When Earth is conquered by the sinister Greys and the alien who killed Evie's husband returns seeking her help, she must find a way to enact her revenge and fight the growing feelings for the creature who is an exact replica of the man she loved.
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'Do you know what I learned to love most about the New World?' Abby said, next to me, as we pressed our backs up against a column of the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, just across from Central Hall.
Her ash-blonde hair was tied back from her face, making her seem younger than her years, but today, a note of exhaustion hung on her features, a weariness I hadn't seen on my friend's face in a long time.
'I know it seems weird to talk of loving this place, but when they came and we were getting killed or in hiding, I loved that there was no building in London I couldn't get into. Didn't have to put up with people sneering at me, spitting on me or worse, treating me like I was invisible. Didn't have to walk past all these posh buildings and wish I could wander inside just to keep warm or to get off the streets for a while and forget what I was. I could go anywhere I bloody well liked. I always wanted to go in there.' She nodded towards Central Hall. 'Not so much now, got to be honest.'
I glanced at her face. A flicker of trepidation tugged on the corners of her mouth. She was scared. We all were.
'I know what you mean,' I whispered.
She chuckled, but not unkindly. Abby was never really unkind. Being homeless might have done many things to her, but it had never made her cruel. 'You? Miss Art Historian herself who lived in art galleries and museums? What would you know about it?'
'Well, it's just after...' I paused. After Tom had died. That's what I'd been about to say. I swallowed it down, buried it, buried him, and smiled. 'I just remember a time when I didn't feel welcome. Not so much in buildings like that, just with certain people. Family. Friends. People I'd known for years. It's a horrible feeling, suddenly being an outsider.'
Abby stared at me and for a moment, I thought she'd laugh at me for even daring to compare whatever I had felt to her situation or tell me I was a self-centred idiot who knew fuck all what it was to be an outsider. Instead, her gaze displayed only warmth.
'Do you know something?' she said. 'I think that's the closest you've ever gotten to opening up to me, without really telling me anything at all. Maybe you're not such a cold fish, after all.'
'You think I'm a cold fish?'
She shrugged. 'Okay, lukewarm, maybe.' She grinned, nudging me with her elbow.
'Come on,' I said, tightening my grip on my rifle, doing my best not to look up. 'Let's get this over and done with.'
I never thought I'd crave the silent and still graveyard that was now the rest of London, but I did. I wanted this done with. I wanted to be back there and out of this place.
The term, Black Zone, was fitting, not only because of the wall of dark cloud that surrounded it, but because of the lack of light within it. The alien craft that sat above Westminster and Buckingham Palace blocked out much of the light, plunging the city beneath it into a permanent, eerie dusk. It was cold here, as if the Greys had leeched the warmth from the Earth, a stark contrast to the suffocating tunnels and the sticky heat of the city outside.
