My Crazy Hot Interstellar Affair

23. Bigfoot's Girlfriend Reveals: "He's Big. And not Just His Feet!"

"Therling," Andie moaned. She couldn't form an "s" sound. She wanted to call out to her friend, but Andie's tongue throbbed, her jaw ached, and in the left hemisphere of her cerebrum, brainwaves sparked and fizzled between broken synapses. The spot at her temple where the microchip had resided, prickled with what felt like electricity.

If Andie had spent the night tossing back a bottle of rubbing alcohol and extracting her own wisdom teeth with rusty pliers, she'd have felt a thousand times better than she did now.

Bad Andie had wisely retreated into wherever she hung out when a. She wasn't annoying Andie or b. There was no sex on the horizon. Andie moaned.

"Shh," whispered a voice. Something cold pressed against Andie's jaw. "On the interweb, we learned that a bag of frozen peas helps reduce swelling in humans. We do not understand why peas have this ability. Perhaps, Andie, later you can explain."

Rosalie. The voice belonged to Rosalie.

Where was Andie?

She cracked open her eyes and discovered she was lying down on a bed in a dark room. Rosalie knelt beside the bed in a yellow and turquoise neon blouse. It glowed in the dim light. It was strange seeing her in anything other than her usual Zut silver top. Was she dressing up for Ernest? Rosalie stroked the hair along Andie's forehead as if calming a child.

A low thrum vibrated beneath Andie's body through some soft padding. Although she was fairly certain she would never eat solid foods again, the smell of yeasty fresh-baked bread, thick Italian roast coffee, and bubbling oozes of chocolate made her stomach groan in staunch disagreement with this assessment.

"Where am I," Andie rasped.

"You are in our quarters, Andie. In the sub-dungeon of the Star Enquirer. On an Amu healing pad. We are saving you like superstars."

"Thupertarth?"

"Yes, the Spiderman. The Superman. The Incredible Hulks."

"Thuperheroth, you mean."

"As you like, Andie."

"Where are Therling and my mom? How did I get here?"

"Calm, please, Andie, so the healing pad will work. Your mother is fine. Cash drove her and her Pilot home in the long black automobile. They are safe, Andie."

"Tha ... a relief," said Andie. "Cath can drive a limo? I mean ith it even thafe with his anger-management problem?" Why did so damn many words have s's?

"It is simpler than flying a spaceship, only perhaps the vehicle operators are more tranquil on the Los Angeles freeways than on the Intergalactic Expressway. The moment they completed it, it was obsolete. Cash behaved well, Andie. At least by Los Angeles' driving standards."

"Good," Andie said. If she had her strength, she would have asked more about the Intergalactic Expressway and Amu healing pads, but right now, the most important thing was figuring out how to regain blissful unconsciousness.

But instead of achieving this goal, bit by bit, against her will, she ascended sluggishly from the depths, like swimming through warm Jell-O. Lime-flavored, which everyone knows is the worst one.

And as she gained awareness, she realized something was wrong.

Terribly wrong.

A horrible realization burbled through the muck of her brain when it finally occurred what it was—Rosalie hadn't mentioned Sterling. A fresh pang of fear sliced through Andie's heart as she remembered the debacle at the banquet. The look on her friend's face when the evil ones exposed Sterling's plastic surgery to the world. Talia's cackling laugh as she disappeared from the limo with Sterling in a cloud of silver smoke.