pinch. “But you can be damn sure I’ve made that my goal for the rest of our days.”
“Another love-nip,” Inara is saying in wonder, examining her hand.
I take it gently. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” she murmurs, flashing me a loving smile.
“Matt, your mom and your sisters stopped by to…” Stacy says, peeking her head out from the doorway. I look to her to see her eyes wide as saucers. “Aliens,” she says in wonder, like she can really be surprised even after seeing Inara so often.
Then again, Tahmoh is pretty effin’ scary. And super alien. More like a mutant. When compared to his sister’s elegance and poise, he looks like he’s been hit with massive amounts of Marvel-esque radiation or something. (You know, the kind that turns you into a superhero or a villain, not the kind that boils you alive and kills you.)
He points a clawed finger at Inara and me. “Zadeon is going to tail whip you until you can’t walk after you left his vehicle out for vandals and vagrants to prey upon.”
“No one has disturbed it. It’s cloaked,” Inara defends. I want to defend her too, but I’m imagining one of my sisters taking the Boss without my permission, and parking it in the park and leaving it there.
Yeah… Might have to let this Zadeon brother of hers have some words with her. He’ll have to deliver them politely, but I can see the man’s (alien’s) side of things in this case.
“Tell that to Zadeon,” Tahmoh says archly.
Inara opens her mouth, no doubt to deliver the obligatory I will! when a dangerous thrumming noise vibrates in our ears.
It’s unreal in its impressiveness, not unlike the exhaust growl of a Dodge Challenger Hellcat. Worrisomely though, there’s not a Hellcat in sight.
Inara spins around, and immediately, I move to stand in front of her, inserting myself between her and whatever the threat is.
With all the wrong timing, my family spills out of Escape Worlds—and then they’re clapping their hands over their ears to protect themselves from the horrible growling sound that’s getting louder.
It’s… more monsters. Sheezus cripes, they’re basically copies of Tahmoh—only bigger. Dressed in black and electric blue alien tactical wear, they’re storming right for us.
Trailing them, there’s a man wearing a trench coat (that’s not weird at all) and a chest rig sporting a giant camera, the kind they shoot movies or serious news with. A woman is at his side, cupping one hand over the earpiece of a headset. Great. Just great.
And that noise, that sound that’s so low it’s just shaking the hell out of our eardrums and making my heart race? It’s coming from them. Deep and aggressive noises, but weirdly hollow, like whales might make, if the whales were scary-pissed.
As an aside, I’ve been to the Field Museum’s whale exhibit. Thank you, Chicago. Now I know that some whales make noises that could theoretically kill you (that’d be the sperm whale at about 230 decibels—compare that to the painfully loud backfiring of a car engine at 140dB, and you can just imagine the agony if it were amplified) and these aliens are making seriously loud, seriously aggravated killer sounds.
Also, they’re appearing from around the corner in the same way wasps shoot out of a hive after you’ve accidentally kicked it. Only these guys aren’t your regular wasps. They’re like tarantula hawk-level.
I’m so dead.
And Inara is probably about to get her ass royally chewed.
“We should have eloped,” I tell her, shaking my head and waving to the horror unfolding like we have a front row seat to an execution. I guess we do: ours. “Cooper and Tansy had the right idea, and I bet neither of their families are as potentially deadly as your family.”
They stop a scant few feet away from us, assembling like a murderous football team, nearly every towering male paired with a human woman who stands loyally at his side as the males glare at us.
No—at me.
This is a face-off. Inara’s brothers versus me.
This I understand. If there were seven of me, and we had a little sister, this is exactly how this would go. These guys are vetting me, as is their older brother due. So I react the way I expected—and wanted—my own sisters’ men to stand up.
“Hi there. My name is Matthew Shawnessy, and I love your sister. It's nice to meet her family.” I gesture behind me to mine. “This is my clan. This is my mom, Lillian, and my sisters Elaine, Kate, Kaley, and