I still had no idea how to come to terms with any of that. The Daedalus sought to use the knowledge gained to better the life of millions, but all of that had gone sideways fast. They’d studied the Luxen’s unique biological attributes that not only made them resistant to every human illness but also enabled them to heal any number of physical injuries a human could suffer. Not only that, she had worked for the institution responsible.Ī secret organization that existed within the Department of Defense, one that had started out with the task of assimilating the Luxen into the human populace long before the public knew the aliens even existed. Sylvia had married a man responsible for forced pregnancies between Luxen and humans, nonconsensual mutations, kidnappings, murders, and the subjugation of her own people. Which was roughly around the same time I’d gotten smacked upside the head with the knowledge mother dearest was also a Luxen. The same woman I’d believed to be my mother up until I’d learned I wasn’t really Evelyn Dasher but a girl named Nadia Holliday.

Nothing more than a ghost I couldn’t remember, because his wife had shot him. Dasher was an evil man responsible for horrific experiments on both humans and aliens, all in the name of the “greater good.” I’d once been a part of those masses, but I’d since learned the truth. The masses knew him as the fallen war hero, a patriotic icon lost in the war protecting mankind against the invading Luxen. It was like my brain shorted out at the mention of his name.

Why was I even thinking about any of that? Someone’s mail wasn’t the most pressing concern. Had the owners evacuated, or were they lost in the chaos that followed the EMPs like so many hundreds of thousands?

Jennifer armentrout the brightest night