Chapter 5 Mine

D arla slipped cautiously through her bedroom window and out onto the porch roof. Down below, she could hear her father and brother complaining about the lack of anything decent to watch. Never mind that they now had access to thousands of channels. They weren't satisfied with any of them, just as they weren't satisfied with anything else in their lives. The smell of smoke drifted up from the open windows below, her father's tobacco and her brother's weed, both of them illegal now but as familiar a part of her life as the stained couch with the broken spring.

She made her way carefully across the metal porch roof, avoiding the most rusted spots, until she reached the trellis leaning drunkenly against one side. It creaked ominously as she started to climb down-as decrepit as the rest of the house-but it held, and there was no reaction from within the house. She landed on the dirt with a soft thud, barely audible over the pounding of her heart, and darted over to the trees lining the driveway. Calling it a driveway was somewhat of an exaggeration-the rutted dirt track was almost indistinguishable from the surrounding woods, but Daddy and Darrell liked it that way. The last thing they wanted was anyone turning up unexpectedly on their land. She peeked back over her shoulder. With the darkness disguising the worst of the deterioration, the old house looked like the sturdy farmhouse it had once been, but any trace of sentiment had been knocked out of her a long time ago. She prayed desperately she would never see it again. Keeping close to the trees, she picked her way as quickly as possible down the driveway until she reached the road. The road was also unpaved but at least the county came by and scraped it once a year. Moving faster now, she continued to hug the edge of the road, her ears straining for the sound of pursuit, even though she knew it was unlikely that either of them would realize she'd gone. Before she'd escaped to her bedroom, she'd made their dinner, washed the dishes, and filled the cooler they liked to keep in the living room because they're too damn lazy to walk into the kitchen. She didn't expect them to move again until they were drunk enough to stumble off to bed, but that didn't stop the nerves making her pulse race and her hands tremble. She hurried down the road until it finally intersected with an honest-to-goodness paved road. A clump of bushes marked the intersection, and she peered under the branches. She didn't see anything at first, but then she caught the faint gleam of metal in the moonlight and found the old bicycle waiting for her. Thank you, Faye. The older woman was a fellow waitress at the diner in town who had befriended Darla. It hadn't taken Faye long to realize how tight a rein her father and brother kept on her-one of them always drove her to work and picked her up afterwards. Daddy hadn't liked the idea of her working after she graduated, but he liked the cash she brought home. It wasn't much, but it was enough to cover their modest grocery bill. "Why don't they ever let you out on your own?" Faye asked her one day when they were wrapping the silverware in paper napkins. Darla kept her voice low so Bob, the owner of the diner, wouldn't hear her. Bob was one of her father's buddies-another reason they had allowed her to work there. "Who else is going to cook for them? Or wash the clothes? Or keep the house clean?" Not that she thought they really cared that much about cleanliness, although Lord help her if Daddy walked into the kitchen and saw a heap of unwashed dishes in the sink. Faye dropped her voice even lower. "Can't you get away from them?" "How? I don't have a car, and you know Bob hands my check over directly to them." They also insisted that she handed over any tips she made as soon as she climbed into the truck when they picked her up. She'd thought about escaping so many times, but it seemed impossible-she'd never been any further than her hometown. "You could come stay with me," Faye volunteered. "Since Steve left, I'm all alone. It's not much of a house, but at least you'd be away from them." Unexpected tears rose to her eyes. "I really appreciate the offer, but you know they'd just come and drag me home again. It's not like anyone around here is going to stand up to them." Even though her father and brother were starting to run a little to fat, they were both big men. What's more, they had an entirely deserved reputation for meanness. Everyone in their small town was a little afraid of them-including any boy who had ever thought about asking her out. One threat from Darrell and they would back off. They hadn't been quite so bad when she was in middle school, but then the aliens had come and they'd been convinced they were going to snatch her up, along with all the other human females. That was when they had started insisting on driving her to and from high school-when they could be bothered to take her. It was