When she awoke she could hear men talking. The room was dark with only a small amount of light from under the door. The shadows that moved along back and forth were her only inkling of other arrivals. More voices joined the initial one she’d heard. She strained to hear the words and try to make sense of where she was. She remembered trying to leave and Han as it all came back to her.

Fear gripped her and she couldn't move. They were going to force her to consent, wasn't that what Sca had told her in the woods? She sat up surprised they hadn't restrained her to the bed. Rushing over she tried to open the door using the knob. It didn’t turn at all.

"It's no use," a small voice came from the corner. "I tried to open it earlier."

Abigail strained to see who was talking in the dark. A small form moved from the corner towards her. She had red skin and wore some type of mask on her face. As she got closer Abigail saw her ears were pointed. They reminded her of the elves that always accompanied the department store Santa, only these were real. It was at this point she realized nothing surprised her anymore. Everything she’d seen made her a little less skeptical that anything was possible.

"Are you a prisoner here, too?" Abigail asked.

"Yes. The men have never come to Ation's tribe before. I don't know why this time is different. I overheard them saying their female isn't producing babies anymore. The young girl has come of age, but they don't know which one of them is the father. Poor planning on their part, but I wouldn't expect anything less."

"You speak English in your tribe?" Abigail was surprised.

"No, they have a translator on me." She lifted her hair and showed Abigail the translator on the back of her neck. It blinked and she reached for her own neck where there had been one inserted in her on the ship."

"I had one of those the first time I was kidnapped. I guess this counts as the third since this crew has had me before. This room doesn't look the same. I don't know where we are." Abigail realized this meant Baston and Sca wouldn't know how to find her either. They may have thought she just ran away like she'd threatened to do.

"They are awful creatures, but they aren't that smart," the young girl said. "I'm Dao. I think we can outsmart them if we put our heads together.”

Abigail liked her. She was a smart being and seemed to have a drive Abigail had lacked until she was abducted and needed to develop it to survive. It was a bit of a relief to have someone with her, she didn’t feel as alone, making the situation seem less hopeless.

"First things first, let's put some light on the situation." Abigail had taken a few things from Sca's house to bring with her on the ship. Looking back on her plan now it seemed so stupid, she wasn't sure what she'd been thinking. She probably would have crashed the minute she was airborne. They had told her it wouldn’t take her where she needed to go so she’d just planned to go hide somewhere on the planet. Then what, she thought. Every scenario ended up with her dying. She was sometimes too stubborn for her own good. If she got out of the current situation she would just stay with the family and be glad she was alive and not being forced to bear some corrupted men’s children.

Pulling out a glowing stick she'd seen them use she cracked it and put it on the floor. The room was lit up and she could see where she was and what they had to work with. Dao had taken a blanket from the back of a chair and stuffed it underneath the door so the men couldn't see the light.

The chair was a recliner, big and purple. What she'd actually been lying on was a couch in the middle of a large room. All the walls were wooden and had pictures of creatures she didn't recognize. They were portraits someone had used to make the room homey. There was a holopad on a table in the corner and a small table with little figurines of the same animal on the wall.

The place she'd been before had bland decor and no pictures on the wall. Now she wondered if this was their true home and the other place was a decoy.

There was a fireplace but all the pokers and things they could have used to defend themselves were gone.

The translator Dao wore was similar to the one she'd been strapped with. She knew it allowed you to understand and that whoever you were talking to could understand you. They both put their ears to the door to listen to the conversation outside. To their surprise, they heard more than one female voice.

"Why did you have to bring them to mama's house? Now if someone comes to find them, they'll know they are here," female voice one asked.

"You boys haven't been thinking clearly since your daddy died," female voice number two said. She sounded older, so Abigail decided that was the mother. "I know this isn't the life we all wanted, but kidnapping is not the way to keep our family going. What are you going to do with the alien girl, you want your babies to be demon elves?"

"Mama," Abigail recognized this voice as Han's. "Cecilia isn't getting pregnant anymore. The men are panicking that we're going to die out on Adna."

"Cecilia only produced one baby girl and all the rest were boys. Now those boys are almost grown and you're worried about incest, just go ahead and admit it." The older female voice said. Abigail shuddered at the thought.

A male voice that wasn't Hans chimed in. "When we took the girl, she was going into Baston's ship. Maybe we should just steal it and get back to Earth." They had completely bypassed the subject of incest and Abigail was happy for small reprieves.

"Great, these men are from my home planet," Abigail whispered to Dao. “They told me they were from here.”

"Corrupted by being away too long," she said back. “Solitude, without the companionship they were able to experience where they were from, has got them thinking differently.

"I count five voices and that's if some of them aren't being quiet."

"We need weapons badly," Dao said looking around the room. The glowing stick was fading and Abigail cursed herself for only getting one. She’d hastily thrown the stick, a knife, and some medical supplies she found in the bathroom into her bag.

"Okay, we'll just have to use what we have." Abigail walked over and picked up a book from the shelf. It was thick and heavy. Dao saw what she was doing and picked up a statue of the creature that covered the room. It was like an elephant but its face was covered in tentacles and it had protrusions from its back like a stegosaurus."

"Man, someone really likes Helioturfs." Dao said lifting the heavy statue. "Take out the men and fight the women?"

"Yes, that's our only chance." Abigail nodded and knocked a few things off the shelves to cause a commotion. Sure enough she heard one of the men say, "what the hell was that?"

The mother said, "Go make sure they aren't destroying my Helioturfs."

This got an eyeroll from Dao and Abigail had to laugh at the universal symbol of annoyance. This was their chance to escape.

The men came through the door with force but the women were ready for them. Abigail hit Han on the back of the head hard. She couldn't see Dao as she rushed out the door but heard the statue break over the other guy and saw her in her peripheral vision. The mother and woman in the living room were taken by surprise, but they weren't wilting flowers. Both came at them, claws out, ready to attack.

Abigail ended up with the mother, who was a lot stronger than she thought she would be. She easily threw Abigail to the floor and leapt on top of her. She pulled her hair and Abigail lashed out with her hands, grabbing her face and squeezing. It wasn't the best fighting strategy, but it was all she had. It did its job, because the mother let go and gave her an opportunity to push her body weight into her and throw her off.

Dao came up and grabbed the back of the woman's neck causing her to fall to the floor. Abigail realized the other woman was already unconscious.

"Remind me not to piss you off," Abigail said.

“I don’t know what that means,” Dao said.

The two made their way through the house, which turned out to be quite large. There didn’t appear to be anyone in the house besides the people who were unconscious.

It was lucky and Abigail felt a little relief when they made it outside, but instant fear as Dao led her into the woods. She didn’t want to be attacked or have to run scared again. With a deep breath, she charged forward through the trees. It was time to start being brave no matter what the situation was.