“They drew a lot of blood and took some skin and tissue samples, but they didn’t do anything I can’t recover from.” I glanced at my increasingly green arm and chuckled bitterly. “My human … Fuck, what do I even call it? Skin? Body? Cocoon? Whatever it is, it’s not going to recover nearly as well. Will you still love me when I’m an orchid?”

“You were always an orchid.” He crossed to sit next to me. “Well. Maybe not an orchid. Those are delicate and sort of hard to take care of. I always thought of you as more of a succulent or something in the climbing ivy family. You’re tougher than you think you are. Of course I still love you. I’ll love you even when you’re so green you can wear yellow lipstick as a neutral.”

“Mom’s going to have a fit.” I leaned over, resting my head against his shoulder.

“Can I be there when that happens? I love watching your mother freak out.”

“Sure.” I closed my eyes, trying to enjoy the closeness of him, rather than focusing on the enticingly spicy scent of his skin, like the best meal I had ever not allowed myself to eat.

I didn’t sleep much that night.

Chapter 11

Tucson, Arizona: July 29, 2031

Nine days pre-invasion

1.

Graham was up and out of the room when I finally opened my eyes, squinting in the light that cascaded through the window. Fresh clothes had been laid out for me on the chair next to the door. They were new, the tags still on, and all my size. I smiled as I pulled the jeans on, buttoning them snugly around my waist. One major advantage of having a cosplayer for a housemate: I think Mandy usually knew when my sizes changed before I did.

Having clean, fresh, real clothes made me feel better than I would have imagined. While I was NASA’s “guest,” they’d kept me in surgical scrubs, like stripping me of my clothing would make it easier to strip me of my individuality and—consequentially—my identity. They could make me the perfect lab subject if they just refused to give me a bra.

If they’d been trying to make sure I would think better of the invaders than I did of the human race, they’d done a bang-up job. At least my fellow aliens treated me with the dignity I would have expected them to extend to a dog.