Was she lying? Was she telling the truth? She had been our driver; she had been the one to pick the route we were currently on. Toni acted like she was impulsive and angry at the world, but it was possible she had been playing us all, this entire time.

The man in front of us looked equally conflicted. Narrowing his eyes, he asked, “Any proof of this, or are you just a bunch of alien fuckers trying to get away with something you shouldn’t?”

“My credentials were lost when we fled Tucson,” said Toni, lying with the ease of someone who’d been dodging therapists and concerned parents since childhood.

Under my terror, I envied her that ability. My life would have been very different if it had included the ability to lie about my origins, rather than the compulsion to announce them to everyone I saw.

“Uh-huh,” said the man dubiously, as more riders climbed down from their ATVs. “Maybe none of you fuckers are human. Those three are still pink around the edges. Maybe you didn’t start to change until the ships got here. Lot of room for bodies in the desert. The coyotes will find you before anyone comes out looking, and we’ll have done our civic duty.”

“Fuckers…” said one of the other men speculatively. “You figure aliens are like humans in the downstairs? You think anybody’s done that yet?”

“Shut up, Paul,” snapped the man. “The cam whores knew there were real aliens years before the rest of us. If it can be fucked, it’s been fucked. Besides, you’d catch poison oak or something.”

“So you’re planning to kill us,” said Tahlia calmly.

The man turned to look at her, narrow-eyed. “I thought I made myself clear.”

“No. You threatened, which anyone can do; you could have wanted something from us, something that would have ransomed our lives. But you’re using names. That means you intend to kill us, no matter what we offer, no matter how we protest. You don’t care how many of us are aliens. To be honest, I don’t think you care how many of us are human. You’ve been waiting for this excuse for a long, long time.” Her smile was serene. “I forgive you.”

“What?”

Something was itching at the edges of my mind, scraping at the channels that existed to connect me to the forest. I wasn’t used to them being active when I was awake. It hurt, like ants chewing on the places where my brain met my body. It wasn’t supposed to hurt there.

// soon. //

The sound was barely a whisper, not audible outside my body. I stiffened, every nerve in my body suddenly on fire. The pollen was in the air. I could hear the whispers of my kin, the ones who shared no spoken language with this world.

They were coming.