Jessie
He fucked me again. I had been angry with him, trying to make him see how weird this whole setup was, but he did it anyway. And then, when I thought it was all over, he bit me. Sheer white blinding agony burst through my consciousness. I scratched at him but my stupid nails were too short, following the regulations for working with food. I tried to beat him off but I wasn't strong enough. He was enormous, built like a boxer or a WWE wrestler, and I had no chance of overpowering him.
The whole time, he was making that weird purring noise, that seemed designed to block out any thoughts or feelings I had, and make me more compliant.
I hated it. Hated what it did to me. And I hated him, too. He was seriously starting to piss me off.
I fizzed with energy. It radiated through me from the place where he'd bitten me. I didn't want to know what was happening. Probably something grim.
It was difficult to stay awake and present. The stupid purring made my eyes heavy. My mind wandered. Distant. Like this was all happening to someone else.
Maybe it was.
There were too many different things to take in. Aliens were real. Let's start there. How long had they been out there? Watching. Waiting for a moment like this.
In my mind they were the worst kind of predators. They were invading us. And I didn't believe for one minute that I was one of them. Bollocks to that. Was I really the first girl they'd taken? Given how manipulative he was, I shouldn't believe a word he said. They'd probably taken dozens of us. I'd watched V. It made perfect sense that aliens would try to breed with us. It was always male aliens and female humans. How long had they been here? Were all those sci-fi books and movies written by aliens to make us believe aliens were just stories?
How long had they been here? That was the most important question. They could have been watching. Grooming us. Getting us ready for them to pounce. Teaching us to be pacifists so we wouldn't fight back. People were so scared of confrontation, they'd accept almost anything these days rather than fight for themselves.
How long had they been here? How many of them walked among us, with passports, and driving licenses, mortgages and council tax bills? It must have been so easy for them to infiltrate the planet. Did I go to school with any of them? The thought twanged against my brain at the same moment another one appeared. My foster parents. A parade of them. I'd had more foster parents than class teachers at school. Some of them had kept me a few days. Others had me for months. None had ever wanted me for more than a year or two.
Any of them might have been aliens. Dad number five, Bob Simpkins, had been a gym instructor. A huge man.
You didn't eat your vegetables. Drop and give me three hundred!
His voice still echoed in my mind, making me feel sick to think about. Five-year-old me had tried so hard to please him in the hope that he'd stop forcing me to do exercise. He'd been barred from having any more foster kids after he made Lucas run up and down the street at one in the morning. Punishment for not going to sleep. Lucas had died of exhaustion. Bob had gotten a slap on the wrist from the police and a GoFundMe for his legal bills from other men who liked to "keep order" in their homes. Sick fucks, the lot of them.
But now I wondered if he was one of these aliens. Whether his friends had been, too. Men who liked to boast about how they'd punished their kids.
My nine-year-old got lippy with me so I gave her a backhander across the face. Knocked her clean off the sofa. Heh.
Bob had nothing on dad number twelve. No. There was no dad number twelve. I drowned out half-memories of a man who I still had nightmares about. Mom number twelve had been a single parent. If I said it enough times, one day, I'd believe it. Right?
But if there was a dad number twelve, I was sure he had to be an alien. Tall. Muscular. Physically too ready to overpower me. Enough. There was no dad number twelve.
Oh, God. Was this alien related to dad number twelve? Terror strangled me and I began sobbing. Silent. Too scared to make a sound. Another monster had found me and even now, I couldn't fight back.
Maybe he'd kill me quickly this time.
I'd felt this overpowered, out of control and helpless before, but in the past I'd always had hope. I'll survive this. And one day, I'll be an adult. Then no one can tell me how to live my life. No one will ever have this much power over me again. I'll be free.
This wasn't what adulthood was supposed to be like. I wasn't a child anymore. Not beholden to the whims of people bigger than me. And by God I wasn't going to bow down to this alien.
No.
Anger surged in my chest. His stupid purring dampened my emotions, but all that did was make me think about the situation with icy clarity. I lay still. Plotting.
I was going to get out of here. I was going to find somewhere to lay low. I would hide until they gave up looking for me, and moved onto some new target. I was under no illusions that I would ever be able to hit back against Thorun, although I would love to. No, my main concern had to be protecting myself from ever being preyed upon again. And that started with getting off this ship.
It took a while, but now he was asleep. At a glacial speed, I pulled away from the embrace. His limbs weren't tight around me anymore. Just heavy. I slid lower and lower in his grip. Swerved my shoulder out from under his enormous triceps. Left some of my hair in his fist because I couldn't pull it free.
Escape.
I pulled my clothes back on and went to the door. Opened it. The panel slid sideways silently. Two burly tall alphas were huddled over their tablet and having a conversation. They didn't notice me. Their job was to stop anything getting in. After all, Thorun was in the room with me, protecting me. It would be entertaining to be a fly on the wall when he demanded answers, later.
Running away was more important right now. Hugging the wall, I sidestepped down the corridor until I was definitely out of sight of the guards. This reminded me of mom number seven's house, when I'd been sent to bed without dinner too many times.
'You will eat when you do chores' became 'you will eat when you do your chores better' and eventually 'you didn't do this chore that you weren't asked to do, so you don't eat'. I had got sick of waiting for the day when my chores were good enough, and started creeping down to the kitchen once I was certain everyone was in bed.
I wasn't stealing chocolate. I had been hungry for real food. Raw carrots were easiest. No one counted carrots. At least, not until they started losing one a day.
When they had figured out who was eating the vegetables, I was collected by a social worker and dumped in the children's home until mom and dad number nine came along.
