The day had taken a very surreal turn. It had started out so nice and sunny too. Then it got hot and naked. But as it turned violent and impossible, Emma realized she had to be dreaming.

Parachuting bounty hunters shooting at her and a guy who lived in a trailer sitting atop what he claimed was a spaceship? Nope. She must have fallen and hit her head. Maybe she’d fainted due to dehydration or something and now hallucinated. Anything was more plausible.

“You have a tunnel under your trailer.” She couldn’t help giggling, an edge of hysteria clinging to it as more gunfire riddled the walls.

“It’s an access tube so we can get on my ship.”

“You have a ship underground? Don’t those work better at sea?” More likely he hid a bomb shelter, but right now, with people intent on killing them, she didn’t really care.

“I keep my ship underground to keep it off your planet’s radar.” Exasperation colored his tone. “Can we discuss this later?” He swung his legs into the hole and levered his body into it. “This trailer isn’t going to protect us for much longer.”

No it wouldn’t, but she had only his word that the hole in the ground went anywhere.

Down he dropped, popping out of sight.

For a moment, she stayed crouched on the floor, wondering if she should follow him down the rabbit hole. More and more bullets peppered the siding, giving it a Swiss cheese appearance. While a part of her truly believed this was only a dream, she couldn’t help a spurt of fear. What if it’s not?

And even if this was an elaborate dream, how would following him hurt?

Boom!

The whole trailer shook and rattled as something sheared off the top of it. Actually, it was more like three quarters. If she’d not landed flat on her face, it might have pulverized her too. Blue sky hazed with smoke greeted her when she dared to raise her head for a peek.

“Oh my God.” Real or not, she couldn’t stick around. She stuck her feet into the trap door and then screamed as something grabbed them and yanked her in.

Her ass hit the side of the tunnel, and given its angle, she slid. She also screamed, “Ahhhhhhh!”

She didn’t fall far or too long, and as landings went, hers was pretty nice given Mr. Batshit-Crazy caught her and held her against his body. His still half-naked body.

Her turn to mutter, “How you doing?” in her best husky tone. To no avail.

What kind of dream had a half-naked hunk setting her away from him? To add insult to injury, hot debris came whipping out of the slide and hit her.

“Ow!” She slapped at a burning ember on her arm, the painful sting a little too real for comfort.

“I’d move away from there,” he stated. “Find a spot and strap yourself in. Things might get kind of wild.”

“Strap myself in? Where? Where are we going?” Exactly how did he plan to get this underground chamber to move?

“We are leaving Earth, wench.”

With those ominous words, which should have sounded ridiculous, he moved out of the circular room with its metal walls held together with rivets, what appeared to be duct tape, and, in one place, a dried hunk of purple gunk.

Although out of sight, Emma heard him as he barked orders. “Annabelle, seal the hatch.”

What feeble light that made it down from above disappeared as the hole closed. She could hear the whine of something mechanical as Mr. Abaddon continued to yell out commands. “Power up the primary core.”

“The primary core is still in maintenance mode. Shall I power the second?” The female voice permeated the air. Was someone else in here with them? In all the times she’d delivered to his trailer, Emma had never spotted another soul.

You also never spotted the fact he hid a bomb shelter under his trailer.

Probably because she was too busy admiring his straight white teeth and most excellent physique. She was such a slut for a hot body. And look where it got her— underground with no way out.

The floor shuddered, and something rumbled, much like an engine would. She peeked down and noted the grid-iron floor. It occurred to her to wonder about his claim. What if this wasn’t a bomb shelter? What if he wasn’t completely crazy?

Still, a spaceship? She peeked around, really looking this time. Nothing really screamed alien. As a matter of fact, the area reminded her of a submarine or even a naval ship. Until something purple and fuzzy squeezed through a hole in the floor. It blinked three eyes at her. She blinked back. It puffed up and hissed. Since it was no bigger than a desert spider, she raised her foot and said, “I’ll squish you.”

It deflated and scurried back under. But it had accomplished its job. I think I saw my first alien.

Dear God. If she had, then that meant he wasn’t lying. I’m on a spaceship about to take off.

Holy crap.

I’m on a spaceship about to take off! She needed to get off this thing, like now, but the question was, how? The tube they’d used to enter was sealed. Surely there was another exit.

She popped her head out the only door and was faced with a long hallway. It kind of reminded her of the narrow corridors seen in movies for submarines, all metal, hatches, and pipes running in all directions. What she didn’t see was the crazy guy, although she did hear his voice echoing back from far ahead.

“How the fuck is the primary not fixed yet? Don’t answer that. It doesn’t matter. Power the second core and prepare the launch sequence, but skip the pre-flight check. We don’t have time for that. We need to get out of here and fast.”

“What of the cargo planetside? Do you still wish to retrieve it?”

Was the stupid woman seriously worried about coconut oil? People were shooting at them.

They want us dead!

It was enough to make her knees wobble, and she sat down hard on the floor. The low hum of the metal grate under her ass increased enough that her teeth rattled.

