Page 85 of Her Alien Neighbor

He’s the one I want. I know that for certain now. Any doubts I previously had are gone. I know Aunt Franny won’t love the idea of both of us leaving this patch of land behind, but I think she’d approve of the match. I know she would.

“Everybody ready?” Luka asks, eagerly rubbing his palms together.

There are head nods and sighs and an abundance of nervous energy as we get up and stretch our legs. I’m disappointed to discover that when we step outside, it’s still light out.

“Shouldn’t we…wait? Until later to do this?” I ask, checking the time on my phone. It’s only two-thirty.

Everyone looks at me like I’m off my damn rocker.

“Why would we wait?” Luka asks, his nose scrunched up.

I suppose I don’t have a good enough reason other than capers like this typically take place at night. “We can’t exactly sneak around in broad daylight.”

“We don’t need the cover of darkness to get this done,” Kyan says, placing his hand on my shoulder. He’s been a surprising source of comfort since I met him. He shoots me a wink before getting into the driver’s seat of his car, and the rest of us split into two groups with Kyan following Sam.

There aren’t many cars in the parking lot, and luckily for us, the nail salon is closed today, so that lot is empty as well. We park next to each other, and through the windows, we all exchange a nod that says “good luck” before Sam heads inside the station.

Luka, Zev, and I follow about a minute behind, and duck behind a bush that’s about seven feet from the station entrance, but still close enough that we’ll be able to see Sam’s signal.

I see her flip her long, curly hair over her shoulder as she throws her head back and laughs at whatever one of the cops up front said. It’s clearly a fake laugh, but Sam’s wearing a V-neck cut so low that I’m hoping they’re too distracted by her cleavage to notice.

She leans over the front desk, showing off her ample assets as she hands them her phone. One of them starts choking on his coffee while the other stares at the phone with his mouth hanging open.

The one with his mouth open says something, to which she giggles and puts her hand on his arm. She asks for her phone back, swipes across the screen a few times, then turns to show them again, but before they get a peek at the screen, she fumbles with the phone, and it falls between them on the floor. The moment they both scramble to pick it up, she gives us the signal.

The three of us scurry inside but remain crouched, so they can’t easily see us over the desk. Sam lays her top half on the counter as she points to the phone, still on the floor, and says, in a much higher voice than I’ve ever heard her use, “Oh, then there’s the one of me eating a popsicle while my sorority sister tries to unhook my bra with one hand.”

Genius. She was never in a sorority, but they don’t know that.

At the end of the hall, we turn right, and find a locked door marked “Holding.” Zev steps out in front of us, waving a hand at the cameras we pass, and each one’s little red light immediately turns off. Amazing. My job is to keep watch as the caboose. Zev pulls two bobby pins from his pocket, then closes his eyes as he presses a hand flat against the lock. He opens his eyes with a fresh determination and gets to work twisting the pins together inside the keyhole.

Five seconds is all it takes for him to get the door open, and I suspect there’s some kind of genetically modified dragon magic at play here.

We race down another hallway, and at the end, we find four jail cells, all empty except Axil’s.

“What are you doing here?” he asks when he sees us. Then he notices Luka is here too. Axil’s eyes turn ice cold. “I called you. Several times.”

Luka turns to me. “Vanessa, keep an ear out for anyone coming down that hall.”

“Do not order her around,” Axil growls. “What are you doing here? You just decided you care about your family now?”

Even though I’m on high alert halfway down the hall, I still keep my eyes on Axil and Luka. Luka sighs and shrugs his shoulders. “I am here now, am I not? Also, it will be me who gets you out of this mess. A mess you never needed to be in, for the record.”

“Yes, extremely dumb of you to turn yourself in, brother,” Zev adds, entering that same meditative state as he presses a hand to the lock on the cell door.

“Why?” Luka shouts. “Why would you do this?”

“Guys! Keep it down,” I remind them in a loud whisper.

Axil’s face softens when he looks at me. “It was the easiest way for me to protect Vanessa.” He drops his chin to his chest. “Perhaps it was rash, and I did not think it through, entirely––”

“No, you did not think it through entirely,” Luka says with a sarcastic chuckle.

“Vanessa, I am so sorry,” he says, ignoring Luka. His eyes are pleading. They draw me in, those eyes. My feet start moving before I even realize it, and soon my hands are wrapped around the bars of his cell. “Please, forgive me.”

“I forgive you,” I tell him immediately. “I love you. We are going to get you out of here, okay?”

“Wait,” he says, shaking his head. “You love me?”

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