Page 2 of BrOdByc

Casey screamed even louder, but her younger sister never responded. Cammy was her younger sister by only five minutes. The identical twins were both twenty-eight years old—but Casey definitely embraced those five extra minutes. She was her sister’s keeper.

When the four-handed, freaky, stinky aliens strapped her to a table and gave her a shot… she zoned out for several minutes. They fiddled with her ears and the area behind them, and suddenly she understood what they were saying.

They believed she’d sleep for long enough to complete the exam. So, she kept her eyes closed and her breathing slow and even. She didn’t bother to tell them that their drugs wouldn’t work on her. Not totally.

Nope. Casey’s system was unique. She didn’t know why, but her body never responded to drugs like it should. She couldn’t count the number of times when a doctor said, “It’s not supposed to do this.” Or “I’ve never seen a reaction like this.” Or her favorite, “You will sleep right through this operation.”

No. No, she would not. It was good to know that alien drugs weren’t any different. Maybe that could benefit her at some point.

Yes, she was a little floaty, but she was definitely not asleep. She hoped whatever they did to her wouldn’t hurt. God. The smell, though. It was definitely getting to her. She was really afraid she’d throw up. Then they’d know she was awake.

Once more, she listened to their conversation. At the moment, they were using a wand. Simply waving it over her body. It didn’t hurt. The doctor kept up a running monologue. She was healthy… Blah, Blah…

Yeah—she was healthy. She was a long-distance runner. Her body was a machine. She’d been competing since she was twelve. Casey even medaled in the Olympics when she was younger. Not gold… but still.

The doctor noted there was a small shadow in her lungs. It confused the alien. He didn’t know what it could be.

Casey kept breathing and focused on her heart rate. No jump, no crazy escalation. Everything normal here.

She knew what the shadow was. Cancer. She’d felt it. Felt that little bit of difference in her breathing over the last few months. Felt her stamina… stutter.

She’d fought that enemy once. And won. She didn’t think she could go through that again, so Casey ignored the change in her body.

Her captors were angry now. Arguing. The doctor had discovered her one major flaw, and the others were pissed.

All Casey’s lady bits had been removed when she was fifteen. Once again, she’d been an unusual case. It was rare to develop cervical cancer before your twenties. Most women were much older. But not her. She’d lived through all the treatments and used running as her therapy. It had worked for Casey for fifteen years.

Only now the shadow was back.

But the mother-fucking aliens didn’t care about the shadow. Their only concern and what pissed them off—was that she couldn’t breed. If it were safe to raise her lashes, she’d roll her eyes.

An excited yell yanked Casey away from worrying about dying of cancer and her own mortality. She heard the alien doctor’s exclamation that, “This one is whole!”

This one. They were talking about Cammy. Yes, her sister was whole.

Casey concentrated on the alien conversation. Some words she didn’t understand. Names of places, she figured. But the plan was pretty straightforward. Since she couldn’t have alien babies, they were going to take Casey to a pleasure planet and make a little extra money by selling her to the owner. She didn’t need a detailed diagram to know what that meant.

They planned to sell Cammy as a Breeder. They already had a contract for her, but the buyer would insist she be awake when he took possession of her.

Oh, hell no!

Chapter Two

Casey

On the alien ship, once Casey realized the red freaky aliens had kidnapped her, she changed her strategy.

She remained quiet. Compliant. She did it for several reasons. One—to reserve her energy. Two—hoping to confuse the creepy red aliens. If she was good now, maybe they wouldn’t expect her to pitch a fit later.

The third and biggest reason she was cooperating?

She’d seen enough of the spaceship between the medical room and the locked cell they threw her in—to know escape in this place and time would be a mistake. This spacecraft was a flying garbage dump. It smelled horrific. There was refuse and what looked like scrap pieces of the ship piled up in the halls.

Even if she managed to escape her cell and kill or somehow incapacitate all the red aliens—and there were at least ten of them—she had no idea how to pilot anything. Not in space, not in Earth’s atmosphere, and not in any capacity.

More importantly, she wouldn’t know how to land, or where.

And that wasn’t a skill she wanted to learn while they were rocketing past unknown planets and stars. Casey needed to wait until they landed. With her feet planted firmly on the ground, then she could try again.

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