a miracle she managed to graduate with so many absences on her record. Although she'd read everything she could and done her best to study on her own, she suspected it was more due to the kindness of Mr. Thompson, the principal, than her actual achievements. "I have a shotgun I'm not afraid to use," Faye said. "I bet a little lead in their balls would make them back off." Darla couldn't help laughing, and Bob gave her a suspicious glare. "Quit cackling and get that silverware done." "Yeah, yeah," Faye said, waving her hand at him, while Darla immediately focused on the silver. She wished she could be as casual as the older woman, but she didn't want Bob complaining about her to her father. They rolled in silence for a few more minutes, then Faye gave her a thoughtful look. "How would you feel about having a kid?" "I'd never bring a baby into that house," she said fiercely. "What if you didn't have to?" She thought about it for a moment. Someone to love who loved her back. Someone she could take care of because she wanted to-not because someone was making her. She envisioned holding her baby in her arms, and her heart ached. "Yeah, I think I'd like that, but you know Daddy doesn't even let me date." In some ways, that was a good thing. Darrell had tried to set her up with some of his equally disgusting friends, but thank goodness Daddy had put his foot down and refused to allow it. Faye looked over her shoulder, checking to make sure that Bob was still occupied in the kitchen. "Have you thought about going for one of those breeding contracts?" she asked, and Darla's mouth dropped open. "A breeding contract? With one of the aliens?" Even after five years, it was still hard to believe that aliens had conquered Earth. She still remembered seeing the strange but kind face of the first Yehrin ambassador on television. But she also remembered seeing the terrifying face of the war leader who'd taken over after an explosion destroyed the first delegation. She'd seen pictures of their armies marching through the cities, humanity's defeat so sudden and decisive that there had been surprisingly little damage or loss of life. Any signs of rebellion were firmly and completely squashed. Since then, the aliens had continued to appear on television. Although they frequently announced new rules and regulations, they also announced the improvements they were making-everything from a cross-country bullet train to astonishing medical advances. Of course, Daddy and Darrell didn't believe any of the positive news. They blamed the Yehrin for everything that had ever gone wrong in their lives, even long before the aliens arrived. They held secret meetings with some of the other men who lived in the hills to plan a glorious rebellion, but as far as she could tell, their plans were little more than a bunch of wild talk and a whole lot of drinking moonshine. They grew even more outraged when the Yehrin announced that they were opening breeding centers to allow human females the opportunity to mate with their warriors. Darla had heard them muttering about aliens stealing their women ever since, and they'd become convinced an alien was going to take her. It didn't matter that no alien had ever bothered to appear in Patchem County. "My cousin Susie did it," Faye said. "She said it wasn't bad at all. She only had to stay with him for thirty days, or until she got pregnant. They can tell right away, you know." "But aren't they looking for wives?" Faye shrugged. "Yeah, but it doesn't always happen. And if you get pregnant, they take care of you and the baby. The best part is that even if you don't get pregnant, you still get paid-enough to start a whole new life. Susie moved to New York." "But you have to have sex. With an alien." Faye smirked. "Susie didn't have a problem with that part of it. She said she never had it so good. Some of the things she told me..." She fanned her face with her hand. "She said those men are hung." "They're not men," she said automatically, her mind whirling. Could she ever do anything like that? "Maybe not, but they still have male parts-just bigger ones." Faye studied her face, then patted her hand. "It was just a suggestion, but I thought maybe it was an option." Now that Faye had mentioned a breeding contract, Darla couldn't stop thinking about it, the idea haunting her. She didn't hate the Yehrin like her father and brother did-in fact, she thought they'd done a lot of good things-but they were huge and scary and intimidating. She couldn't imagine having sex with one of them. When she told Faye, the other woman just nodded and promised to help her come up with another way to escape. Darla had started giving Faye a small portion of her tips every day before she left. Not enough to make her father suspicious, but even the few dollars she could manage were slowly adding up. She hadn't had any specific plans for the money, but then a week ago the need for escape suddenly became urgent.