She glares at both Giselle and me, then reaches down to grab her purse. “Maybe you don’t agree with all my ideas, I get it, but that doesn’t mean you have to make fun of—”
“Jesus Christ, this isn’t about you!” I tug my shirt off over my head and extend my arms.
Giselle gasps and Ana immediately drops her purse and runs over to me. She runs her finger along the patch where my skin is peeling, exposing even more of the shimmery gold scales.
“What on earth?” Giselle whispers, slowly inching our direction. “Juliet, what the hell is going on?”
“You know that guy with the weird name I’ve been texting you about? Shak? Yeah, he’s an alien.”
Ana grabs my hand, which is thankfully still all the way human, and drags me over to the couch to sit beside her.
“Tell. Us. Everything.”
So I do. Everything from Robbie disappearing to his fellow gang members showing up in my apartment and Shak taking them out like they were nothing. And then briefly going over that night’s events and those of this morning.
“And then just a few hours later you woke up like…this?” Giselle asks.
I nodded.
“What’s Shak say about it?” Ana asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t know. He just got all excited that I was pregnant and said the baby was turning me into a hospitable incubator or some shit. But really, he didn’t know because this is never happened before.” Even saying it out loud has me choking up.
“Oh my God.” Ana sits back on the couch, eyes wide. “Do you know what this means?”
“Uh, I’m pregnant with an alien baby?”
She waves a hand. “Not just that, silly. Remember what you said you saw in his mind when the two of you were, you know…bow chica woaw woaw.” She rolls her hips in imitation, as if I couldn’t get it from her description alone.
“Thanks for the visual,” I deadpan. “Now get on with whatever the hell it is you’re trying to say.”
“Isn’t it obvious? Their sun went out. Their planet died. They’re here for a new one. And like, integrating with the local population is part of the plan. They send their handsomest aliens out to seduce and impregnate the locals, all part of a sneaky world domination plan.”
I roll my eyes. “If they were here to take over the world, why don’t they just take it over? Why mix with us at all? From the way Shak tells it, they’re pretty snobby about shit, like they have a caste system and everything.”
“What if he just genuinely likes her?” Giselle asks. She turns to look at me. “You said he did put the condom on.”
“Yeah, which he knew would break in like five seconds because of his super dick and super sperm,” Ana says.
“Jesus, Ana.” I turn away from her.
Talking it all out with them has only confused me even more. That connection during sex, was that something that Shak could fake? I felt like I was inhabiting his body, looking back on his memories like they were my own. I felt his devotion to me and it wasn’t just based on what he could get out of me or how he could use me.
I stand up and walk over to the window that looks out on Giselle’s small backyard. The sun is setting. Is Shak still back at the motel? Or did he wander back to the flower shop? Where does he sleep at night? There’s so much I still don’t know about him.
A loud knock at the door startles all of us.
Is it Shak? I should have known that telling him not to follow me would do no good.
“Should I—?” Giselle starts but I shake my head.
“I got it.” I walk to the door and take a deep breath before answering. Talking with the girls has made me feel stronger. It’s time to face Shak and work through this mess—
I open the door. But it’s not Shak on the other side.
It’s a naked seven foot man, body covered in dark purple scales. A raised, ridged brow juts out over his eyebrows and his nose is just a small bump on his face, like someone took a clay form of a human nose and sanded it down until there was only a suggestion left.
He’s Draci.
I try to shut the door but he slams it open easily with his hand.
“You,” he hisses, first looking towards Giselle but then frowning before his gaze locks on me. “You are coming with me.”
“You can’t have her,” Ana screams, running towards the dragon man with a baseball bat.
He snatches the bat out of her hands easily and tosses it away. Ana stumbles back and I scream for her to stay there. “Don’t. They can breathe fire. I’ve seen it!”
Everyone in the room stills.
And then, before another word can be spoken, great wings unfurl from the dragon man’s back, he wraps his arms around my waist, and then he takes off, up, up into the sky, me screaming the entire way.