Free Claimed by the Alien King by Juno Wells

Chapter One: Maya
     
    "'Night!"
    Maya waved goodbye to her coworkers as she left the store. Outside, she zipped up her hoodie and headed off down the street. Her gait was slow, her entire body fatigued. Per usual on a Friday night, the grocery store had teemed with customers. Worse yet, three other coworkers had called in sick. Maya had found herself undertaking the workload of three people for the entire night.
    One foot in front of the other , she recited in her head. Her apartment was a twenty minute walk away from her job. On nights like these when her feet and back ached with every step, Maya wished she lived further away to have an excuse to ride the bus. Still, she was glad to save money where possible. Drowning in student loans accrued for a useless college degree, she could barely make rent most months. It sounded ludicrous, but public transportation was a luxury she couldn't afford.
    It was no wonder she didn't have a social life. She worked horrible hours and she couldn't afford to go anywhere. Whatever 'friends' she had were acquaintances she'd gathered over the course of jumping jobs. In her head, she could hear her mother's voice. Hoarse from all the chain-smoking she'd done over the years, it ridiculed her for her life choices. On a subconscious level, Maya knew the hurtful things her mother said were borne from love and experience. Her father had been a large disappointment to her mother. A liar and a cheat, he'd abandoned them. Her mother had then converted her heartbreak into meanness.
    Every mother wanted the best for her daughter. This was what Maya told herself during the times when her mother's belittling words got under her skin.  You aren't meant for anything great . It was a phrase she'd heard too often to count from her mother. One she'd rebelled against for most of her life. Now in her mid-twenties, stuck in a dead-end job with no friends and no love life, the accuracy of her mother's words horrified Maya. She supposed her mother had been trying to tell her to keep her expectations in life realistic. To hope for more was to invite disappointment.
    A gust of cold, early-winter breeze forced the morose thoughts from her mind. She refocused her attention to the present. It was too dark and late to be so unaware of her surroundings. The streets had poor lighting and she lived in one of the seedier neighbourhoods in the city. She had to stay alert in the event some nasty individual decided to mug her or worse.
    It was as if thinking the thought conjured him. To Maya's dismay, a man with long, stringy hair materialized from the alleyway she was about to pass.
    "Hey baby, I almost missed ya tonight," he said, reaching out a hand in her direction.
    "Don't touch me!" Maya shouted, giving him a look of disgust. She'd encountered the man before. She called him The Creep. The first time she'd met him, he'd seemed pleasant enough to the point she'd struck up friendly conversation with him. Things were going along just fine until he began slipping dirty innuendos and requests for sexual favours into the conversation.
    Maya hurried her steps, further upset when she dipped her hands into her hoodie pocket and did not find her pepper spray. She'd worn a different one today and had forgotten to grab the spray from the old one.
    "You like playing hard to get, huh?" he said behind her, and it alarmed Maya to discover he was following her. "It's OK, baby. The fucking is better when you fight it."
    "Get away from me or I'll call the cops!" she shouted, hoping to draw attention to herself. Perhaps if the man realized there were witnesses he'd quit harassing her. But the streets were dead and many of the buildings she passed remained dark.
    This was bad. She had to do something to end this. She couldn't allow him to follow her home and find out where she lived. But she couldn't just stop walking either. Calling the cops was a good idea but when would they arrive? She had to outrun him or hide. Probably both.
    "Come on,