Page 27 of Scorching the Alien Empire
It’s like waking from a dream when I realize with a jolt of surprise I’m standing before Sandra’s room. I smile, noticing the tartan scarf hanging beside her door, setting it apart from the endless rows of identical others.
My smile deepens, hearing muffled sniffles from inside, flooding me with delight that I’ve chosen correctly.
“Hello, gorgeous!” I announce, stepping into the room with a flair worthy of a Vegas stage.
“Le... Lexie?” Sandra’s voice is barely audible. At least I think it’s her—all I can make out is a mound of furs shifting in the dim purple light.
“We seriously need to get those wrist devices they use. It’s so dark here,” I say, weaving around piles of clothes as I stumble toward her oversized wooden bed. “How are you holding up under there?”
“I’m fine. I think,” Sandra sniffles, propping herself up on her elbows. “I can’t stand that Jazreal guy. He’s such a—such a...”
“Rude prick?” I suggest, collapsing onto the soft mound of furs on the bed beside her. The plush fabric draws a relaxing groan from me.
“Arsehole, more like!” she snaps, her voice thick with wet anger.
Her accent, paired with the unusual sudden fury, has me bursting into laughter.
“What?” Sandra asks, her voice quivering with barely restrained giggles. “It’s not funny, Lexie!”
“Come on. It is a little funny,” I reply, nudging her fur-covered leg playfully. “So much for setting you up with Jazz-hole,” I sigh, my brilliant matchmaking plan now as dead as my father’s love.
“Yuck! I’d rather hook up with Todd than that arrogant twat,” she spits, like she’s just swallowed more of Dracoth’s rotten sock-chair monster.
“Obviously. Toddisthe most handsome... thing in the universe,” I respond automatically, because the idea he’s anything else is just blatant jealousy-fueled propaganda. “Where is the little scamp?” I ask, scanning the pile of furs eagerly for any sign of him.
“Down here,” Sandra says, reaching beneath her blankets. “He wasn’t so bad once he settled down.”
My face lights up as she produces my wiggling cyloillar. Todd’s little spindly legs flail in a blur of motion, his little clackers clacking, and his big, gleaming black eye glistens almost as if they’re tears of joy at seeing me again.
“Apart from all the times he kept pooping on my clothes,” Sandra claims with an overly dramatic sigh, trying to dampen our reunion.
“You would never do such a thing, would you, my little chug bug?” I coo, stroking his segmented back.
Todd lazily blinks in agreement. But as I reach to pick him up, he squirms backward, as if he wants to stay with Sandra.
I inhale sharply with outrage. “You little traitor! Get over here.”
But the blob of black-red rubber wriggles fiercely, breaking free and earning a synchronized shriek from both Sandra and me.
“Todd! You come back here this instant!” I demand, repeating something I vaguely recall my mother saying when I was a kid.
The treacherous bug doesn’t listen. Instead, he scuttles across the floor in a blur of spindly legs, slipping and sliding over the smooth black marble as he makes a frantic dash for freedom.
I leap after him, stomping around like Lexie-the-sexy-green-giant, nearly tripping over the clutter strewn about the room.
Todd scrambles atop an oversized ornate desk—if that desk had a love-child with a tree truck.
“I have you now,” I say, looming over him and cutting off his escape.
He burrows under a pile of Sandra’s stinky gnomish furs, wriggling desperately as if he can outmaneuver me—his bug-mom.
Carefully, I lower my hands, preparing to snatch the little traitor. Then, with the speed of a striking snake, I lash out.
“Got you!” I declare triumphantly, clutching Todd to my chest, where he belongs. “You’re not getting away again—it’s for your own good.”
“Look. He’s got something in his wee mouth-things,” Sandra says, frowning as she gestures at Todd’s tiny, twitching limbs.
“Oh?” I say, excitement bubbling as I peel away a garish red-furred shirt wrapped around Todd. I half expect nothing but the usual—a too-cute bug. Instead, his little mandibles are tearing into a... jelly stick.
