Alien Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

she couldn’t control any longer.
    Melissa draped an arm across her shoulders, her presence a surprising comfort. Anji had never had female friends; between her aunt’s off putting personality, and Anji’s love of engines, she’d had very little in common with the girls in her neighborhood.
    The transport jerked again, and merged into the traffic shooting along the throughway that ringed the city center. Now they looked like any other commuter, headed home after a long day. Hopefully, it was enough to keep the authorities from singling them out.
    “Everyone okay back there?” Nathan glanced over his shoulder.
    “Alive,” Melissa said. “Now keep your eyes on the road, Nate. We’re not out of it, yet.”
    “Stop looking so guilty, Mel. You’re all just commuters, headed back to your parked transports after a long day.”
    The sirens went silent the second they hit the throughway, making the authority vehicles harder to detect. Whoever was in charge of tracking them down was not stupid—unmarked transports, blending into traffic. They could be right on top of Anji’s transport—or Kiele’s—before Nathan knew they were there.
    But he was making it just as hard. He’d swung into the commuter lane right away, and now wore a hat that Anji recognized—it marked him as a commute driver, shuttling workers to their designated parking spot. It may just fool the authorities long enough for them to—
    “Hold on.” Nathan warned them a second before he turned left—across five lanes of oncoming traffic.
    “Shit—” Melissa grabbed the back of the bench seat with one hand and Anji with the other. “Try not to kill us, Nathan!”
    “Not on the schedule.” He swerved around honking transports—so close Anji could have reached out and shook hands with the drivers—then slipped between two transports and shot off the throughway onto one of the branching exits that led into the residential parts of the city.
    Anji scanned the road. “Where’s the other transport?”
    “Rick’s going around the other way. He knows where to meet us. Now look like tired cubicle workers.”
    Nathan settled back, driving like he was bored, and not on the run. Since she needed to do something, Anji untied her hair and braided it, her fingers plaiting the length without even thinking about it. When she started to tie off the end, she caught Melissa’s admiring gaze.
    “I’ve had long hair most of my life. Braiding it is like second nature—I could do it in my sleep.”
    “It’s so thick, and perfect.” Melissa tugged at her shoulder length hair. “Mine starts looking like a cat clawed it if I go much longer.”
    Anji flipped the braid over her shoulder. “This also gets caught on everything, I can’t sleep with it loose, and it snarls if I look at it wrong.”
    “Why do you keep it?”
    “I need something to let me feel like I’m still female. In my profession, I work with men, all day.” She shoved at her long bangs. “Having hair I can take down at a moment’s notice that screams I’m a woman helps keep me from becoming androgynous.”
    She lost Melissa halfway through the sentence—and realized why a second later. Melissa had seen her scar.
    “How did you—”
    “Childhood injury.” Anji turned away after she said it, not wanting to relieve the day she lost her parents.
    “I’m sorry if I offended you.” After a pause, she touched Anji’s shoulder. “I won’t ask again.”
    “You can.” With a sigh, Anji turned, already sorry for her abrupt attitude. “I’ll be happy to tell you, Melissa—after I know Kiele is safe. This scar,” she lifted her bangs to reveal it, and saw Jane, sitting on Melissa’s other side, lean forward to look at it. “This represents the worst day of my childhood, and I can’t have that weight on my heart, not when Kiele needs me.”
    “You’re the strongest person I ever met. With you in his corner, he’ll make it.”
    Tears gathered in Anji’s eyes, tears she