Text to Kym: Need a drink. Foley’s?

  I didn’t even wait to see if she’d meet me. The moment the day ended, I stopped staring at my monitor in intense focus, as though I were working, clicked out of everything, waited the obligatory five minutes that said I hadn’t been watching the clock, and stood to leave. If I had to drink alone, so be it.

  “Okay, well, stay safe, Quinn.” Harold pulled a checkered scarf around his neck, turned his computer off, and tidied the stuff on his cube desk. He’d never been the kind to linger, not when Missus Harold had dinner waiting for him.

  Usually, I wished someone had dinner waiting for me, but not today. Today, there was a glass of wine that I’d pay someone to have waiting for me. Or at least handed to me shortly after my arrival.

  “Watch the skies.” He pointed at the ceiling. “A couple people have gone missing over the weekend. The reports are starting to trickle in. Cops are dumbfounded. Well, they would be, right? And did you hear about Margie?”

  He widened his eyes, but try as I might, I just could not do this right now. I’d gotten back to my desk this morning with mostly fresh coffee to find my direct boss waiting for me, her eyes and lips tightened in annoyance. That meant I was in trouble, and she’d use an entire passive-aggressive conversation to get that point across. I’d been caught “messing around” by her boss, and then I wasn’t in my cube when she came to find me to urge me to work faster. I was allowed to grab coffee, yes, but there were limits to their patience. I was tap-dancing on that limit.

  Thankfully, it hadn’t taken long to make triple sure I’d found the issue and sent the report on. There’d been no follow-up questions, which meant the work had been satisfactory.

  Which would’ve been a win if I hadn’t noticed my boss meandering through the aisle on a couple occasions, looking in at me to make sure I was doing something. She’d clearly gotten a “talking to” and I’d be micromanaged until her boss forgot about it.

  Have a nice day, indeed.

  “If the lights flash, you run, got it?” Harold said as I shrugged into my jacket. “You run and take cover. Some reports have people being snatched right out of their living room or bedrooms, but don’t you worry about that. Get in the bathtub, like in a tornado. Someone taking a bath said they heard something and didn’t get taken, so…”

  “Tornado, got it.” I slipped the strap of my handbag over my shoulder. “Will do. Good advice.”

  “They’re probably just figuring things out, nothing to worry about. Trying to see if we’re dangerous, that’s all. No biggie.”

  In the space of a workday, things had really escalated with Harold. Tomorrow, I’d find that funny. Today, I needed to get out of here.

  The first kiss of winter stung my cheeks as I walked the three blocks to the pub. This year in Chicago, the season seemed to have leapfrogged, going from a balmy fall straight into the promise of snow. I bundled my jacket against the push of the wind and refused to glance up into the darkening sky.

  What a strange day. Harold was one thing, but Margie… Now that had thrown me for a loop. I’d seen something on that photo…hadn’t I?

  Had I?

  Maybe my eyes had been watering from Darlene’s perfume fumes. Or my mind had overlaid the image she’d described onto the blank canvas?

  There had to be an explanation. There had to be. I was not a circus-going type.

  My phone buzzed as I entered the pub. It could wait.

  The bar was half lined with faces I recognized. This was my habitual haunt for happy hour, and the regulars didn’t change much. Fewer people occupied the tables, people I didn’t know.

  I chose a seat at the bar, one down from a kind man who didn’t say much. Not that I’d ever noticed, anyway. The pub was warm, so I shrugged out of my jacket before finding a hook under the bar for my handbag.

  “Shoot,” I mumbled under my breath, forgetting that my phone was in my jacket pocket.

  I twisted in the seat to grab it and haul it out, turning back to find a reasonably handsome man in his late twenties waiting on the other side of the bar. He had short sandy-blond hair, warm brown eyes, and, suddenly, all of my focus.

  “Hi,” I said on a release of breath. He must’ve been new, because I hadn’t seen him before.

