I awaken slowly, my head foggy like my brain is filled with white noise that I can’t quite break through. There’s a buzzing in my ears, and my body feels numb and heavy, too heavy, unnaturally so. Trying to force open my eyes, I direct all my strength on emerging from the fog until my blurry gaze clears enough for me to see. My head is lolled to one side, and it takes me a minute to realise I’m not at Harvest House. The room I’m in swims in and out of focus as I slowly blink.
Where am I?
Why can’t I move?
With a pitiful moan, which is more of a heavy wheeze, I try to lift my head, but I barely move an inch before it flops back down onto something soft beneath me. My whole body refuses to listen, and panic flares through me. What’s happening?
Where the hell am I?
I try to scream, but it’s silent, my lips refusing to open and emit the sound. Attempting to slow my laboured breathing and my racing heart, I focus on the surroundings I can finally see. Okay, so not Harvest House. It’s too clean. Too…alien. There’s a wall out of the corner of my eye, gleaming white and shiny, like a hospital room but brighter, as if it’s filled with an inner light. I’m lying on something soft, a bed if the bit I can see is any indication. The floor is a solid white, and the lights seem to float above me.
Darting my eyes around, I also notice a toilet behind a privacy divider and what looks like a screen for a TV.
From my prone position, almost the entirety of my vision is comprised of what looks like a glass barrier running the length of one wall in the room. It seems to buzz a little like electricity, the hum filling the air—unless that’s my ears still ringing—and then it hits me.
The ship.
The tests.
My breathing stutters at that. It means I’m not on Earth anymore, right?
Just as the thought floats through my head, I watch with wide eyes as an unconscious Carmen slides into view outside my room. Her hair is tossed over her face, and her hand dangles limply off the floating gurney she’s lying on. I run my gaze up to the two aliens manoeuvring her gurney—big blue bastards with no mouth and at least eight eyes. They make a chirping sound as they slide past where I am, and when they disappear, something catches my eye.
Straining, I focus entirely on trying to see what’s across from me. The blob finally turns into a person with tanned skin and chocolate hair as I blink.
Tatianna!
I try to scream her name, but nothing comes out, I can’t even open my lips. What the hell have they done to me? Tears fill my dry eyes as I stare helplessly at my sister. She’s lying on a bed like me, her room is exactly the same, and her eyes are closed and her mouth is open on a snore, like she’s just asleep. Her fingers are outstretched and twitching as if she’s reaching for something.
Fear winds through my chest. What’s happening to us? This is nothing like what they prepared us for! I can feel myself panicking. My body is still motionless as tears drip from my eyes, rolling down my cheek and into my hair. I want to scream, I want to yell…
But it’s no use.
Not a minute later, though it could be longer, Shiloh rolls past. She’s on a gurney just like Carmen’s. Shiloh is turned on her side away from me, but I would know her red hair anywhere. I watch her go helplessly. Is that what’s going to happen to me?
Are we not mates to these aliens?
I thought females would be loved and cherished by a race that has been without them for so long.
Instead, all I see are my unconscious Harvest sisters being hauled off to some unknown destination. No voice. No control.
Trepidation seeps into my bones. Where are they taking them? I’ve never been one to want to be alone. Even when the others sought privacy and their own space, I preferred to be around them. Now they are gone, and the clawing, empty silence settles into my bones as the reality of my situation becomes too much to handle.
Focus, Harlow.
I dig deep, gathering all my remaining strength, and throw my unresponsive body forward. But all I manage to do is flop my head around to a