Page 14 of Victoria's Discovery

Meeting his eyes, she shrugged and smiled optimistically. “Scary at first, but they seem really nice now.”

His face relaxed and he nodded, seeming relieved by that. Her smile widened and that warm feeling came back… until a grumble and a bump from below jostled her.

Chapter 7

Wincing when Thorn bounced his shoulders impatiently, Victoria patted his head in apology with one hand and waved bye to Vi-kael with the other then focused on examining what was around them.

The ceiling was at least forty feet above and, oddly, it looked perfectly smooth, without any visible seams or hatches in the dull metal.

“Where the hell did the knockout hose come from?” she muttered.

Frowning, she twisted to scan the rest of the space. Her jaw dropped at how many cells there were. Theirs was near one of the walls, but behind her was row after row stretching off into the gloom.

“Holy shit, that’s a lot.”

There wasn’t anything she could see that would help them escape, and a scan of the cage itself didn’t give her hope, either. Instead of individual walls joined together, it looked like it was constructed of one solid piece of glass or plastic or whatever alien kidnappers used to make their pens.

Unless the giants could break through with brute force, it was beginning to seem like they really were locked in.

“Hey!”

Jerking in surprise for the second time, Victoria whipped around to look behind her and found a woman peeking through the hole in her ceiling, balanced on the shoulders of one of the other women locked in with her.

Victoria didn’t answer right away, too busy staring at her. She was pretty, like ridiculously pretty—long, wavy, light blonde hair a couple shades darker than the giants’, big, greyish blue eyes, perfect nose, full, rosebud lips.

Thatwas the type of person Victoria expected to be abducted.

The woman looked like she rarely smiled and definitely had an intensity about her, but even her resting bitch face was hot.

“You okay in there?”

“Hmm?” Victoria blinked then offered a half appreciative, half self-deprecating smile. “I’m okay. I panicked a bit, but they’re actually pretty nice. Are you okay? Do you know what’s going on? All I remember is walking my roommate’s dog, a bright light, then waking up here.”

“Basically, the same. I was on… assignment. Bright light. Woke up here. Fairly positive we’ve been abducted by aliens.”

Victoria felt her jaw drop a little. It wasn’t that she was surprised by the woman’s assessment because she’d already come to that conclusion. It was that she said it so calmly, as though the concept of aliens and abduction was about as exciting as scrolling the news feed.

“Uh, yes? I mean, I think so, too.”

“I’m Spar. You?”

“Spar? As in fight?”

“Yep.”

She even had a cool name.

“I’m Victoria.”

“That’s Madison holding me up and Veronika over in the corner. They’ve got the same story.”

“Do you have any idea what they want with us?”

Spar gave her a sardonic look. “Yeah, I’ve got an idea.”

Victoria waited, but when she didn’t explain, prompted, “What is it?”

“My guess is we’re to be sold as slaves. Maybe pets or lab rats.”

---