  He grinned flirtatiously. His gaze flicked down to my chest and quickly back up. “Had a day?”

  I smiled. He’d clearly noticed the coffee stain, just as brown and obvious as when it had landed. I hadn’t wanted to spend time in the bathroom to scrub it out. I’d figured, if I tried, I’d then return to my desk to find the CFO waiting for me, my blouse modeled after a contestant in a wet T-shirt contest.

  “Yes. I have definitely had a day. Can I please have a—”

  He held up a hand. “Let me guess.” He studied me for a moment, squinting a little. “A cosmo, because a chocolate espresso might be too on the nose.”

  I sighed with a chuckle, leaning a little more toward him. “That would be great, thanks.”

  He winked at me and moved away to get me a drink I didn’t really want.

  I checked my phone, seeing a text from Kym.

  “Boo!”

  I jumped and, thankfully, wasn’t holding coffee this time.

  Kym grinned mischievously as she pulled out the chair next to me. “Well, hello there.”

  She was my age—thirty and fabulous—with very curly hair she hated and thus straightened a couple times a day. This lady was the ultimate wild card. You never knew what she’d get up to next. Whatever it was, you were sure to have a great time. There was only one rule—always make sure someone escaped the cops so they could bail the others out.

  Her gaze dipped to my shirt. “Why has the whole day gone by without me hearing the story of you spilling coffee on your tit? When are you ever too busy to share an embarrassing story about yourself?”

  I ran my fingers through my hair, a repeated gesture throughout the day that had turned the controlled wave from that morning into a frizzy mess. It added to the glamour of the coffee stain.

  “I didn’t want to get caught using my phone.” I paused as my drink arrived.

  Kym’s eyes flicked to it distractedly and then stuck. Her brow pinched in confusion—she knew I usually went for a glass of wine to relax after work—before she noticed the bartender. A wicked smile curved her lips. She straightened slowly, giving the bartender her full attention.

  “Here you go,” he said to me with that flirty grin before turning his focus to Kym. “Hey.”

  “Hi. You must be new here,” she said brightly, her tone mischievous.

  He leaned a little more heavily on the bar. “I am, yeah. Just shy of a week.” He glanced my way and back. “Real nice clientele. I think I’m going to like it here.” His smile grew. “What can I get ya? Cosmo to match…”

  He fell silent with a pregnant pause, lifting his eyebrows at me.

  Kym put her hand in front of me on the edge of the bar. “This is Quinn.”

  “Hey, Quinn.” He grinned, his eyes twinkling.

  “And I am Kym. We rhyme. Of course I’d like a cosmo, yes. We’re two ladies at the bar—cosmos are basically a rite of passage for us. After the show Sex and the City, it’s expected, right? We’ll then talk about boys and dresses and our empty, consumer-driven lives.” She gave him a big smile he probably didn’t know was sarcastic.

  His grin slipped before increasing in wattage again. He was clearly confused but sensing a joke and playing along. He didn’t realize he was the joke, and so was I.

  “Get her a cosmo,” I said, kicking her.

  She flinched, and then said sweetly, “Yes, please.” She slowly turned her head in my direction and lifted an eyebrow at me. Her volume reduced to a whisper. “He’s marginally attractive in a douchey, thinks-he’s-much-hotter-than-he-actually-is sort of way, hmm?”

  I devolved into giggles, sagging. “Going with the suggestion seemed easier than asking for what I wanted. Cosmos are fine. It’ll sweeten my personality.”

  “Doubtful.” She smiled at me, back to genuine. “You always do like the golden retriever types.”

  “They’re nice and personable and I know what I’m getting.”

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  “They’re only nice and personable to get in your panties, which would usually be a red flag, but you’re always way smarter than any of them—”

  “That’s not true.”

  “—and much, much meaner, so it doesn’t matter. You can control the situation.”

