"Are you hungry?"I asked, praying he didn't take the chance to say something dirty.
Surprisingly, he didn't.
"I could eat."
Plopping my butt in the chair, I dug through my bag.
"I've got mixed nuts, some pretzels and beef jerky."The hardware store had been low on actual food and now I regretted not looking for more snacks before I knocked him out.My stomach was trying to eat itself, but I couldn't just starve my prisoner.His giant ass would eat all my food by tonight if I wasn't careful.
Drago was still staring at me when I looked up and he shrugged when raised an eyebrow.
"Anything will do."
Helpful."Well, I want the nuts, so you get a bag of jerky and some pretzels."I tossed the food at him, and he caught the bags easily even with his hands tied.Opening a bottle of water, I grimaced as I chugged half the warm liquid and threw the rest his way.
As far as food went, I rated this apocalypse one out of five stars.I'd been hungry and thirsty since day one, and the brutal Texas heat wasn't helping.Wherever Penny and Hope were, I hope they had actual meals.Just thinking about my missing friends made my stomach twist and I forced myself to stay positive.
Optimism didn't come naturally to me.That was more of a Penny thing.Aside from her breakdown when Hope went missing, I'd never seen my friend freak out before.Watching her lose it had scared me, and ever since I'd found myself faking her sense of calm.As if pretending to be okay with everything wouldmakeit okay.
I popped a cashew in my mouth and grimaced when I realized they were spicy.Just what I needed, more heat when the sun was trying to rotisserie me.Sighing, I slumped back in my chair and forced myself to finish the whole can of nuts.Spicy and salty as they were, I needed calories if I was going to pull this rescue off.
"Are you guys nocturnal?"I asked, trying to build a mental picture of what I was up against.There were way too many aliens down there for me to face them head-on, which left me stealth.If Dargo's people got extra perky after dark, I'd really need a good plan.
"We rose with the sun on Oska, but we've been in space for many years, I don't know what schedule the camp is operating on."
"Why were you in space?"Why aren't you still in space was a better question.
Dargo shrugged, and carefully opened his bag of pretzels, sniffing them like he thought I might be trying to poison him.Maybe he had a gluten allergy and I was, who knew?
"We were slaves, we didn't have a choice."
That got my attention.
"You're a slave?"Despite the fact that I had him tied to my truck, I couldn't picture grinning, dirty-talking Dargo as a slave.
He crossed his legs and eyed me in amusement.
"Iwasa slave, I'm free now."
Except for the fact that I'd knocked him out and threatened to electrocute him.Now I felt kind of bad about that.Then I remembered he was hunting me and his friend had stolen Penny, and my guilt evaporated.
"If you were a slave, what are you doing on Earth?"
"We escaped our syto masters and shot their cruiser out of the sky while they invaded your planet.All the turochs in the camp were in the cruiser when it crashed here."
"Syto?"
"I believe you called them squid heads."He sounded entertained."All the turochs on your planet are escaped slaves, it wasn't our choice to be here, but anywhere was better than where we were."
So the dead alien I'd taken the translator from had been one of his masters.This whole time I'd just seen any alien as an invader.To find out that Dargo was a victim, too, was messing with my head.
"I understand escaping from slavery, but why did your friend steal Penny?And why were you hunting me?"
"I told you, it isn't safe on your planet anymore.The sytos are still capturing humans to sell as breeding slaves, and when our cruiser fell, turochs weren't the only things that escaped."
Realization dawned as I remembered watching Dargo kill the giant alien monster.It said a lot that I'd forgotten that thing existed.
"The creature you killed-"
