Chapter 1
Natalie Korman rolled over and groaned. She fought through waves of nausea and a splitting headache and struggled up onto her hands and knees. Her eyelids stuck together, but she groped her way across the cold concrete floor and found something solid. She could steady herself against that.
She flipped over and sat down. She rested her back against the icy concrete, but at least she was upright. She cradled her aching head in her hands. “Amber! Are you there?”
No one answered her, so she tried again. “Tina, where are you?”
She worked to open her eyes, and after a while, a dim shaft of light penetrated her tortured brain. Then she used her fingers to pry her eyelids apart and peered through the blur at her surroundings. Only then did the harsh reality sink in, and she rocketed to her feet.
“Amber! Tina! Where are you?” she called.
A groan answered her from across the room, and she staggered toward it. She pawed at the dingy blanket and found a human form. “Amber! Tina! Wake up!”
Tina arched her back and tried to sit up, but wound up falling back on the narrow cot. “Where are we?”
Natalie shook her friend in desperation. “We’re in the holding cells.”
That got her attention. Tina swam up out of the bunk and threw off the blanket. “What? How can we be? The last thing I remember is Bancroft Park.”
“That’s the last thing I remember, too,” Natalie replied. “We must have passed out.”
Tina laughed, but it sounded more like a frog croaking than a young woman. “We must have drunk more at the Roundhouse than we realized.”
Natalie shook her again. “Get up. Please get up. We have to figure out how we’re going to get out of here.”
Tina threw her arm over her face and sighed. “If we’re in the holding cells, there’s no way to get out. We’ll just have to wait until morning when we can bail out.”
“Bail out?” Natalie didn’t like the sound of that.
Tina sat all the way up, tossed the blanket aside, and put her feet on the floor. “You’re so naive, Natalie. You’ve never had so much as a speeding ticket in your life. I’ve been arrested five times for shop-lifting, and it’s the same old story. When the morning shift comes into the police station, they’ll give us breakfast—if you can call it that. Then they’ll let us have our phone calls.”
Natalie groaned. “This can’t be happening to me. What if I lose my job?”
“Get over it, girl,” Tina snapped. “When they give you your phone call, you can call any one of dozen bail bondsmen they have advertised on a board over the phone. They’ll bail you out, and you’ll be back to watching The Daily Show by lunchtime. Your boss will never even know you were arrested.”
Natalie sank down on the floor. “This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Tina rubbed her eyes and looked around. Then she frowned. “You said we were in the holding cells.”
“We are,” Natalie replied.
“This is not a holding cell,” Tina told her.
Natalie’s head shot up. “It must be. Look at this place.”
Tina pushed the blanket farther away and stood up. She paced around the concrete chamber. “Listen to me, Natalie. I’ve been in the holding cells enough times to know what they look like, and this is definitely not one of them.”
Natalie got to her feet and waved to the walls surrounding her. “But look at this place. It’s solid concrete, and look at the bars over there.”
“Where’s the toilet?” Tina shot back. “Where’s the sink and the fluorescent light? Where’s the security camera? Are you telling me a police holding cell doesn’t have a security camera? Come on!”
Natalie shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, you’re the expert, but it sure looks like a holding cell to me.”
Tina strode from one end of the room to the other and inspected every detail of the place. “I don’t know where we are, but we’re not in a police holding cell. We’re....somewhere else.”
Natalie gulped. “Where?”
Tina didn’t answer. “Where’s Amber? And where’s Melanie?”
“I....I don’t know,” Natalie stammered. “I woke up just now, and you’re the first person I saw.”
Tina grumbled something under her breath. She set off across the room again and tore her blanket off the bunk. There was nothing there to see, of course. Panic mounted in Natalie’s chest, but she swallowed her tears. She couldn’t break down in front of Tina.
All at once, a crash of metal made them both jump. They spun around, ready to fight or run. A door swung open outside the barred front of their cell, and three figures entered. They wore long grey robes down to their feet—at least, Natalie figured the robes must come down to their feet. But they didn’t walk normally. No legs moved under those robes, and they didn’t shift their weight back and forth when they moved. They glided over the floor on a film of air.