  “I’m not mean!” I toggled my hand. “Fine, I’m a little mean. You try growing up with three brothers who have more muscle than sense and see how you turn out.”

  “Yes, that is my point. You try so hard to fool people with the pretty, girly-girl mask, and you then scare the hell out of them when you reveal the rough-and-tumble, mean, true-grit personality beneath.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I don’t try to fool people. I like hair and makeup and clothes and looking nice, so what? And I also had to be a fighter to survive my youth, which happens to linger in my personality. Both of those things can be true at the same time.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” she asked, aghast. “I also like those things, and the first time I met your family, Charlie put me in a headlock and dragged me around the backyard by my head to introduce me to everyone.”

  I grimaced. We’d been ten and I hadn’t batted an eye at it because that was just kinda how things worked. “There really is no controlling him.”

  “There’s no controlling any of you. It was like the Thunderdome in that house. If I started a bar brawl right now—”

  “Please don’t do that today.”

  “—then I can count on you to steer us out of here without a scratch.”

  It was my turn to be aghast. “I absolutely get scratches! Remember in Arizona when you convinced those two guys to pretend the pool sticks were swords and duel?”

  She started chuckling.

  “And remember how they accidentally whacked the grumpy guy at the next table?” I pushed.

  Chuckling turned to laughing.

  “And then the grumpy guy’s friends jumped in and the whole place became pandemonium?”

  She bent over the bar now, heaving in laughter.

  I nodded as the bartender returned with her drink. “Yeah. I got scratched that time.”

  “Just your knuckles, though,” she wheezed.

  I gave her an incredulous look. “And my cheek! Grumpy Guy’s beefy girlfriend socked me a good one before I even saw her coming.”

  “Not sure how you missed her. She was six-one and built like a linebacker!” Kym wiped her eyes, still laughing.

  “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because I was fending off a little dude who thought you stole his winnings?”

  She clunked her head on her forearms and leaned on the bar, guffawing now. People turned to look, some with crooked smiles.

  “I totally did,” she got out, “and then slipped it into his friend’s back pocket when he wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Yes, I know that. I was trying to explain that when Grumpy Guy’s girlfriend clocked me.”

  Kym straightened and wiped her eyes. “You did not! You attested to my innocence and blamed it on his friend. You kept badgering him to go grab his friend’s ass if he wanted to find the money.”

  “Well…” I shrugged, looking away with a grin. “It was only ten bucks. He seemed way too worked up for ten bucks. He needed a little razzing.”

  Kym used her thumb to wipe her eye before turning to me, blinking in that way that didn’t need words.

  I checked her smudged mascara and indicated on myself where she needed to wipe. She did so promptly.

  “Who’d you punch?” the bartender asked. We hadn’t gotten his name. A few more stories like this, and he wouldn’t want us to.

  “Huh?” I asked, giving my brain a chance to catch up. Then I wished it hadn’t. “Oh…uhm.”

  “Yeah, Quinn.” Kym rested her elbow on the bar with her chin on her fist. “Who did you punch? I forget.”

  No, she didn’t, the jerk.

  I looked away again with a sigh.

  “Or maybe we should ask,” Kym continued, “who didn’t you punch?”

  I grimaced. A few of the guys lining the bar were now watching us, a couple smirking at my expression.

  When I still didn’t answer, Kym answered for me, ticking off a finger with each person. “First, she punched the linebacker girlfriend—”

  “That sounded like it was deserved,” a guy down the bar said. He had mussed brown hair and red cheeks. I saw him every time I stopped in for happy hour, but we’d never spoken.

  “It was,” I affirmed. “She sucker-punched me. I’d been trying to calm things down. Mostly.”

  Kym toggled her head from side to side. “Mostly. You did call Grumpy Guy a few choice names.”

  “He was being unreasonable.”

  “No argument there. He was spoiling for a fight. As was his linebacker girlfriend…who you then dropped with one punch.”

  “She couldn’t hit for shit.”

