Page 84 of Her Alien Neighbor

He shakes his head as he stares at the floor. “I was working on something.”

Mylo turns to me. “Don’t mind the cryptic response, Vanessa. Kyan does not like talking about his very important job,” he says.”

“What are we supposed to do now?” Zev asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You are supposed to shut the fuck up and do exactly as I say,” a loud voice booms as a man I don’t recognize storms into the house.

“Luka!” Mylo shouts, leaping off the couch with his arms outstretched.

“No time for that,” Luka says upon Mylo’s approach. He looks around the room, and his gaze lands on me. “You are the mate?”

“Vanessa,” I say, pointing to myself. “Nice to meet you.”

He surprises me with a genuine, warm smile. “It is an honor.” Then he claps his hands together as he takes a seat on the couch. “Let us free Axil, shall we?”

It takes three hours, four pizzas with pepperoni and banana peppers, and fifteen cans of orange-flavored sparkling water for us to come up with a solid plan.

“I shall go over it again,” Luka says, taking the time to look each of us in the eye before continuing. “We take two cars. Kyan and, um, sorry, what is your name again?”

“Sam,” she says, excitedly. I was worried when I called her that she’d refuse to get involved, but it turns out, Sam is quite passionate about justice for aliens. That, or she wanted an excuse to see Mylo again. Who knows?

“Sam, right. Kyan and Sam will drive. We park across the street from the station at the nail salon,” Luka continues, going through the steps he jotted down in his phone. “Then Sam will go in and flirt with the officers at the front. There should be two. She will distract them with nude selfies.”

Everyone in the circle nods in agreement.

“So you know which photo you are going to use, then?” Mylo asks Sam, his brow arched.

“Hmm, I think so,” she replies casually. “There’s so many to choose from, but I’ve got it narrowed down to three.” She tilts her head to the side. “Maybe I’ll just show all three.”

Mylo nods, trying to keep it cool, as his eye twitches.

“When the officers are looking at that, she will give us the signal to sneak in behind her.” He takes a loud sip of sparkling water, then points to Mylo. “Mylo, what is that signal?”

“She will scratch the back of her head, and give us a thumbs up,” Mylo says for the second time.

“Very good,” Luka claps. “Then Zev, Vanessa, and I will sneak in and locate Axil’s cell, which should not be hard, since it is a small station. Zev will pick the lock…”

“Wait, how do you know it’s a lock you can pick?” I ask. “What if it opens with a code or something?”

“Then I shall enter the code,” Zev replies as if it should be obvious. Kyan, Luka, and Mylo are all giving me the same “duh!” look.

“Okay, but how will you know the code?”

“Do not worry your pretty human head about that,” Luka says with a chuckle. “Zev does stuff like this all the time.”

I’m not at all comforted by that, but I also know they won’t let Axil rot in a jail cell, either so I guess I’ll have to trust Zev knows what he’s doing.

“Now,” Luka says, clearing his throat, “if we run into trouble, aka another officer, specifically, Officer Dipshit, I will do what I do.”

This plan is still so vague. I feel like I’m missing several important parts to it. But whenever I question something, one of the brothers shuts me down with a “don’t worry, we’ve got this” type of response. I would take it as a sexist dismissal and bite their heads off accordingly, but I also wonder if it’s because I’m human. Maybe they have more tricks up their sleeves.

While I appreciate their confidence, these are aliens trying to navigate the jumbled dysfunction of the human criminal justice system. I’m worried they’re in over their heads.

“What happens when we get him out?” Sam asks. “Are you all just gonna come back here and see how long it takes for the cops to figure out what happened?”

“By the time we get him out, this will no longer be an area of concern,” Luka replies. “But if, for whatever reason, we get him out before we can safeguard our futures, everyone will come to my house where we will lie low for about a week while we get things in order.” He sighs, heavily. “Then we shall choose our next location and head there.”

Wow. So I guess we would need to leave it all behind. I hate that as soon as I decide to stay in Sudbury, something happens that forces me to leave. But as long as Axil is free, I can adapt.

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