Page 10 of Their Human to Entice

“Maybe don’t snoop,” Deja laughs as she grabs a few more sketches from around the building and tucks them underneath a stack of plain paper. She stares at me for a minute, her hands on her hips like she’s deciding what to do with me. Then her arms are wrapping around me again, causing more tears to spill from my eyes when she speaks again. “We have so much to catch up on.”

5

Nia

“Do you want to go first, or should I?” Deja asks as she pulls her legs underneath her.

“My story is pretty boring.” I shake my head as the words tumble out.

In all actuality, I was only away from Deja for a little over a month, but it’s easily been the worst month of my life. I’m unsure how much I want to get into it with her. How much I want her to know I struggled and cried to myself at night because I had no friends to talk to, no one to comfort me. It’s heavy, and I like handling the heavy stuff on my own. I always have, much to my friends’ and therapist’s disappointment.

“Oh, boring.” Deja rolls her eyes, but I can tell she’s holding back on how snarky she wants to be.

If Simone were here, she’d be laying into me about not telling them everything and downplaying it all. She’d demand answers, but Deja isn’t that blatant. She’s what helps to dull some of Simone’s edge, but she’s also not going to pry like Simone would.

“Sure, I’m sure being hand delivered here by one of the Hands means everything’s been going according to plan on Earth.”

“No, it’s not.” I chew on my lip, trying to decide where to start. “Vex, the doctor, kind of lost his shit when Simone was sent here. I know we always speculated on who it was, and well, I’m sure you picked it up when he came through the portal asking for her.”

“He didn’t seem that upset about her being called someone else’s mate.”

“He’s probably trashing his labs right now,” I tell her.

I still remember the day after I had my biopsy done when I walked into his office to ask him what I needed to do to still come to this planet. He was a glowing mass of white in the shape of a human body or close to it. His desk was turned over, papers and glass strewn about, and his computers ripped from their chords with broken screens.

I don’t know if he saw me that day since I tried to retreat without notice. He never brought it up if he did see me, and I wasn’t about to ask about it. Later in the day, when he called me down, his office was a little more bare, but it had been cleaned up like nothing had happened at all. His human disguise was back firmly placed over what I knew he really looked like.

“I think he actually likes her,” I say, getting myself out of my thoughts and back to what Deja and I are talking about. “He might not have thrown a fit earlier, but I can almost guarantee he was fuming. I mean, you saw the glow, right? It’s his mask or disguise or whatever slipping.”

“I thought it was just a trick of the light.”

“No, they’re like weird glowing creatures. Built like us, or maybe they just look humanoid in shape. I don’t know, but it looked like he was made of light rather than anything real.”

“Weird.” She rubs at her temples and lets the word hang in the air between us.

Deja fiddles with her fingers, probably trying to figure out how to segue this into talking about what happened to me. I’m sure she’s curious why I was auctioned off in a couple of minutes with a disclaimer that I probably can’t give these aliens any kids.

“I had a funky mole,” I say quickly to get the words out there. “It was melanoma.”

“Nia,” I can hear the pity in Deja’s voice, and it turns my stomach.

“No, sorry, no, it wasn’t that serious,” I try to stop her from spiraling even more into feeling bad for me. “I mean, it was, but the Hands have way better medical stuff than we do, so I was scared for like a day about it.”

No, the mole scare was the least of my worries. What really messed me up was the malfunctioning healing pod, but that’s not something I want to talk to her about. I try not to talk about it at all since it already haunts my nightmares. I don’t need it seeping into my everyday life.

“I spent the last six weeks counting down the days until I could be back here with you and with Simone. I just want things to go back to the way they were. The only thing that’s different is my mole. It’s a little scar now. It had to be removed. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

My fingers twitch at the reminder of how many times I had to repeat the words over and over to myself. The feel of the needle under my skin. The malfunction of the healing pod. I try to push the memories down before they surface. I try to forget the feeling of my blood boiling and my insides being ripped apart.

My jaw aches from clenching it, and my palms sting from the bite of my nails as I fist my hands too tightly. This isn’t a flashback. If it were, I wouldn’t be able to feel any of this. I wouldn’t see the way Deja’s shoulders fall and then straighten like she’s forcing herself not to ask me any more questions.

I count my breaths. Four seconds in, hold for four seconds, out for four seconds. I’m okay. Everything is fine. I’m not there anymore.

“Well, if you don’t want to talk about you,” Deja gives me a curious smile that reminds me of when we’d gossip about what the women in the other units were doing. It eases some of the panic in my chest. “What’s happening in Unit A? Why was the doctor asking about sending more women?”

“He’s up for a promotion.” I let out a huff of breath through my nose and shake my head. Of course, it doesn’t answer Deja’s question even a little bit, but it’s what Vex first told me when he told me he had a plan that had a ten percent chance of working. “They’re even more powerful than they seem on Earth. I don’t know exactly what they are or all of their powers. I do know Vex makes it sound like they play an important role in the universe as a whole. He’s asking to be given the position on this planet.”

The whole time I’m talking, I can see Deja’s confusion growing. Vex had to tell me the plan about three times before I grasped the basics of it, and that was the part about coming here and auctioning me off. His whole side of it? I’m still not sure if I understand it well enough to do it justice.

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