Alien in the Family

think that thing wants us to help you.” His voice was squeaky. I looked around him and saw Harlie, still huge and mad, herding the rest of the team to us.
    “Help hold him, but don’t hurt him.”
    Kyle and a couple others dropped and held. I got the harpoon put away, then put Martini’s head onto my thighs. “It’s okay, Jeff. Come on back, baby.” I stroked his head and tried not to worry about how badly Kyrellis might have hurt him.
    It took a few minutes, but his thrashing slowed, then stopped. “Get these guys off of me,” he growled.
    I nodded. “Thanks, guys.” They stood up. “Jeff, how badly are you hurt?”
    “Oh, a couple of broken ribs, my head’s killing me, I think my shoulder’s dislocated. You missed a lot of brutality. She only imitated my fighting style when you were around to see it and be confused.”
    “Wish you’d said something. I could have shot her.”
    “Love you, know you’re becoming as good a shot as your mother. Didn’t want to get shot by you, and, shockingly, didn’t want you saving me. It’s bad enough that the Amazon beat the crap out of me.” He closed his eyes. “You know, I’m officially tired of having to be rescued.”
    I kissed his forehead. “Retire, and then I won’t have to.”
    He managed a laugh. “Right.” He opened his eyes. “Any of you jocks know how to put a shoulder back in?”
    Len and Kyle both nodded. “Really?” I found that hard to believe.
    Kyle shrugged. “I’m premed.”
    “Oh, come on.”
    “I am. And, I’m sorry I was a jerk.” He mumbled that one.
    “What did he try?” Martini was growling.
    “I almost fell off the building. Len and the rest of his team saved me.” I figured it wasn’t worth getting upset over. There were so many other issues at hand.
    Len and Kyle sat Martini up, then Kyle did some push and shove move with Martini’s arm and Martini bellowed again. I winced. “Thanks,” he said through gritted teeth. They helped him up, then Len helped me up. Martini’s eyes narrowed. Oh, good, back to jealousy. Oh, well, at least he was alive and reasonably unscathed.
    I heard a shriek from Kyrellis. “What have you done?”
    I looked around. Nothing was crumbling; nothing was going up in smoke. “Christopher?”
    “They’re pretty sure they found all the bombs. An unreal amount—she had to have been planting them for twenty-four hours straight.” Christopher’s voice was clipped; he was in full Commander Mode. “Tito’s hunch was right—she’d rigged the mall. The rest of your hunches were right, too. She hadn’t rigged the other casinos outside of the Mandalay complex, but she’d set the bridges to blow, I guess under the impression it would cut the ‘palace’ off.”
    “You are one whacked-out chick.”
    “You will pay for this,” she snarled.
    “No. I think you and Moira will. We’ve had her in custody for quite a while. You know, while you were hanging out, eating chicken wings and ogling the Hooters girls? I’ve been mentally torturing her. It was great.”
    Kyrellis lunged at me, but the football players held her in check. “Get these beasts off me!”
    “Nah. I’m almost tempted to let them have fun with you. But that would be wrong, and the men I work with would be appalled, so I won’t.”
    “She in the WNBA?” Len asked me.
    “No. She’s an Amazonian superbitch from another solar system.” Why lie? I was pretty sure Martini was going to have to give the team a different memory.
    “You’re kidding, like Wonder Woman?” This from Kyle.
    I took a look at his expression. Wow, you never knew when or where a kindred spirit would appear. “Yeah, only Wonder Woman wanted to protect the Earth, and she wants to destroy it.”
    “That thing from her planet?” he asked, as he pointed to Harlie, excitement radiating from every pore.
    “Nope, from theirs,” I pointed to Martini and Christopher, both of whom were giving me the looks that said I had a big mouth and was insane.
    “Babe, really, I was drunk off my ass. Total apologies, okay? In fact, someone should probably kick my ass.” Kyle was sincere. It was touching in a weird way.
    “I’ll be glad to,” Len said. He had a sarcasm knob just like Martini, and it was on, as near as I could tell, full.
    “Do I want to know?” Martini snarled.
    “No. Guys, really, we need to get our alien lesbian psycho and the wimp traitor over to the proper authorities.”
    “Need their help with it,” Christopher snapped.