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Lola remained even-tempered, but Tank found himself tripping over his words. “It’s just…wrong. We shouldn’t have to live with aliens. Humans have been terrorized by the aliens for decades.”

“Chloe and I didn’t terrorize anyone.”

“That doesn’t…It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. We didn’t do anything to deserve this.”

“But—”

“I am just as human as I am alien.”

Cutting the conversation short, Chloe tugged on Lola’s sleeve and pulled her away from him. “Just give it up, Lo. He’ll never get it.”

Tank lingered for a moment, watching the sisters return to their huddle on the floor, and then he marched back to the security room.

He felt uneasy. And he didn’t understand why.

Chloe was about to yell in his face, but Lola shushed her.

“It’s true she wasn’t our birth mother. She was our human father’s wife at one point in time. She raised us after he left.”

“Was she a human?” Tank asked.

Lola nodded, placing her hands on the glass. “As human as yours. And she raised us as if we were as human as you.”

“She shouldn’t have done that. That’s not right,” he protested. Her indirect mention of Lyla stung.

“Why?”

“It just isn’t.”

“Okay. But why?”

“Oh. Hiya, Tank,” Chloe said, her tone immediately changing into something much less genuine. “Come back to take me on that walk around the building?”

Tank rolled his eyes. “Again, no.” He finished his inspection and started to leave, but something was holding him back this time.

“Who were you talking about? Just now?” he asked.

“Were you listening to our private conversation, Tank?” Chloe mocked, grinning.

Tank scoffed at her. “Forget it.”

“We were talking about our mom,” Lola answered, standing up. Chloe shot a look at her as if she’d revealed a deep secret of theirs. “Her name was Glabe.”

Tank squinted his eyes and said, “But you were born through abduction.”

“Yeah. And?”

“Alien-human hybrids born through abduction don’t have mothers,” he said.

The last hallway on his mental list was his least favorite to cross off every night. Time to check on the twins.

Despite Chloe and Lola being the only ones stuck in solitary confinement at the moment, he made sure that the empty rooms around theirs were locked up as well. Just protocol. And maybe a bit of stalling.

“I miss her, too,” he overheard Lola say.

“I loved that woman, as harsh as she could be at times,” Chloe said.

“She did everything for us when she didn’t even have to. Even when we were horrible.”

Chloe laughed. “We could be pretty difficult, huh?”

“You were worse.”

Tank moved closer, careful not to alert them of his presence just yet.

Lola's nostalgic smile faded slowly as she added, “I’m just glad she isn’t around to see us now. It would break her heart.”

Then their conversation ended, leaving them in silence. Finally, Tank decided to perform his check.

Tank looked into her pained eyes for a few seconds before averting his gaze.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Jenny’s brows scrunched together. “Please, Tank. I’m his mother. I need to know. Please.”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.” Tank refused to look at her. He returned upstairs as he listened to her quiet cries. He really didn’t know if Johnny was okay, but if he knew, would he have told her? For just a moment, he thought that he might’ve. Jenny was always kind to him back when they had been neighbors. She seemed like a good woman.

A good woman who committed horrible crimes against humanity by aligning herself with the aliens. Tank knew she was where she belonged.

“Shut it, already. Stop being weak,” he said aloud to himself. Deciding to stop feeling anything at all, he walked downstairs. When he reached the door at the bottom, he lowered the handle and felt it catch. Locked. Check.

“Hello?” he heard a voice say. “Tank? Is that you out there?”

Tank stopped in his tracks and turned to the door. He lifted his eyes to the foggy glass pane and found two green eyes staring back at him.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” the voice asked again.

“Yes,” Tank finally answered.

“Please, can you—”

“I have to get back, Jenny.”

“I know. I know. Can you just…tell me if he’s okay? Is Johnny okay?” she begged.

Once again, nighttime fell, and Tank was making his rounds. As he aggressively stomped through the halls, he listened to the thudding of his military boots against the metal floor. He hoped that the thuds would drown out the sound of his own thoughts, which were unusually loud. But of course nothing could drown those out.

His loudest thoughts were of his mother, Lyla. He missed her. He thought of the way she used to tiptoe into his room in the mornings and gently wake him for school. While he was busy getting ready, she’d be downstairs carefully packing his lunch—a peanut butter sandwich with strawberry jelly and no crust, just the way he liked it. And at night, after helping him complete his math homework that would bring him to tears with its difficulty, she’d give him a little kiss on the forehead, leaving a shiny pink ring of lip gloss for him to wipe off with a grossed out giggle. Then she’d return to the kitchen to be yelled at by his father.

Tank knew that things were never perfect. His parents could argue for hours. But he didn’t think it was ever so bad that Lyla would just leave with no explanation. He wondered what she was up to these days. He wondered what could possibly be so great out there that she needed to permanently remove herself from his life. Was it something he did? Why was he not good enough for her? Why wasn’t he ever good enough?

“That’s crazy, Hoot,” Virginya said, laughing as if she were not terrified. “The Night Beast isn’t a human. It’s just a beast.”

“I’m telling you, Virginya. I saw it. It looked right at me. And that was no look of a beast.”

“Well,” she began, and then paused to think of the right thing to say. She absolutely needed to protect Annie. “If it’s a human, then you can’t kill it. You wouldn’t kill a human, Hoot.”

“Human or not, that thing is terrorizing the town! Who knows how many people it’s already killed!” Hoot exclaimed, frustrated that Virginya didn’t seem to get it. “Why do you think so many folks have been goin’ missing?!”

