“This way!” I yelled, pointing left before dragging the others to the right. It was a small, stupid distraction, but if it could buy us even half a second, it would be worth it. The guns were still firing behind us. We didn’t seem to be the primary targets anymore. That honor was reserved for the scout ship, which was closing on our attackers with chilling speed, its tendrils whipping out ahead of it and snatching at their weapons. Our time in the pollen haze had done one thing: it had taught our people human anatomy. A glance back told me the tendrils were targeting hands and heads, those parts of our attackers without which the attack would almost certainly end.

Tahlia cried out as we crested the ridge, but she didn’t fall, and so I kept running, kept dragging her and Jeff in my wake.

There were no people waiting to ambush us on the other side. We slipped and skidded down to a small frontage road, and were starting to run along it when a pair of headlights flared to life. I stumbled to a stop, catching Tahlia before she could fall. Jeff, to his credit, tried to push in front of us, shielding us.

“Well?” demanded Graham’s voice from out of the darkness. “Are you going to get in, or what?”

Chapter 15

Tucson, Arizona: August 7, 2031

Invasion Day

1.

“I can’t fix this.” Toni looked up from Tahlia’s shoulder, a helpless scowl on her face as she spread her empty hands. “There’s no muscle, there’s no tendon, there’s just … Fuck, it looks like broccoli, okay? It looks like someone went and shot a bunch of broccoli. I don’t know whether stitches would help or not.”

“At least the bleeding has stopped,” said Graham.

“If you can call it that,” Toni groused.

Tahlia didn’t say anything. She just kept staring at the wall, the tears in her eyes shining but never quite finding it in themselves to fall.

The bullet wound in her shoulder had wept dark, sticky sap that smelled like a mixture of maple and pine for most of the drive to the no-tell motel where we were now wedged, seven people in one room. Mandy had been the first to provide medical care, washing off the sap while she made soothing noises in a language that was neither English nor Spanish, but a sweet mixture of both, like she was talking to a small child. When she had finished, Toni had taken over, citing the fact that she was the one with experience studying our kind.

Honestly, I think Mandy had been relieved when Tahlia was no longer her problem. She had crossed immediately to where I was sitting with Graham, settling on my other side, so I was flanked by the humans who had loved me enough to come back for me, despite the situation. Despite everything.

“Will it heal?”