‘I’m going to kill you,’ I whisper. My anger and frustration with being tied up and powerless is getting the best of me. ‘When I find you, I am going to kill you.’

‘I have no doubt you’ll try.’ The agent laughs.

I try to clear my head, to concentrate on where I am. Too quickly, everything begins to spin until I pass out.

The room is tiny and made of cement. There’s a toilet and cement block with a mattress tied down on it and a blanket that’s too short to cover me. I’ve been awake for two hours, maybe more. I’m having a difficult time putting thoughts together. I’m trying to establish some kind of timeline from when I found myself alone in the desert, to the gate, to waking up to my interrogation ride of horror. I need to figure out where I’ve been, how much time has passed and what information I let slip.

Unscrambling my brain isn’t easy. Since the mo ment I regained consciousness in this cell, the overhead lights have strobed relentlessly. I feel a sharp, pounding pain in my head. My mouth is dry and I hold my churning stomach as I try to focus on the most important part of my recall, my conversation with the agent.

I manage to turn invisible, just to see if I can, but as soon as I do I’m attacked with that extreme nausea I felt on the ride, so I materialize immediately. Either the drugs are still in my system or this is being caused by something else.

I close my eyes for a few minutes to escape the flashing lights. They’re so bright, it’s impossible to block them out entirely. I remember Agent Purdy said he was in contact with the Mogadorians. Why would the U.S. government be talking to the Mogadorians? And why would he admit that to me? Don’t they know the Mogs are the enemy? What I can’t figure out is, how much does the government know about me, about my kind? As soon as the Mogadorians wipe out the Garde, the next thing they’ll do is kill every last human on Earth. Doesn’t the government know that? I’m guessing the Mogs have presented a very different picture of themselves.

I hear a man’s voice come from somewhere above me. It’s not Purdy, the agent who spoke to me in the container. I open my eyes to look for a vent or speaker, but I can’t see anything with the strobe light flashing relentlessly.