Two … I did a quick, unnecessary count. Graham and Lucas were the only ones missing. I glanced at Jeff. He didn’t seem to be smirking as much as he would have been if he had eaten my boyfriend. I switched my focus to Toni.

“What do you mean?”

She looked at me gravely. For once, there was no levity in her expression. There was no triumph, either. She looked exhausted, like she’d been checking and rechecking her own work for hours, only to come up with the same results every single time.

“The signal changed,” she said. “At approximately five o’clock this morning, local time, it grew faster, with an altered timbre and a higher data rate. I would play it for you, but listening to it directly has proven painful, as it accelerates the rate of change.”

“What are you saying? Are you saying they’re coming faster?”

“No,” said the senator. “Miss Fabris is saying they’re already here.”

3.

I don’t remember deciding to run. I just remember yanking on Mandy’s hand and spinning on my heel to race toward the house, where Graham and Lucas were waiting. Where they had to be waiting.

If the armada was here, everything was about to change. Part of me wanted to rejoice in the knowledge that the invasion was finally about to begin: after thirty years of living on this mudball that never wanted or welcomed me, I was going to have the opportunity to go home, to go someplace where the things that made me a lousy human might make me a wonderful alien. My exile, whatever I had or hadn’t done to earn it, was coming to an end.

The greater part of me wanted to get my friends—the human people, few as they were, I actually cared about—as far away from here as possible, because once the armada truly darkened Earth’s skies, whatever fragile truce had kept them safe thus far was going to be over. Earth had billions of humans. Billions. They were about to become Big Macs for the invasion, endlessly devourable and disposable.

To her credit, Mandy didn’t ask why we were running. She just pulled up alongside me and asked, “What about Toni and David?”

“Toni’s the only one who’s here because she wants to be, not because she was trying to save someone,” I replied. “They can take care of themselves.”

A shadow crossed Mandy’s eyes, but she nodded and kept running. This was about to be a war. No matter what side we were on, sacrifices were going to have to be made.