Page 5 of Theirs to Crave
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My ass was numb. Again. I pulled myself from the dissociative fugue I’d been hiding in and lifted a hip, releasing the suction-like hold my cheeks had on the metal platform. The stupid tank dress tunic thing was long enough to cover the important bits, but short enough it rode up when I sat down. I shuddered, thinking about what kinds of extraterrestrial ick were touching my panty-less lady parts. Definitely time to get up.
I’d been on high alert for a while after we’d woken up, jumping at every sound—real or imagined. That had lasted about an hour before my body ran out of adrenaline and I crashed. Ijust wanted to curl up and sleep until this madness sorted itself out.
Mariano insisted that we had to be ready to make our escape whenever the alien assholes came back, and he’d bullied me into walking around so I didn’t stiffen up. Actually, he’d wanted me to do a whole ass exercise routine with him, but I flatly refused. Bouts of walking between panic attacks was our compromise.
I complained the whole time, as was my sisterly right. But it actually did help, so I dragged myself up and slogged a figure eight path across the room. I’d never hurt so much, in so many places. Between the head and the hunger, nausea rolled through me in waves. My left wrist was swollen to the size of my ankle, my shoulders felt like someone was stabbing me anytime I moved my arms, and the weight of the collar around my neck made it impossible to forget the bruises that bloomed beneath it. On top of all that, I had to pee.
Mariano and I had searched the room, trying to open the panels in the walls, the door, poking the screens to see if they did anything. We’d even tried mimicking the alien’s hisses in case something was voice activated. Nothing worked. We utterly failed to find weapons, convenient trash chutes, or toilets. If something didn’t change in the next hour, I was going to have to pee in the corner. Wouldn’t that be the cherry on top of this shit sundae?
Thud! Thud! Thud!
I flinched at each pound of Mariano’s fists against the door. For all that we were twins, we processed things very differently. I ping-ponged between blessed numbness and screaming panic that had me sobbing in the corner as my brain trapped me with darker and darker visions of our future. Mariano...got mad.
He was just as beat up as I was, but he’d been working out like he was a movie villain locked in solitary and dreaming of vengeance. He was one huge ball of manic determination. But eventually he got tired and had moved on to yelling.
“Your mothers would be ashamed of you!”Thud!“Fucking cockroaches!”Thud! Thud!“Let us out or get back here and fight me, cabrones!”Thud-thump.
I looked up at the new noise. Mariano had collapsed against the door, chest heaving. “You done?” I asked.
He jerked his head to one side in non-answer, then scrubbed his hands over his face roughly. He was getting stubble already. Insult on top of injury for my always clean-shaven brother.
“I hate fucking waiting,” he muttered, the apology he couldn’t say in the glance he shot me.
“I know, but—” I clamped my mouth shut. I’d been about to say, “it could be worse.” Idiot. It’s like I’d never seen a horror movie in my life. I strained my ears, listening for some new monster come to torment us.
I’d just started to breathe again when I caught it. A tapping, scratching sound from the other side of the door.
Mariano shot to his feet, backing me away and taking up a fighting pose in the center of the room.
Electricity exploded through my body. I lost control of my muscles and fell to the floor, jerking. Mariano lay in front of me in a fetal position, lighting crackling at his neck. It was the collars. Pinche aliens put us in goddamn shock collars!
Through the agony, I registered the whir of the door opening before I was dragged from the room. I bumped over a series of metal walkways in blurry corridors, unable to do more thangrunt at the painful indignity before I was unceremoniously tossed into a cell. Mariano landed beside me with a curse. There was a clang and sort of snicking buzz, then I floated in a brief euphoria of relief as the collar mercifully became inert metal once more.
“I told you this was all a mistake,” said a man with a Boston accent. “See, babe? These stupid aliens were trying to abduct cows.” Someone gasped and hissed something too quietly for me to hear, and the man gave a mean, blustery laugh. “Oh, come on. It was a joke. I’m just trying to lighten the mood.”
“Don’t.” That voice was low and smooth, masculine.
“Ass,” said a woman, her contralto voice dripping with disgust and a hint of an accent.
Tired and hurt as I was, I refused to register the dig. These people spoke English. I could understand them. We weren’t alone. That was enough to celebrate.
Mariano didn’t agree. He shot to his feet, head swiveling as he glared, looking for the asshole who’d spoken first.
I pushed up more slowly, gingerly kneeling on the cold metal. No way was I putting my bare ass more places than I had to. This place smelled just as bad as the last room, if not worse. My eyes finally figured out how to focus, and I immediately wanted to close them again.
We were in a freaking dungeon. Or a prison, maybe? It was one big metal room with six cells separated by some kind of heavy metal mesh that kind of...wavered? They shimmered, like heat waves coming off the pavement in summer. One of the cells looked like a bomb had gone off inside it—its door a twisted and mangled mess. Intermittent sparks arced from the jagged edges,and beyond that was the only exit I could see, the door we’d been dragged through.
I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to keep my breathing from carrying me into panic. I couldn’t decide whether I was relieved or disappointed that Mariano and I were alone in our cell, looking at the four occupied cages around us.
The cell on our left held a man who could have been twenty or fifty, his features holding that ageless beauty some people were blessed with. He looked Korean to me, with a scattering of freckles over his high cheekbones that hinted at something else. Our eyes met, and he tipped his head, somber sympathy written across his face.
On our right was another solo occupant, this one a tall woman with impressive muscles covered in tattoos. She was light-skinned but surprisingly tanned for a redhead, and her long curly hair was pulled back in a thick braid. She caught my gaze wandering over her biceps and winked, giving me a little wave.
My face spasmed into an awkward expression that probably looked like I’d been smacked on the ass by a bug zapper, and I jerked my eyes away. Awesome first impression. Apparently, these aliens only abducted hot people. Which was flattering, I guess. Not that I was ready to think any friendly thoughts about our abusive hosts.
The cell directly across from us held a man and a woman, and it was obvious from a glance that this was the man who’d made that lovely “joke”. He was tall, fit, white, with a goatee and an obviously expensive haircut. He had a smirk on his face and a stick up his ass, “big man on campus” vibes radiating off of him like rays from a shitty sun. Mariano was focused on him like a laser. A small blonde woman was curled up on the floor as faraway from him as she could get, her arms wrapped around the knees she hugged to her chest.