Page 46 of I Punched an Alien and Now We’re in Couples Therapy

“They’re not that far off,” I muttered.

Osid’s large hand closed around mine, lifted it higher until the screen was level with his face. “You, brother, what clan do you hail from?”

The bound man swallowed thickly, his wide eyes scanned the women around him in terror before he choked out an answer.

“DON’T LET THEM COMMUNICATE!” Marcy roared.

Osid curled his lip. “Of course it’s the damn wanderers who found it first.”

“Hey, hey, stop that. What are those two saying?” asked the green-haired woman.

I pried Osid’s hand off the feather and took it back. “Nothing important. Look, Dory isn’t lying to you. The Sankado aren’t the ones who kidnapped us, it was the Biwban.” To drive the point home, I turned the screen to bring Pebble and Marble into view.

“Hello, human females,” Pebble waved.

A cacophony of cross talk broke out among the women.

“It’s true!”

“They’re huge!”

“Looks like giant penguins!”

“Can they see us?”

“They’re a little scarier than I imagined…”

“Dory was right!”

Dory gave them all a smug look before addressing me again. “You don’t know how glad I am to see a familiar face.”

“Likewise,” I said. “Sounds like you’re having a fun time over there.”

“A blast,” came her sarcastic remark.

“Where are Lok and Sol?”

“Waiting outside with the other Roamcrest. Apparently they’ve been trying to woo the girls here from outside the enclosure to no avail. Lok is filling them in with what happened to us the best he can.”

“Right…” I said, unsure of how to respond to the chaos she was dealing with. The Biwban clearly weren’t lying about the enclosure, which I assumed would have been more reassuring if the women inside weren’t about to draw and quarter a man in the middle of the day. I was hoping to ask her mate Sol if he knew anything about the Biwbanian legal system. If what I overheard before was true, and the research center was really being audited, then having a lawyer on hand might just be my ticket out of here.

“Are you two still in that tower?” Dory asked.

“What? Oh, yeah, we were just about to—”

“Start your next trial!” Pebble cheered. The feather was ripped from my hands, the screen vanished as soon as it appeared, and Pebble stuffed it in my pocket. “You may catch up with your fellow human later. We have a schedule to keep, and we must stick to it.”

Marble pressed a button on the console and the doors opened, and icy-cold wind ducked, swung, and knocked my ass back. “HELL NO, SHUT THAT GODDAMN DOOR!”

Osid caught me as I stumbled. “What? What’s the problem?”

“What’s the problem?” Whirling to face him, I pointed to the wonderland of white bullshit and screamed, “It’s colder than my ex-wife’s heart out there, I’m not going!”

“Your what?” he growled.

“Oh, fuck your petty jealousy and fuck this!” I tried to bolt back inside, but Pebble, that bitch, that Brutus, that Benedict Arnold, used a shield-tipped pole to shove me back. I dug my heels in, which sadly did a whole lotta nothing on the damn metal floors. My hands and feet locked around the shield as I held on for dear life. “Wait! I changed my mind, I’ll fuck him! Don’t put me out in the cold!”

The shield kept pushing until I could feel the cold bite of snowflakes against my ear. “No, I don’t do snow!”