Between Rebels

Prologue

PROLOGUE

The day I found Tonya dead in the bathtub was the day I realised how s**t my life had become. She didn’t even leave a note. Everyone knew what had happened. She’d fallen for their charm, their spell, and got pregnant. It was a miracle she’d managed to return to our home before the Trad kidnapped her, taking her to his spaceship. Maybe he hadn’t realised he’d managed to get her pregnant. Maybe she’d escaped him. It didn’t matter.

Tonya was dead and I was alone. We’d been the two last young women in the village. After the invasion, many had thought that we’d be safe in our little dwelling. Three hundred souls, the next school half an hour away by bus. No Trads would ever come here, right?

Wrong. They were everywhere, not just in the cities, but even in the tiniest hamlets. Maybe the women in small towns and villages were easier picking. Less police, less information.

I’d heard that they had set up safe districts in the cities where no men were allowed. We couldn’t do that in Stonefall. Our advantage was that everyone knew everyone in the village, but that didn’t mean that we never had contact with outsiders. Including the outsider who’d killed Tonya.

I stared down at her body, wondering what to do now. Her wet clothes clung to her pale skin, highlighting her slender shape. She’d put on her favourite dress. Had she worn it when she met the Trad or had Tonya put it on after, before she threw the hairdryer into the full bathtub?

Tonya and I had never been the best of friends, but the cruelty of life had brought us together after the invasion. We’d been six women living in this house. Now I was the only one left.

I stroked a stray lock of hair out of Tonya’s pretty face, then left the room without another glance. It was time to move on.