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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It was strange, looking at the house now, after so many years had gone by.
Back then, it had been a certified shithole, but now, with half the world destroyed and most buildings looking like someone had stuck them in a snow-globe and shook them up until they were coming apart at the seams, the house didn't look quite so bad in comparison.
In fact, it had a weird sort of charm about it that I liked. Or maybe, it was just the memory that came with it that I clung to. I clung to a lot of memories.
Some days it seemed all that I had.
Outside of the cities and larger towns, the effects of the Last World War and evidence of the Grey occupation was not quite as devastating to see, but it was still here, nevertheless. Burnt-out houses still somehow cleaving to their skeletal structures. Cars abandoned in ditches. Half-destroyed roadblocks with towers of sandbags in disarray. Driving for miles without seeing another living soul. Just a stark barren wasteland of ghosts and memories of what once was.
I stepped over the border where the fence now lay in the long grass, roots twisting around the rotting wood as if they sought to pull it down into the earth. The gate to the garden was still in place, the concrete posts refusing to yield, but it seemed madness to use it when I could just step over the fence. Besides, I dared not risk the sound of an oil-thirsty hinge screeching my presence to anyone who might be close by.
It would have been foolish to think the Earth was a much safer place now the Greys were no more. It was still a dog-eat-dog world. The seeds of mistrust the aliens had sown, were still embedded in the soil of the human race so deeply that I knew it was going to be a long time before you could look another person in the eye without fearing what lay beneath their fragile flesh. The creatures themselves might have been gone, but the world they'd left behind was far from healed and still a long way from finding its way back to the light.
Ivy said the world had strayed from the light long before the Greys came, and I was inclined to believe her. The human race was a damaged species – brutal, selfish and cruel - but despite everything, I still had hope it would mend itself in time and maybe, just maybe, be reborn into something worth fighting for.
Until then, I knew it was better to remain cautious and on alert. One wrong move could earn me a bullet to the head. One misspoken word could reveal what I was, and I faced the New World every day with the knowledge that the truth could get me killed.
The two months since the Fall of the Hive had been both reaffirming and terrifying.
The newly formed group of Taj's and Levi's crew had begun to flourish, using their shared resources to create something stronger, something that helped me see that hope I'd so desperately wanted to come out of all of this. Much to my surprise, they hadn't rejected me as I thought they would. They'd made it clear they would keep my secret and that I always I had a place with them, but I also knew I couldn't stay. Not yet. I limped along for a while, pretending that I could assimilate into this life, but the nagging pull in my veins had become relentless, and eventually I accepted that I had to do something.
