“What makes you think there'll be trouble?” I asked, humoring him. A part of me didn't want him to leave my side.

He didn't look at me when he said, “Maybe I spotted a few aliens when I hiked through the forest.”

“So,” I said with a laugh.

“So,” he said with a scowl.

I snorted and waved a hand in dismissal. “Are you an Outer hater or something?”

Ryan's eyes narrowed, but he didn't answer.

“You paranoid, then?” I'd been thinking about leaving only a few minutes ago. Now I wanted to stay. Maybe it was the rebel in me. Maybe it was the fact that I was talking to one of the hottest boys I'd ever seen—a boy who, with only a few words, had made me feel more alive than I had in a long, long time, even though he couldn't wait to get rid of me. “Think the Outers are out to get us and steal our planet? Well, guess what? You should have paid better attention in class. Even I know the War of the Species is over. Has been for like sixty years. Everyone's friendly now.”

To end the war that had almost destroyed our planet, the Outers and humans had signed a peace treaty, which gave aliens permission to stay here and A.I.R. the right to police and destroy as needed. I'd had to memorize the stupid thing, not that I could recall a single word now.

A muscle ticked under Ryan's eye. “You know for a fact that they're friendly?”

“When was the last reported violent crime, hmm?”

“So the media reports everything now? That's a newsflash to me.” He laughed, but the sound lacked humor. “Ignorant, that's what you are. You have no idea what you're messing with, little girl.”

Ignorant? Little girl? My eyes narrowed, just like his had done earlier. I closed some of the distance between us. He smelled like firelight and pine. “Every girl here is my age or younger. What'd you come here for? To get you a piece of ass from one of these little girls, right? So what does that make you?”

His jaw hardened, making it a determined square. “That's not—”

A strange, eerie howl suddenly cut through the night. The sound was raspy, animalistic. Close. Startled, I glanced left and right, halfway expecting a wolf to be nearby. Not that there were many left in the world.

Just my luck, though, the last one still kicking would be nearby, hungry for a big, delicious platter of human girl.

Ryan cursed under his breath. He withdrew a weird-looking gun from his side, and I gasped. I backed away, palms up, the wolf forgotten. “What are you doing? Put that away before someone gets hurt.”

Another howl rent the air, followed by another and yet another. Obviously, there wasn't just one wolf. There were…God knows how many. I shuddered.

“I told you to leave,” Ryan said. Frowning, he twisted a dial on the side of the gun. “But no, you had to stay. That decision's going to cost you.”

The howls blended with multiple growls, all of them low and menacing.

I lost my focus on Ryan's weapon, forgot about his threat. “What is that?” I whispered, trying to see past the trees to something, anything, that could be making such a terrible sound.

“That's death,” Ryan said bleakly. “And it's too late to avoid it now.”

2

Within the blink of an eye, a horde of animal-like creatures burst through the far coppice of trees, green leaves trembling against their onslaught. The creatures were flesh colored with not a single strand of hair on their wrinkled skin. They crawled on all fours. No, not true, I realized. They bounded, jumping from ground to tree stump, stump to ground.

I gaped at the sight of them, repulsed and frightened, but unable to look away. Morbid fascination held me in its tight grasp. Kids screamed and ran around the fire and through the thicket, panicked, trying to get away. My heart began an erratic drumbeat in my chest, a rushed da da da. I'd seen some weird-looking Outers over the years, but I'd never seen anything like these.

My eyes widened as one of the creatures jumped on top of an unconscious boy, meshing its mouth over the boy's and—

“Oh my God,” I gasped out.

White-gold pinpricks of light flashed through the air between them, and the boy's body shook, as if something was being pulled from deep within him. He was unconscious, but still he struggled, still he flailed.

“I don't think so,” I heard Ryan say. He aimed his strange gun and fired once, twice. Pretty blue beams lit up the night. I could feel their heat, even from where I stood.

More human screams blared, but the light from the gun didn't touch any of them. No, the beams slammed into the monsters, freezing them in place.

Those who escaped the blasts chased and jumped on top of the panicked humans, knocking them to the ground, attempting to…kiss them? They lowered their mouths, opening wide, fusing alien and human together.

“Wh—what are those?” I gasped out.

“Sybilins,” Ryan spat, firing again. Another stream of blue flashed. This one hit a monster dead center in the back and it, too, froze. But there were so many of them, and their numbers only seemed to grow with every second that passed.

Sybilins? I'd never heard the word before. I'd never dealt with anything like this before, and I wasn't sure what to do. But I didn't even consider running. My friends were here, some of them helpless, flying. Like Jamie, still at my feet. I could not abandon them simply to save myself.

Several of the creatures—God, how many of them were out here?—growled and howled with rage, focusing their attention on Ryan. And me. Their eyes glowed red, bright red, perhaps the exact shade of radioactive blood.

“Run,” Ryan commanded without looking my way. “Go to you car. I'll hold them off.” He fired his gun with one hand and withdrew a knife from a hidden sheath at his waist with the other.

The sheer menace of him was as startling as the Outers' appearance. “Like hell,” I said. I bent down and grabbed two rocks. Straightening, I bounced the heavy weights in my hands, preparing to throw them, to fight.

“Leave!” Ryan barked. “This isn't a game.”

“Really?” I said dryly. I couldn't help it. I faced the aliens, adding, “You mean I don't get a prize if I'm still alive in the morning?”

Ryan cast me a dark glare and I could tell he wanted to shake me. Or kill me himself. But he turned back to the creatures, feet planted on the ground as he fired several more rounds. “Things are about to get ugly.”

“I kind of had a suspicion,” I replied, gripping the rocks more tightly. The fear hadn't left me, and only seemed to grow.

“You can still run.”




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