  “Or take a hit for shit, yeah.” Kym nodded, starting to chuckle again. She ticked off another finger. “The little dude.”

  “He reached for me. I wasn’t sure what he was trying to grab, but I wasn’t about to find out the hard way. I reacted. Not my fault.”

  Our audience at the bar nodded in agreement. I was happy they were on my side…for now.

  She ticked off another finger. “Grumpy Guy…”

  “You hit Grumpy Guy?” the bartender asked, his eyes wide and a little cagey. Guys always went running when they learned this side of me. It was why I rarely showed it.

  No guy had ever made it through a family dinner. Most of them snuck out the back, either because of my brothers or how I handled my brothers. It had gotten to the point that no matter how many invites were extended, boyfriends were not allowed to meet the family.

  “He called me the C-word.”

  Everyone started nodding again.

  “He was also taunting her. His bloody nose was so gratifying.” Kym ticked off another finger, then two more. She looked at me. “Three randoms, right?”

  I took a sip of my drink, crinkling my nose at the sweetness.

  She nodded at my silence. “Three randoms, I think. So, six. Six people. Some got multiple punches as you yelled, ‘Stay down if you know what’s good for ya!’, but only six people total.”

  “It was a brawl by that point,” I half pleaded. “What was I supposed to do, not participate?”

  “She’s right, it was.” Kym laughed. “Fists were flying, a table was upended—you should’ve seen her reflexes when she ducked out of the way of a flying chair. Seriously.” She put her hand to the side of her mouth and sang, “Boner alert! My girl is hot when she gets riled up.”

  I rolled my eyes at her.

  She launched into the story, starting with the sword fight and ending with my dragging her out of the madness. We’d wrestled, kicked, and shoved our way into the alleyway behind the bar before running as red and blue lights flickered behind us.

  By the time she was done, everyone was hanging on her every word.

  “And guess who was following right behind us?” she asked, nodding at everyone with a smug smile. “Grumpy Guy and his linebacker girlfriend. Quinn found a way out of trouble, and they were suddenly all ears.”

  The guys at the bar chuckled. The bartender looked at us warily.

  I put up a hand. “Kym knows better than to rile people up in her backyard, don’t worry. We’re very calm and respectful patrons.”

  Kym clasped her hands together on the bar, slightly bowing her head. “Very.”

  “We never cause trouble here.”

  “Never,” Kym said contritely.

  I paused, reading the bartender. “No, but seriously. We don’t.”

  ***

  “Well, we didn’t get kicked out. We have that going for us.” I checked my phone as we paused beside the front door of the pub. It was just after nine. “I wasn’t so sure after you told that bar brawl story. Probably not the best way to introduce ourselves to the new bartender.”

  The buttery-yellow glow of streetlights illuminated the swept sidewalks. The bite of winter’s chill wrestled with my jacket’s warmth, and my breath puffed white as we ambled toward the corner. Once there, I’d have to go right and she’d go left, heading home.

  “Probably not, but he’d never last anyway. For starters, you’re an eight and he’s a four.”

  “Ah, now, he was better than that! But thanks for the compliment, pal.”

  She laughed. “Birds of a feather. If I’m hot, which I am, of course—”

  “Of course.”

  “—then you have to be. Math.”

  We laughed as I slipped my phone into my pocket. “Probably wouldn’t have, you’re right. Then drinks would be super awkward at happy hour.”

  “Super awkward, since we definitely wouldn’t stop coming around.”

  “Nope.”

  “We’d end up having to plot to get him fired and it would be a whole thing.”

  “Too much hassle.”

  “Way too much.” She smiled at me when we reached the corner. With a shiver, she slipped her hands into her pockets. “You need to date my kinda guys.”

  “What, dark and mysterious?”

  “Yep. A guy like that keeps you guessing.”

  “Guessing about what, how many red flags he’s trying to hide?”