Their heads gave the first real proof that they weren’t human. Even though they had two eyes on either side of their faces and mouths down at the bottom like humans, big round knobs stuck up off the back of their heads, and they had no hair. The knobs swirled into points, and their skin glistened with a dusky glow like the scales of a butterfly’s wings. Their faces bore no expressions at all, and they made no sound when they entered the chamber.
Natalie drew back in horror, but the next minute, her heart soared. The first figure—she couldn’t call him a man—stepped to one side, and two human women appeared between him and the other two figures. The whole group stopped outside the cell.
The door popped open without any key. The figures’ eyes never moved from Natalie and Tina’s faces. Amber and Melanie stepped forward to enter the cell, but at that moment, Tina launched herself at the first figure with her hands outstretched for his throat.
She never made it past the threshold. He lifted his hand from the folds of his robe and pointed a handheld device at her. He pushed a button on the device and Tina flew backward, off her feet, and landed on her back on the floor at Natalie’s feet. Natalie cried out, but she managed to keep still and avoid the same mistake.
Tina rolled to one side with a groan. Amber and Melanie stepped into the cell and took their places at Natalie’s side. They didn’t look right or left. They stood perfectly still and watched the three figures. When they got into the cell, the figure with the device gave a satisfied nod.
He pointed his device at Tina again and pushed another button. She levitated off the floor onto her feet. Her eyes remained closed, but her feet moved with a will of their own. Was she even conscious? She walked out of the cell and took Amber and Melanie’s position between the mysterious figures. The one with the device took the lead, and his companions brought up the rear. They led Tina out of the chamber, and the cell door slammed shut.
As soon as they left, Natalie rounded on her friends. “Where have you been? We’ve been worried sick about you.”
Amber and Melanie glanced at each other. “We’ve been in another cell just like this one. They only came and got us a few minutes ago and brought us here.”
“Have you seen any of the rest of the place?” Natalie asked. “Do you know where we are?”
“We didn’t see anything,” Amber replied. “They led us out into a hall between our cell and this one. Then we came here. We assumed we were in the drunk tank.”
“That’s what I thought,” Natalie told them. “But Tina said this couldn’t be a police holding cell. She was sure it must be somewhere else.”
“She’s right,” Melanie chimed in. “Did you see those guys? They aren’t the police.”
“Who are they?” Natalie asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Melanie shot back. “They’re aliens.”
Natalie gasped. “Aliens! You’re joking.”
Melanie fixed Natalie with a hard stare. “Have you ever seen anybody who looked like that? Have you ever seen anybody who walked like that? Have you ever seen anybody who could control people with the touch of a button like that?”
“No, but that could have been some kind of technology we haven’t seen before,” Natalie pointed out. “Maybe it’s like a remote stun gun.”
Melanie shook her head. “It wasn’t only for stunning. He used that thing to control us when they brought us here.”
“What do you mean?” Natalie asked.
“They pointed it at us when they brought us out of the cell,” Melanie replied. “We couldn’t move or speak after he pointed it at us. We could only walk between them until we got here. Don’t ask me how it worked, but that thing controlled our every move. You can ask Amber if you don’t believe me.”
Natalie turned to Amber. “Is that true?”
Amber wrung her hands. She looked all around the cell, but she didn’t see anything. Only a wordless sob came out of her mouth. Natalie turned back to Melanie. “This is impossible.”
“And you saw how they used it to control Tina,” Melanie went on. “They used it to knock her out, and then, after she was unconscious, they used it to make her walk out with them. That’s the only way they could get her out without carrying her.”
“That’s impossible,” Natalie insisted. “They couldn’t....”
“Stop saying it’s impossible,” Melanie interrupted. “You saw it with your own eyes. Do you have any other explanation for what happened?”
“No, but....” Natalie stammered.
“They’re aliens,” Melanie repeated. “We didn’t pass out in Bancroft Park. We’ve been kidnapped by aliens.”