AllFreeNovel
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No fucking way. That had just been one of those alcohol-fueled fever dreams, where Donna Meowble and I rode dolphins in order to save the human race from trying on shoes. There was no way that I’d managed to cap off the worst day ever by going and getting kidnapped by aliens.
No.
Freaking.
Way.
With some difficulty and a heaving stomach, I rolled over and pushed myself up to look around. I was in a sort of barracks or old-time hospital—both main walls of the long room lined with oversized beds, each covered with plain gray linens.
“Morning, sleeping beauty,” a smoky, feminine voice said from nearby, and I turned to see a woman sitting on the bed next to mine. She was in her twenties, like me, with super long chestnut hair and brown eyes. She wasn’t wearing a beige hospital gown, but a bright red dress and matching patent pumps, looking ready for a night on the town. “When they brought you in, I was afraid they’d hurt you, but then we could smell the whiskey from a mile away.”
“Preach,” the pretty blond guy sitting next to her said in a southern accent. Unlike her, he was in a not-quite-hospital gown, the same as me. “Brother, you smelled like so much booze I almost got drunk when you got here. What’d ya do, rob a liquor store?”
“Ex-boyfriend got married yesterday, to the guy he cheated on me with. Who was a former coworker.” I glanced down at my hands, half hoping to find the bottle of Jack, even though I distinctly remembered finishing it. And maybe breaking it?
The blond guy gave a low whistle, shaking his head. “I thought I had a bad day yesterday.”
The woman snorted. “Beau, sweetheart, you did have a bad day. For instance, you’re the only one of us whose clothes they didn’t give back.” Then she lifted her voice and yelled in the direction of a metal panel I assumed was a door. “Which I find really fucking skeevy, by the way. If any of you blue bastards tries to lay a finger on Beau, you’re coming through me first.”
Beau, for his part, blushed and ducked his head, glancing over at one of the empty beds in the room and then back at us. “So yeah, I’m Beau. And this is Annemarie.” He motioned around the room, pointing at people and giving names I’d never be able to recall. Guy had to be a whiz at names, because I was going to be lucky to remember more than Beau and Annemarie.
Then, naturally, Annemarie threw a monkey wrench in the works with, “You can call me Ree.”
Okay, maybe I’d remember Beau and... Ree.
“Lucas,” I answered.
“Oh, I know,” she agreed. With a completely unapologetic grin, she motioned to a low table between my bed and hers—a table where my clothes were sitting, folded up, with my wallet and phone.
“My stuff!” I leapt up, rushing over and instantly grabbing at my phone. Shockingly, it had no bars.
Behind me, she sighed. “I know, I checked too. Hell, I spent the first hour checking the damn thing repeatedly, even after Beau told me we’d already started”—she took a deep breath and swallowed hard—“moving.”
“Moving?” I yelped. “Wait, we’ve been abducted, shoved in some kind of barracks on a spaceship, and we’removing?”
A low murmur of voices carried through the room, various people nodding and looking nervous. One of the girls sitting on a bed on the other side of the room was crying, another’s arms around her.
I stood up, looking around and taking stock—not of the alien spaceship, because what the hell did I know about technology, even on Earth? No, of the people. At a superficial guess, we were all in our twenties. There were eighteen of us, assuming no one was hiding or elsewhere.
There were people of different skin tones, hair colors, and nationalities—that part wasn’t as obvious, but the crying girl was whimpering words in what sounded, to me, like French. And on the bed right across from mine, was a Japanese guy with cotton-candy-pink hair, clutching a comic book to his chest and looking traumatized. At least, I assumed that he was Japanese, based on my two years of Japanese at the university and the kanji on the cover of his manga.
“Konnichiwa?” I asked more than said, in possibly the clumsiest American accent ever.
He gave a little giggle, but inclined his head, and answered with a much better American accent. “Good morning to you as well. And thank you, but English is fine.” Then he tapped his chest. “Hiroki.”
I waved back, and though he’d obviously heard us talking before, responded in kind. “Nice to meet you. I’m Lucas. Sorry my Japanese is crap, I only took it as a college requirement.”
He shook his head. “It was fine. But”—he looked around the room, counting—“there are only two who don’t speak English.” He motioned first to the crying girl, and then to a dark-skinned young man who was sitting on the far bed, watching all of us with something that looked like longing. Longing to be able to communicate, probably. “Genevieve and Kenosi.” The girl just kept crying at her name, but the young man nodded and tapped his own chest.
Ree spoke up again. “You don’t happen to speak French or, um... Setswana, I think he said?”
Kenosi nodded, but he didn’t look hopeful. I shook my head apologetically in answer, and he gave another nod, as though he’d been expecting it.
Kenosi, past the language barrier, was freaking gorgeous, with flawless skin, a square jaw, and the deepest black eyes I’d ever seen.
And that was when my brain made the connection. “Oh shit, we’re all good looking.”
Beau lifted a brow at me in confusion, but Ree pursed her lips and nodded, and Hiroki let out a sigh and said, “I hoped perhaps I was wrong about that.”
