My nose brushed the chill glass surface, and my pulse gave a shudder.

Peering through windows in the dark might not be how I usually spend a Friday night, but then…exactly nothing could be considered normal since Monday.

A shadow crossed the porthole. I rolled back against the door, and waited for the heavy thunking steps to pass, then crossed the room.

I dropped to my knees by the bed, pulled back the mattress and added a scratch to the fiberglass wall panel, using a metal button.

My fingers brushed the rows of dents.

Every hour.

The guard passed my room every hour on the hour. I’d counted out the seconds and minutes.

Monitoring guard rotations, now that didn’t rank that high on my list of shit that will never, ever happen. Not when as a military psychologist capture wasn’t an unfamiliar concept. That I’d end up a prisoner myself—that was unlikely.

Unlikely was fine.

Unlikely I could deal with.

This shit though…this shit was fucking impossible.

Alien abduction . Complete with white light shining through my bedroom window, frozen limbs, and a tugging sensation that lifted me right into a spacecraft.

Yep, mother-effing impossible.

The only thing that could rank higher on my list of improbable crap never to happen, was that I’d grow wings and fly. And right now, not even that seemed so implausible.

I hid the button under the mattress then climbed up onto the bed and lay on my side. There were several significantly more likely possibilities at play here.

Psychotic break.

I’d just have to accept it. As a psychologist I should be the first to swallow that pill. I dragged up the blanket. There’d been a patient who I’d had to refer on for more serious treatment once, who was convinced that he’d contracted an alien parasite while on active duty. He believed the parasite spoke in his head.

People’s minds will conjure and believe the strangest things.

I knew that. This place was probably a treatment facility—not a spaceship. The guard’s nurses—not horrific snake skinned aliens. Time to accept it and stop resisting…

A light flashed across the darkness. I stiffened. Only the thinnest stream of light seeped through the porthole. The lights operated on a twelve-hour rotation. Which meant that there were more hours of darkness than preferable, not that there was much, or anything, to do in these little living capsules.

At least meals were served in a common area, where I saw other humans—prisoners—patients.

Whatever .

Light flashed again.

I sat up. A green spot flickered by the door. I climbed out of bed and went to the control panel. The doors unlocked at the same time every morning and afternoon.

A metallic thunk clicked, and the door creaked open.

I stumbled back. This was not one of those times. My heart dropped in my chest.

They were coming to my room?

The aliens.

At night.

In the dark?

My stomach clenched. I watched the door. Maybe I didn’t have anything to fight with, but I’d damned well wouldn’t take their sinister alien intentions laying down. I’d get probed with my eyes open, thank you.

The door remained exactly as it was.

Only a crack open.

The green light flickered, faster and faster.

I approached it again. The guard only just passed. There was an hour before anyone would be back this way.

My breaths sped up. I pushed the door open and peered out. What would happen if I got caught wandering around? I’d never observed overt abuse from the guards, but disobedience was met with the hurty end of something very much like a cattle prod. I still had the twinge in my side to prove it.

I swallowed, throat sticky.

Alien cattle prod was extremely unpleasant.

But survivable.

I took a deep breath, my nerves settling. Survival . Hour, after hour, of client appointments ran through my head. Now those soldiers were real survivors. I took a breath and slid through the door and out into the hall.

Bring on the cattle prod.

I squinted down the hall. A green flicker flashed up ahead. My spine clicked straighter. What were the chances of a little light like that popping up in my room and now in the hall?

I made my way towards the flash. The flicker jumped ahead. My pulse thudded. I moved after the light. The dot danced faster, forcing me to jog across the smooth, slippery, floor. The light paused around a corner.

I reached the spot, panting for breath.

A door groaned open in front of me.

Hairs rose off my body like a lick of static. I was literally following after a green light that was leading me god only knew where. My mind flashed with an image of my last boyfriend who’d teased his cat with a toy laser. Making it chase the red dot up a wall.

Is that what I was doing?

Chasing a dot like a cat?

Someone was responsible for this. Most likely one of them . Toying with me. I was probably alien amusement.

Maybe they’d lead me somewhere terrible.

I glanced back the way I’d come.

It would be easy to get back to my room if I went now. If I passed through this new door though…

The light flickered, drawing my attention back to it. The flashing increased pace, creating an urgency that infected my pulse, spinning it further out of control.

I darted through the door.

Wherever this led me, the fact was I was already somewhere terrible.

I followed the light down hall after hall, reaching another door which slid open the moment I’d reached it.

The door snapped shut behind me.

Lights flickered on.

I covered my eyes. Bloody hell . Air rushed fresh and almost moist in my mouth. I blinked, uncovering my eyes slowly.

The freshness sang in my lungs.

Trees and plants filled an enormous room. The air in the rest of the ship had a tang to it. An unnatural aftertaste.

I sucked in breath after breath.

Whoever led me here, so far was playing nice.

“This way.”

My head snapped toward the sound. A path with the same shiny smooth metallic finish to floors everywhere else, snaked a path between garden beds. I went in the direction of the sound, ducking under tree branches to a clearing.

Trickling water drew my gaze to a pond with a tiny stream of water falling over rock.

“Here.”

I turned around. A bench seat sat empty by the pond, a computer panel fixed to a stand in front of it.

The screen flickered with measurements. I leaned closer. This panel might control this greenhouse. I could probably screw up the whole eco-system with one careless touch.

“Leila Hains.”

I jerked back. “Who are you?”

The panel released a brief echo, before the voice spoke again. “I am your only hope for escape.”