Boom. The distant thundering sound let her know whoever came after Mr. Abaddon—who was possibly not so batshit crazy but definitely still not dating-material—was still intent on his demise, which, in turn, meant her demise. If this truly was a spaceship, as he claimed, then what the hell was he waiting for to get them out of there?

Getting to her feet, she ignored the little voice that said, He told us to get strapped in. Since she didn’t see any seatbelts and she refused to cower on the floor, she followed the hall to a T-junction. A peek left showed stairs going down. To her right, another hall with several doors, all closed.

The metal walls didn’t have any handy-dandy signage. Just more pipes and valves running in all directions.

Really underwhelming as her first experience with a spaceship went. Maybe that purple fluffball wasn’t an ET but some insect she’d never seen before. It was pretty farfetched to automatically believe this was a UFO, no matter what he claimed. Things buried underground couldn’t fly. Even she knew that.

The whole structure shuddered and groaned. She threw out her hands to balance herself, and yet she still tipped, her staggering steps taking her toward the nearby staircase. She managed to grab a hold of the rails, but another shudder and tilt sent her swinging out over the steps. Since gravity insisted she go down, she hugged the wall and skipped down the stairs as fast as she could, the metal thump of her feet, still clad in the ridiculous steel-toe boots, louder than the increasing engine noise.

At the bottom, she found herself in a small room with a hatch-like door. It had a window. Peeking through the window, she noted a vast space, filled with pallets. Her pallets, the same ones she’d delivered these past few months. She also spotted daylight streaming down, along with a fine sift of sand.

The crazy bastard had opened some kind of overhead doors, and a long-armed crane mechanism tipped with pinchers lowered the cargo she’d delivered not even fifteen minutes ago.

Emma didn’t care though about the fact that Mr. Abaddon seemed determined to not leave his coconut oil shipment behind. She saw daylight. Dusty motes of sun meant an exit. The dilemma was how to reach it.

She couldn’t even try unless she managed to get into the room. A shove against the door didn’t make it budge. Nor did she spy a handle of any kind or a convenient knob.

She took a moment to truly look at the door, which, much like the portal on a ship—the kind made for oceans—sported a wheel in the center of it. She grabbed a hold of the wheel, and although a part of her expected it to fight her and remain locked, it spun easily, and she heard the hiss of air as the seals on it loosened.

When she could turn it no more, she put her shoulder to the door and shoved at it. She almost fell into the room as the door swung open, almost dragging her with it. Lifting her foot over the ledge that formed the frame, she stepped into the cavernous room. It resembled a warehouse with the many stacked pallets, strapped into place with thick metallic threaded rope tethered to fat metal rings in the floor.

The cargo itself didn’t interest her. She knew most of it by sight and knew nothing there would help her escape. None of the strapped pallets stood high enough either for her to use and reach that open hole.

Whir.

The mechanical sound had her peering upwards, and she noted the arm of the crane rising from the pallet it deposited, heading back for another load.

There’s my ride. Emma ran across the room, weaving through the stacked cargo, still with no plan on how she could actually shimmy the crane thing but determined to try.

Luckily, the doors overhead remained open, and even better, she could no longer hear the noise of guns firing. Then again, the rumble all around her didn’t make it easy to tell.

Time ticked, and the crane had hooked the second pallet and was on its way down again. She needed to get on it before it returned for the third and last pallet.

While she usually felt anything related to jogging was for the sadistic, this one time she made an exception as she ran and scrambled atop the pallet nearest the crane. Her feet slipped as she tried to use the pincher to give herself leverage to reach the upper part of the crane’s arm. Her muscles protested the exertion, but she ignored them. They also liked to stage protests every time she thought about signing up to go to the gym.

It took some work reaching the top of the crane. It wasn’t pretty. She huffed and puffed, her cheeks flushed, her body coated in a sheen of sweat. She couldn’t stop a small yell of fright as the crane jerked and started moving upward.

Feeling herself slip, Emma clenched her thighs tighter around the beam of metal and hugged it too.

The crane didn’t seem bothered by her weight—unlike her last boyfriend. He’d totally deserved that call to the IRS. That would teach him to tell her to not order any meat when they went to dinner. He claimed it was to help her weight problem, but she knew it was because he was cheap.

Although, right about now, she kind of wished she were a few pounds lighter because staying on the crane wasn’t easy, but she persevered. She could see freedom just out of reach, and as even more incentive, a hard landing awaited if she fell off.

Gulp.

Up, up the crane inched, slower than her trembling muscles liked. The gap to freedom lurked out of reach. Too far to jump.

A shadow interrupted the sunlight, and she raised her gaze to see a head encased in a visored helmet peeking into the shrinking gap.

“Help me!” she cried out, reaching for the person. Sure, he was probably one of the bounty hunters shooting at Mr. Crazy Pants, but crazy dude wasn’t here right now. Just her. Surely they wouldn’t hurt an innocent. She batted her lashes as she pled. “Can you please help me get out of here? I’m not with that guy. I was just delivering a package.”

The request fell on deaf ears. Into the hole poked a gun, aimed at her!

For a moment, she forgot where she was. Panic engulfed her and she reacted, throwing herself away from the line of fire. Of course, away meant off the crane she perched on, which meant falling. Down, down, down. Crunch.