unfavorable

Macie acted like the ordeal never happened. Oh, to be a child.

Haylie let everyone enjoy their reunion without having much to say, but as soon as Julian took Macie and Mel to play, she turned eyes of fury on Jess. "Can you believe what those mother fuckers did?"

"Oh, I can believe it." It still wasn't something she could talk about, so she looked around her friend's new living quarters. "How long have you been living on the spaceship?"

"Living? More like confined."

Her room was exactly like Kellum's except Haylie had all the tables, chairs, and the bed out. She even had the closet and bathroom out. Because of it, the space was smaller. Confined.

"They locked our asses in here. Macie was allowed out with supervision, but not my ass. They were afraid of who I'd talk to. Ever since the shit hit the wall, things haven't been so bad. I can come and go. Sara and Hayden are next door now. I heard she's some big wig now."

Jess asked. "Have you seen Sin?"

"Hell no, how about you? Don't you have pull for that kind of shit?"

"Apparently not. I tried to see him this morning. He's still under quarantine."

Haylie shook her head and finally sat down across from Jess. "That's some even more messed up shit."

Just the normal these days. Haylie was unhappy, but not as unhappy as Jess had imagined she'd be. Not after hearing she'd been locked up for nearly three months. "You're taking it better than I thought you'd be? Got all the beating down the doors out of your system by now?"

The other girl lost the bit of fight in her and she shrugged. "I hated seeing Macie sick day after day. When he finally got his ass around to coming and getting us, things were worse than I could handle."

"What happened, Lee? She wasn't great, but she was making it."

"She fell. A cave in from that big storm. Mud slide, hell I don't know. One minute she was standing beside me and the next she was gone." A shudder went through her. "By the time I dug her out, she wasn't breathing. I won't lie. I lost my shit. Losing the last person, I have left..." Haylie shook her head.

Most people would have wanted to be consoled but Jess knew Lee was like her and wouldn't appreciate it. Or at least she used to be like that. These days she always seemed to need comforting.

"That little punk jackass showed up, and he didn't look too fucking good himself, and he breathed life right back into her." She shrugged again. "I guess I figured after that I couldn't rearrange his face anymore. He comes every day for his hour and he's different too. He's not okay."

A lot of that was going around.

Lee smirked. "You're handling all of this better than I imagined you would be too."

She sighed. "Something like that."

"Which part is worse? The dude, the abduction by aliens, or the queen shit?"

"Let's just say the whole fucking year has suck."

Hayley slowly grinned. "Doesn't misery love company?"

Jess lift and eyebrow. "Does it?"

"I'm surprised they haven't moved you into a new crib. You being a Queen and all that."

"They tried to."

Lee looked around. "It's not so bad. I don't have to do a damn thing. Macie loves the projector thing." Her grin grew. "Shouldn't I be calling you your highness or something?"

For the first time, Jess grinned back at her. "Now that you mentioned it, that has a nice ring to it. How about your majesty?"

"Do you realize that they actually came into class and gave us lessons on how to address you and behave in your presence? They have even added you to their history books."

"You're shitting me!"

"Nope." Lee grinned. "Queen Jessalynn the two hundredth and ninety-first queen of Syrian, first queen of the new world, a new ruler, and last Queen of Syrian. Or something like that. That's when I decided I didn't give a shit and stopped listening."

"You and me both." She hadn't even given this Queen shit much thought. At least not till this morning, when nearly a dozen soldiers kneeled in front of her nearly naked ass. She might take none of this seriously, but there was an entire race of people who took it very seriously.

"What do the humans think of all this?" Jess asked.

"About the same way we always have. Some are totally against it. Some don't give a rat's ass and there are some who think all of this is a good thing. They see a better world ahead of them. Then there are the ones like me who are still so shell shock we don't know are heads from our asses. I think we're also the ones who see that our world is gone for good, so we can either get on board with the one being offered to us or we can bury our heads in the sand."

"Yeah, I think that's me. For a long time, it's been all about surviving. I don't think I know how to transition away from that. Less than two hundred days out there, Lee. That's what Dez told me. How could it only be that long? It feels like lifetimes."

"You were in a bad place, Jess. It wasn't fun and games out there, we all know that, but we all know it was the hardest on you. Sometimes just getting you to take one step in front of the other seemed like we were asking too much of you. We pushed you because it was giving you that next step that kept you going."

Hayley's hand moved across the table slowly and came to rest on top of hers. "I never told you this, and I'll probably never bring it up again, but the four of us know what you did for us. What you did for our kind. We know."

When her eyes teared up, she looked away and changed the subject. "Are you going to stay here and drink the punch?"

The other girl let her hand go and looked around the room. "I guess I am. Macie is happy. Safe. Even I can see that Savion is connected to her in a way I can't understand. Anyway, having some pull with the Queen has to be to my advantage. I plan on milking it for all it's worth."

"Can't hurt to try. If I ever pull my head from my ass." Most people would be living it up and all she's done is bemoan her fate.

"I know you. You will."

"I still keep waiting for someone to kick my ass out again." Jess admitted aloud.