Total pages in book: 19
Estimated words: 16945 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 85(@200wpm)___ 68(@250wpm)___ 56(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 16945 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 85(@200wpm)___ 68(@250wpm)___ 56(@300wpm)
My eyes are finally no longer tearing up, and I can get a better look at her. “What monster?”
“The one everyone evacuated to escape? Don’t tell me you were unaware? This station is deserted, buddy. They left me behind because I’m a poodle, and I guess they left you to be eaten because of the light allergy. Bad news for you, though.” Her voice drops to a dramatic whisper. “If we run across the monster, I’m going to trip you so he eats you first.”
I snort at her bold statement. A monster. They’ve fled the monster. I thought that the scientists were regrouping in a safer part of the station to try to figure out how to contain me. I’d grown tired of their poking and prodding and broke my restraints when they’d tried to give me yet another one of their “experimental” treatments that left my insides burning and painful and made me hurt for days on end.
They’d tried to suppress me with shock-sticks and, when I wouldn’t return to my cage, turned up the electrical current. It didn’t work, though. They buzzed me with annoyance but didn’t slow me down. The enhanced healing that they altered me with took care of that. They tried gassing me next, but I can hold my breath for an hour, thanks to their modifications, so that didn’t work, either.
After that, they’d fled, and I went to find some blood to drink. They’d mentioned something about iron deficiencies when discussing me under their breath, and I’d grown hungry every time someone leaned in close and I could smell the blood pulsing under their skin.
Once they’d abandoned me, I helped myself to the lab’s stockpile of blood bags.
They’ve left the station entirely? That’s new. Cowardly and unsurprising, but new.
And they’ve also left this fragile, clever creature behind. “You’re sure they left?”
“Positive. I’m not normally alone for this long. I checked the escape pods, and they’re all gone. We’ve been left with whatever it is that’s terrorizing this place. I’m surprised you haven’t run into him.”
I take a step forward in the darkness, then another toward her. Blood pulses under her skin, and I can smell the faint notes of it. I put my hand over the light panel, and she quickly moves to the side, her pulse skittering and the blood scent growing stronger.
With my claws, I rip the light panel out of the wall so she can’t use it.
“Bad news,” I growl, echoing her words.
“Oh?” Her voice is a little uncertain, and she shivers even as she tilts her head back as if to look at me.
I lean in close, mouth watering again at her delicious scent. “Little one, I am the monster they fled.”
Chapter Four
Dana
Ipress myself harder against the wall.
He’s . . . the monster? He’s the reason everyone fled the station? Panic flares in my chest, and I tamp down the urge to run. Be cool, I remind myself. If you’re having a normal conversation, he’s not as monster-y as you think. He’s just saying that to freak you out. “You’re messing with me, right?”
“I do not understand.” His words are measured, calm. I can’t see his face in the darkness. All I can hear are his movements . . . and I can feel the heat coming off his body. He sounds like he’s breathing heavy, but he’s also an alien. How do I know how heavy or how light he breathes normally? But the fact that his deep voice is even is a good sign, I think. “What is this ‘messing’?”
“You’re teasing me,” I clarify, wishing I could turn the lights on. He just clawed the panel out of the wall, though, so that’s a vote against him being cool and calm. I shiver, chills prickling on my skin. “You’re not the real reason they left, are you?”
“I broke out,” the stranger says simply. “Their poisons and their shock-sticks could not hold me. So they left to save themselves because I said I would kill them if I caught them and drink their blood.”
He says it all so casually, as if two dozen well-armed aliens and a handful of scientists abandon ship every day. I glance up, because I can’t see him in the darkness, but I can feel him looming. He’s taller than me, and the nearness of him is starting to unnerve me.
“So that is why I am here,” he continues in that too-calm voice. “Why are you here?”
“Because I’m a poodle.”
“A pooh-dull?” He echoes the word, mangling it. “I still do not understand.”
It suddenly occurs to me that being seen as a poodle is going to work for my benefit. “I’m a pet,” I explain. “Aliens—the big blue guys—stole me from my home planet a few years ago. The guy that owns me makes me sleep in a cage and treats me like I have no functioning brain cells.”