My Crazy Hot Interstellar Affair

50. Girlfriend Caught Kissing Another Man Claims "It's Not What You Think"

"Emerson." Andie swallowed hard and backed into a corner, right into a half-dead ficus. Dead leaves drifted to the floor. Fear, acrid as burnt coffee, scorching her throat. Distress signals raced through her brain, demanding she sprint for the door and hurtle back into the hurricane, where it was safer. But terror kept her boots glued to the filthy parquet floor. The air, salty and tinged with rust, was thick and heavy, and pressed against her body, making any move toward defending herself from the angry Amu king impossible.

"Glad you could join us," Emerson purred. Andie narrowed her eyes. The supermodels were all giving her duckface sneers. Emerson leaned casually against an old oak table that wobbled under his weight. Next to him, on the table, was her audit bag. How the hell had he gotten it out of her car (which she had left unlocked for a quick getaway, but still!) and Wormholed inside with six guards before Andie had even closed the door?

Sometimes aliens were a royal pain in the ass.

Maybe all the time.

Especially the royal ones!

"You?" Andie said, lamely.

Emerson grinned and, wait, was he twirling a non-existent mustache? Way to cliché, buddy! "Yes. Me."

"I thought you were the nice one," Andie accused. "But you're like the Emperor Palpatine, controlling your puppet, Darth Vader. Only in your case you're a handsome, mild-mannered alien king without a half-melted face and your puppet is a gorgeous, brain-addled queen who can breathe without a special helmet."

"I find your gullibility amusing," Emerson said. "Hiding behind the guise of ineptitude is the best disguise of all. You are, however, correct. I am the master puppeteer. Controlling my subjects to further my wishes. Only I had to get involved, since they were all truly incompetent."

Why had she not given more thought to Emerson? She was smarter than this. As an auditor, she had been trained to find the rot beneath ostensible truth. Had she not focused on making out with Oliver, rescuing Sterling, and not getting blown up by jellyfish drones, she might have seen this coming.

Emerson was there when Cyra had threatened her at Oliver's house. He was at the Joining and. He was in the Big Guns when they fired on Star. On the Colony beach that day, it seemed like he didn't want Cyra to kill Oliver, but he did little to stop her. And then his biggest worry was that it was time for his wife to acquire a new brain.

Andie gnashed her teeth in frustration. Somehow, she had to get out of here without becoming demolecularized. Molecularized? At least being angry, even if it was mostly at her own stupidity, was better than being petrified with fear.

She tried calling forth her blue energy, but all it did was spark and fizzle from her fingertips. In movies, superpowers always did this. Failed at key moments. Like right before the climax, when the heroine needed them most, forcing her to rely on her wits.

Using one's wits to defeat the enemy was always a lot harder (and many times bloodier, more painful, and less time-efficient) than simply setting them on fire with one's mind, pinning them beneath an eighteen-wheeler, flinging them into the sun, or choking them with the Force.

She had to get the hell out.

Andie swiveled her head and scanned the restaurant, hoping against hope that there might be a bookcase that turned into a secret door. She'd even settle for a well-placed manhole. However, she found neither of these options available in the derelict space, which had all the oxidized, barnacled, soggy appeal of a shipwreck.

But with potential.

She needed a miracle. Something like Scotty beaming her up to the Enterprise. Or a knight on a white steed crashing through the window, scooping her up, and galloping off into the sunset. Neither of these scenarios seemed likely either.