Page 64 of The Alien's Little Sister

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—onlybigger.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 aggravatedkillersounds.

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—atme.

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 Kerry,” I finish, pointing each one out.

Inara’s brother, the biggest one built like the Sears Tower, exhales fire. The only slightly smaller sibling beside him breaks from the line, and begins to stalk towards us.

“Which one of your murderous, cannibalistic brothers is this?” I murmur to Inara.

“Oh, they’re not cannibalistic,” she replies, sounding a little taken aback that I’d have this impression. “We don’t eateach other.We will eat the organs of our enemies, but that generally happens offplanet with lifeforms other than Rakhii.”

I glance at her. “What kinds of lifeforms?”

A huge, big-ass hand clamps down on my shoulder, almost sending me crashing to my knees.“Human,”the beast who has ahold of me rumbles.

I grimace. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

I hear distant shouts, human ones. Familiar ones. My mom, my sisters, and Stacy.

“Arokh?” someone calls. Someone female. “Remember how we talked about Inara being all grown up, and in charge of her own life choices? Don’t rough up her man.”

“I don’t know who’s speaking, but I think you’re great,” I announce.

The hand wrapped around my shoulder clenches—and I crumple.

“Ffffffuck!” I snarl, my knees cracking into the parking lot’s pavement.

Women scream—my family.

But after all the times I made my sisters’ lives a little rough as I worked over their boyfriends, I can admit I’ve got this coming.

Inara snarls something in alien, and to my great relief, her brother lets me go. Inara swoops down in front of me, hands wrapping around my face. “Matthew, are you all right?”

“Just a crushed scapula, I’ll be fine,” I grit out. “Keep my family back.”

She doesn’t spare them a glance. I guess she figures they have the sense not to take on aliens. Inara winces as she searches my face. “Do crushed human scapulas repair themselves?”

---