m also shivering, perhaps from the cold, but also from dehydration and hunger. My body feels heavy. It’s too much effort to lift my head off the metal base of my cage. How long have I been here? More importantly, how long has it been since I was taken from the space station?
From the other side of the room, male voices speaking a language I don’t understand make my skin crawl. I watch inhorror as two huge men open the cage Rava is in. They grab her biceps and carry her, kicking and wailing, from the room.
I’m suffering from extreme nausea. It’s hard to see well from this distance, but I think Rava is covered in vomit and urine. I can smell both. It’s making me feel worse.
With my nose pinched, I try to breathe through my mouth, irrationally grateful when I can no longer hear Rava’s protests.
She’s stronger than me. More defiant. I don’t have it in me to be that obstinate. Sure, I’m scared, but shouting at my captors doesn’t seem to be the best course of action.
A whimper draws my attention to another cage. Lyra. Darn. How many of us were transported at the same time? I push to sitting. Why is it still so hard to hold my head up? I’m straining to see my friend. She, too, is in a cage hanging from the ceiling in another part of the room. She looks about the same as I feel.
I want to call out to her, but the thought of doing so makes me afraid I’ll hurl. I need to get my stomach under control before I attempt to talk.
I’ve never felt so awful in my entire life. After lowering to my side, I tuck my knees under my dress and pull them up to my chest. The hard metal is uncomfortable, and I’m so very cold. My teeth are chattering.
The only things I’m wearing are a thin dress that falls to my knees and panties. I had shoes on when I was taken, but they’re gone now.
My dark hair is still in a thick braid, its tail is lying across my shoulder. I’m tempted to take it down and drape it around me for warmth, but I don’t want to move.
After several minutes, Lyra calls out to me, “Zoey?”