I pulled back from the memory of biting into cold carrots after dark. I was an adult now. Why was this place making me feel like a damn child? I wasn't creeping around someone's house, I stood in a long silver corridor with lots of almost-invisible doors that I couldn't open.
What was that thing they'd used to bring me here? Trans-mat, the doctor had called it. Where was it?
Aside from the two alpha guards I'd evaded, everyone must have been in bed or busy working because the ship was almost empty. Thorun was obviously a heavy sleeper. I doubted this place would be so quiet once he realized I'd escaped his suffocating grip.
"Where's the trans-mat room?" I wondered out loud, talking to myself.
"Trans-mat room is three doors from your current location."
I startled, then realized it was a computer. The alien equivalent of Siri or Alexa.
"Hey, Alexa, can you open the door to the trans-mat room, please?"
"Affirmative."
I kept going down the corridor until I found the open door.
"Thanks, Alexa."
"You're welcome."
I chuckled to myself. At least the computer on the ship was friendly, even if the men on board were all complete assholes. Was 'men' the right word for aliens? I didn't see why not. I scuttled into the trans-mat room. Empty. Perfect. Except I didn't know how to make it work. There was an obvious pad to stand on, but the controls were on a console nearby and the lettering was utterly bizarre.
"Hey, Alexa?"
"Yes?"
"Can you transport me to the planet surface, please?"
"Input co-ordinates."
I hesitated. "I don't know any."
"Then I cannot transport you."
Shit.
There had to be a way. I was too close to give up. Wait. Alexa wasn't a computer. Alexa was clever. She had answers.
"Hey, Alexa? What are the co-ordinates for Trafalgar Square, London?" Screw Ashford. I'd always wanted to go to London, but never had enough spare money for the train. And there was nothing left for me in Ashford, now I'd lost my job.
"2426-3828-9283."
"Trans-mat me to those co-ordinates, please."
"Affirmative."
For some reason, I expected the computer to continue the conversation with me while I gently transitioned from this place to the next, maybe in a snowfall of blue glitter, but instead, I felt like I'd been punched in the gut as the silver room vanished and I re-appeared in the center of London.
I took a moment to vomit on a ginormous grey paving slab then looked around. It was definitely Trafalgar Square. I'd seen it enough times on the TV.
The whole of London was spread out before me. A buffet of opportunity and possibilities. I could start afresh. Do anything I wanted. There were so many jobs here. So many different things. So many people.
I was free. Not just from the alien, but from the life I'd been living before. If I hid out properly, dodged being noticed, I could ride this gravy train forever.
It was dark. People were staggering home. Drunken words being shouted. The click-clack of too-high heels at the bottom of long, bare legs. It was so normal after being on the space ship. Between my legs, there was the residual ache from where he'd used me. And my shoulder stung. I contemplated going to a hospital to get the bite checked in case it needed suturing, but decided it would be better to avoid it. They'd want a name. An address. And I guessed those aliens were watching the health services' computers all around the world. Was I being paranoid? Those aliens were enormous. Couldn't be too careful.
I made a mental list. I needed food, a place to stay, and a job, in that order.
***
Thorun
I awoke and pulled Jessie closer to me. Or tried to. My arms closed around nothing. I opened my eyes and took a second to focus.
Gone!
With a roar, I got up and opened the door.
"Where is she?" I demanded. The two alphas standing guard looked confused.
"Who?" Sten was stupid enough to ask. I seized him by the neck and squeezed just enough to feel his pulse between my fingers. I wanted him to know I held his life in my hands right now.
"My omega." My voice was a snarl. "She's gone."
Both men's faces changed as they realized they were in deep shit.
"Captain, we did not see her!" Arne said.
"How did one tiny omega outwit two strong, fast males?"
"She must have sneaked past while we were... uh... exchanging tactical information, captain."
I released the throat of my subordinate and snatched the tablet out of Arne's hands.
"You were on a human dating site?" They didn't startle at my roar. Both of them stood their ground.
"Our mission is to find omegas, captain."
"Your task was to guard mine. Who will permit either of you to go to the surface and seek your mates after this?"
"I will redeem myself!" Sten vowed.
"Me too," Arne added.
"Organize a search party. Comb every inch of this ship—no, wait. Computer! Locate the omega female Jessie."
"Omega female is not on the ship."
I kicked a wall then remembered why that was a punishable infraction. The wall panel bent and fell off the wall, revealing wiring and pipes.
"Computer, organize a repair."
"State item code."
I read the code on the back of the damaged panel.
"Captain? What do we do now?" Arne was looking to me for an answer. So I needed to come up with something, fast.
"If she's not on the ship, there are only two ways she got off. Either in an escape pod or via trans-mat." The trans-mat station was closer than the escape pod bay, so I strode down the corridor and into the small, round room. I pressed a few buttons on the console. Fuck.
"She transported herself back to Earth. To London."
"We have a city. This will be easy!" Sten had all the overconfidence of an inexperienced greenling. On reflection, this mess was my fault. I should have picked someone better to help Arne protect Jessie.
I sighed. "How much time have you spent on the planet surface?"
"Uh... none, captain."
"Human cities are enormous, and London is one of the biggest." Oh, clever prey, you have picked an excellent hiding place. I'd heard omegas possessed skills alphas couldn't conceive of. Hiding. Running. Outwitting predators. But I would hunt her down. And I would have her, again. She was mine. My soul ached in the deep knowledge that she would never escape me.
"Captain?" Arne began.
"We will retrieve my possession," I growled. "And once she's here, she will never have a reason to leave again."