  “Exactly.” She laughed. “Right, well…” She pulled her hand out of her pocket and pointed upward. “Remember, watch those skies!”

  I laughed, crossing the street. Over my shoulder I called, “If you see twinkling lights that look suspiciously like stars, run for cover.”

  Her laughter drifted behind me.

  After we’d entertained the bar and freaked out the bartender, I’d told her about my day. She was like me, fascinated by Harold’s obsession, going so far as watching a few shows about the subject. In the end, though, we both remained firmly in the skeptics’ camp. This was no different.

  We looked up the sightings and the possible abductions and found what I usually expected—a lot of testimonials and sightings and no evidence. Not even a blurry picture in the night sky. Some of the more suspect instances could’ve very easily been our own government. Or someone else’s. That was equally terrifying but more realistic.

  As far as Margie’s phone? No idea. Probably a trick of the eye.

  The L was on time and thankfully only partially filled, everyone mostly quiet. A few people huddled into their light coats, not prepared for the sudden turn of weather. At my stop, I muttered a thank you to someone for letting me go first through the turnstile and hit the sidewalk with a glance at the clear night sky. Stars twinkled in plenty, one brighter than the rest.

  I brought out my phone, the other hand clutching my jacket at my throat. I pulled up the compass app—I was absolute crap at direction, including lefts and rights—and found north. The star aligned perfectly. That explained that.

  The rumbling didn’t register until I was nearly at my apartment complex. The cement trembled slightly under my feet and a flickering caught my attention. I glanced up on instinct.

  My stomach flipped before dropping away entirely. The North Star was no longer the brightest twinkling object in the night sky. A moment of déjà vu overcame me. I could basically take the picture I’d seen earlier on Margie’s phone.

  Lights glowed from an oblong vessel, rounded at the corners. The surface didn’t quite have the texture of metal but was close, smooth and shiny and built to slice through the air. It hovered low, about the height of two tall trees stacked end to end and a football field away.

  Running lights glowed more than twinkled, but as I watched, one in particular seemed to recognize me looking at it. How I knew that, I could not say. It was a feeling more than logic, gut reaction more than a deduction. The light burned brighter, flashing blues and purples and pinks and sparkling like a disco ball.

  I stilled, mesmerized. The ground quivered and the air felt disturbed, like waves of electric energy washing over me, but actual sound around me nearly deadened. Only the rumbling grew louder as the vessel began to drift closer, like a boat floating toward a dock.

  I’d never understood why deer froze in headlights, just like whatever was in that craft probably had no idea why humans froze when staring at sparkly lights.

  They might have no idea, but they clearly used it to their benefit.

  This is a way to get probed, idiot! my consciousness bleated.

  I pivoted and ran. I didn’t care if that thing was built by a government, a billionaire, or an alien—it was up to no good and I wanted no part of it.

  My legs churned. My arms pumped. I’d stayed in shape all these years because I’d be damned if my brothers started beating me at the annual Wiffle Ball tournament or when we played mud football or soccer with a half-deflated ball. The sport didn’t matter. I hated losing, and even more, the taunting and gloating that followed, so I stayed in shape to give me an edge as we got older. That hadn’t been easy. Right now, I was thankful for it.

  Go, go, go! I pushed myself, trying for more speed. Willing my body to go faster.

  The strap of my handbag fell from over my shoulder and the bag plunked on the ground behind me. There was no cash in it, anyway. I could turn off my credit cards and get a new wallet. Some lucky walker was welcome to my stray hair tie and half bar of vegan chocolate. I’d meant to throw it out anyway.

  The rumbling intensified. The night lit up around me, white light cascading down. My building waited just up ahead.

  I high-jumped over the hedge. My knee clipped the top of the bush, but it gave way, not slowing me down.

  A strange woo-woo-woo sound reverberated in my ears. The ground shook, and I reached for the door handle, my fingers outstretched.

  I wasn't going to make it.