Virginya shot back, “You have no idea if the beast is responsible for those disappearances.”

“You seem awfully protective of this monster.”

“Hoot…” Virginya whispered, a little hurt. She so badly wanted to just tell him. Open your eyes, you idiot. You’re going to murder your own sister. But she couldn’t. Annie made her promise not to. “I’m not…protective of it. I’m just trying to keep you safe.”

“Well, enough of that worrying nonsense. I will be fine. I’m just making sure it can’t hurt you or Annie, all right? I’m headin’ back downstairs. See you in a few hours.”

Immediately after Virginya heard Hoot’s slippers smack against the floor of the basement, she called Annie’s phone. No answer. Annie always answered Virginya’s calls.

“So where’d you head off to last night after closing?” Virginya asked even though she knew the answer. She had to ask.

“The usual. Called up Tex and the guys and went lookin’ for the beast,” Hoot responded.

There it was again. The clawing feeling. “Did you…get it…this time?”

Hoot frustratedly shook his head. “Got close. Jesse may have grazed it—we don’t know for sure.”

Grazed it?

“But I don’t believe it. Jesse couldn’t shoot the beast if it was standin’ still right in front of him,” he joked. “Wanna hear somethin’ real weird, though?”

Virginya nodded silently, bracing herself.

“I got a good look at it last night. I finally saw its face, Virgie. It’s as ugly as they say. And I could’ve sworn the thing was…” Hoot trailed off, unsure of how to say it. “It looked almost human. I think it might be.”

“What?”

Hoot’s face suddenly became very serious as he said, “I think it might be a human in there. I wanna know who it is.”

“I think that man likes ya, Virgie,” Hoot said.

“Yuck. The feeling is not mutual. You seen Annie at all?” Virginya asked.

Confused, Hoot replied, “You didn’t see her this morning?”

“She wasn’t in our bed when I woke up. I assumed she came up already, but no. Not up here either.”

Hoot brushed a few gray hairs behind his ears and went back to pouring his drink. “I’m sure she’s out with Dixie or somethin’. She’ll be back…or she better be, if she wants her paycheck.”

Virginya chuckled. She knew it was probably true. But still, there was a clawing feeling in the pit of her stomach that something wasn’t right.

As soon as the front doors shut, a relieved Virginya noticed that Hoot had come upstairs and witnessed the tail end of the conversation. Still dressed in his pajamas, he immediately went behind the bar to make himself an early-morning drink. Virginya spun around to face him, finally accepting that there would be no therapeutic, pressureless, peaceful piano playing for her today.

“Morning,” she said to him, standing up from her seat.

Hoot grunted in response, and then cursed at the apparently useless bottle opener in his hands.

Virginya reached a palm out to him and said, “Give it here.” She grabbed the bottle from his grasp and removed the top with her bare hands, earning a slightly annoyed eyebrow raise from Hoot.

“I don’t know how you do that,” he mumbled, his voice still gravelly from sleep.

“Well then,” Lincoln said, turning the wheels of his chair, “sorry again for the interruption. I’ll let you get back to it, Ms. Feng.”

“Stop calling me that. Just Virginya is perfectly acceptable.” She spun around to face her piano again, scowling, and began to play where she left off.

Nearly out the door, Lincoln stopped. He looked back toward the music and beamed. “Sounds nice. I like this one better than what you usually play.”

Virginya’s fingers fell off the keys and dug into her palms. “When have you ever heard me play?”

“I can hear it from the library. It’s only down the road, and this place gets pretty loud at night. Don’t get me wrong—I like the faster songs, too. Even helps me focus on my research! But this one feels more…” Lincoln thought about it for a second, searching for the right word. “Soulful.”

Soulful. It was a kind thought, but Virginya knew deep down that it couldn’t have been soulful. She didn’t have a soul anymore. Hers was stolen.

“Thanks,” she said, feeling awkward. Virginya did not particularly enjoy talking to strangers. She didn’t understand how or why Lincoln talked so much. She would have preferred it if he’d left about ten minutes earlier.

“You’re very welcome. I’ll get out of your braids now. Have a good one, Virginya.” Lincoln flashed one more friendly smile at her, and then he turned to leave.

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“Okay. Your blood source. How long have you been in contact with him?”

“Years. I don’t know how many.” Virginya was not entirely comfortable with the idea that Lincoln knew she needed a blood source at all. It made her feel exposed.

“Do you know anyone else he may have been doing business with?”

“No. He didn’t talk about other customers.”

“Does the name Gimi Branko mean anything to you?”

This question caused Virginya to hesitate. “No, it doesn’t,” she responded, even though it definitely did mean something to her.

“Interesting. Maybe I was wrong in my assumptions.”

Virginya nodded at him. “Yeah, looks like you were.”

“Right. Sorry,” Lincoln said. “So I was looking at my notes. And I came up with some questions that I think maybe only you can answer.”

Virginya raised an eyebrow. “Me?”

“Yeah, you. If that’s all right.”

She shrugged. He could ask his questions. But that didn’t mean she had to answer truthfully.

“Are you a Strangetown native?” he asked.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It doesn’t,” he said. “I was just wondering.”

“No, I’m not.”

Lincoln smiled. “Me neither. Strangetown is nice, but I’m more of a big-city boy at heart.”

Virginya kept a straight face as she assured him that “Strangetown is not nice.”

“No,” he finally agreed. “It’s not.”

“Can you just ask your questions?”