Page 19 of Her Alien Mercenaries
Since she was already soakingwet, Jenna decided she might as well take a quick shower. She hadn’t gotten all the sand off her feet before putting her shoes back on as they hurried to leave the beach, and her lower legs itched from the salt water. She wasn’t cleaning up so she could look her best for the males downstairs. Not at all. This was entirely a practical decision.
“And when you wake up tomorrow, you’ll have wings and a tail,” she muttered to herself. Actually, wings would be nice. Then she’d at least be able to fly with her mates and not be a burden they had to carry around from place to place.
She hated the idea of being a problem someone had to deal with. She’d grown up hearing that, as if it was somehow her fault that her parents were dead. That’s why she’d taken that first job offer, though at the time it had been couched as something else. Juveniles weren’t supposed to work until they turned seventeen. It was one of the few laws the corporations obeyed for the most part.
That first assignment had been an “opportunity.” The Andersons had recently been transferred to the city and had discovered that very few children were a match in age among the other executives living there. That’s when they’d approached the care center and made an offer. They wanted a companion for their daughter and agreed to take over the feeding, care, and education of that companion for a set period.
At the time, she’d been thrilled to be selected. She was too young to understand that she wasn’t a new addition to the family, and so was Rani, their daughter. They declared themselves sisters and did everything together, despite the fact Jenna was two years her senior.
Three years later, the Andersons announced they’d been transferred to a new station. The family packed up their belongings. Jenna had helped Rani pack, and then the girl she thought of as family had helped her do the same. As far as they knew, Jenna was coming with them. She was part of the family, after all.
Only it turned out she wasn’t.
Rani had burst through the door into her room, interrupting Jenna’s evening meal. The first words out of her mouth sent Jenna’s world crashing down around her.
“You’re not coming with us.”
They only had a few minutes to say goodbye to each other before someone from the care center arrived to collect her. They’d spent those bitter moments crying, hugging, and making countless promises they’d never be able to keep. To visit. To write. To send vid messages every day.
She never got to talk to the Anderson adults. She had no chance to ask them why they weren’t taking her. Hadn’t she been good enough? Smart enough? Had she eaten too much food or not helped Rani enough with her schoolwork?
“Enough.” Jenna slapped at the water controls with enough force to sting her hand. She wasn’t that girl anymore, and this wasn’t Earth. What point was there in delving into memories of her time there? Especially those memories.
The answer was obvious. She was afraid the past was about to repeat itself. Torren and Zanyr were gorgeous, well-respected pillars of this community. She was a newcomer with no standing and a job she hadn’t even started yet. No wonder Tani had looked at her that way. She was an interloper, waltzing in to take things she had no right to.
“Stop it.” She gave herself a mental shake and followed it up with a light slap to the back of her hand. She had to think of something else—something bright and happy so the voices of doubt would shut up and leave her alone. If she didn’t, they’d drag her down into a dark place and leave her there to twist herself into knots.
She activated the drying cycle and let the hot air work its magic. It was another luxury she’d never expected to enjoy, something meant for the special few who deserved the best of everything.
Why them? She’d asked that question so often, but she’d never finished the thought. Today, she did. Why them but not me?
No answer came to her, not even the negative voices responding. She spoke aloud this time, the words weighted as they rolled off her tongue. “Why not me?” Then she answered her own question, throwing out all the harsh things she’d told herself over the years. “Because I’m not good enough. I’m not pretty enough. I’m not anything special.”
Jenna sucked in a deep breath. “But I don’t believe that. I won’t.” Another breath. “I can’t. I deserve to be happy, dammit.”
Even as she made her breakthrough statement, she hoped to the stars above that neither male could hear her right now. One day, maybe, she’d tell them about her self-doubts. Right after she figured out how to tell them she was a spy.
Veth! The moment of truth and introspection ended so quickly she felt a little unsteady, but she hurried out of the bathroom before the dry cycle had finished. She needed to send a message to her Vardarian contact.
“Because I didn’t have enough to deal with already today,” she muttered.
It took several attempts to craft a message she was happy with. In the end, she stuck to the basics and deleted everything else.
Have met two Vardarian males, Torren Vex and Zanyr Sallesh. Am experiencing sharhal symptoms. Please advise.
She sent it to Shadow via a heavily encoded device she’d been given. She kept it hidden in her bedroom closet, tucked into the pocket of an old sweater she’d brought with her from Earth.
She wouldn’t contact the other group until she heard back from Shadow. She had another encoded comm forthem. She’d returned to her habi-pod one day after classes and found a parcel by her door. Inside was the comm and instructions on how and when to use it as well as where to hide it the rest of the time. She thought it must have been the other spy in their class—Reni. But that left the question of where she had gotten the comm from.
Jenna had wanted to ask about that, but it wasn’t her job to ask questions. All she had to do was go about her life, report any contact from the enemy, and forward whatever false information Shadow provided her.
Almost all her contact was via the encrypted comm. In-person meetings were rare and potentially risky, but in this case, she figured it would be necessary. They needed to brainstorm the best way to handle this unexpected twist in a way that benefited the colony and kept up the appearance of compliance with the enemy’s directives.
She thought of them as the enemy because she didn’t have any other name. The ones who recruited her had claimed to be a group of “concerned individuals.” The Vardarians suspected they were part of something called the Shadow Men.
Once the message was sent and her comm hidden in the back of the closet once more, Jenna hurried to get dressed. She’d left her guests too long already.
Apparently, she’d left them on their own long enough for them to get hungry. That much was obvious the moment she opened her bedroom door and was assailed by the scent of cooking, but she wasn’t sure just what she smelled. It was like several meals all jumbled together.
