The Krinar Exposé--A Krinar Chronicles Novel, page 9
I snorted. “One can hope.”
“Atta girl!” He reached down and chucked me under the chin. “Do you want”—he held the balled-up sheets out to me—“your K blankie back?”
“Ugh, my God.” I rose from the couch, shoving a laughing Jay from my path. “I’m going to shower now.”
“Good idea,” he called after me. “Wash that alien stink out of your hair.”
Chapter Sixteen
“You can’t wear that.”
“Why not?”
“You’ll look like a young MILF who got lost on her way to PTA night.”
I rolled my eyes and held up the next dress option in front of me. “This one?”
Jay made a retching sound. “Are you going to a wedding or a sex club? I’ve said it before, I don’t believe in puce.”
I groaned and fished the last of my dress options from my TJ Maxx shopping bag. “How about this?”
Jay made a “meh” noise and gave it a “so-so” hand gesture. “I need to see what it looks like on. My hunch is that if Diane von Fürstenberg and Tory Burch had a bastard lovechild who designed cheap, slutty wrap dresses for Bebe, that’s about what we’ve got here.”
I flung it onto the chair next to his bed and tossed my hands in defeat. “Well, I’m out of options.”
“Because you insisted on shopping where there were no options.”
Jay had wanted me to shop in some trendy place in his Soho neighborhood, saying he envisioned me “braving Vair’s club wearing an edgy, slinky, minimalist, bodycon Helmut Lang-esque number”—a.k.a. something way too expensive for my budget.
And given the fact that the last time I’d gone to his club, Vair had torn the nicest clubbing dress I’d owned to shreds, along with my bra and panties, I was not about to spend half of my paycheck on a designer dress that might suffer the same fate.
So I’d purchased six dresses from TJ Maxx instead, and I planned to take them all back—ideally, even whichever one I wore tonight to the club if I could manage to hide the tags.
“Did you get in touch with your friend at the CIA?” I asked.
“No, but I confirmed with a mutual friend that he does work there, and I got his number and left him a message.”
It was progress, I supposed, but not all that comforting, given that we’d be back at Vair’s club in less than five hours. Anything could happen to us tonight, and no one would be the wiser.
“And while you were out making substandard dress selections, I brainstormed some K interview questions.” Jay pulled his phone from his pocket. “Want to hear them?”
I really didn’t. “Sure. Lay them on me,” I said brightly anyway.
My stomach was in knots, and I’d barely eaten all day. I’d stopped by my apartment after shopping to pick up my makeup bag, a selection of shoes, and other necessities for getting ready at Jay’s place, and the entire time I’d been there, I hadn’t been able to shake the paranoia that I was being watched. It was nerve-racking to think I might never have a sense of privacy in my own home again.
Jay sat on the edge of his bed and read from his iPhone. “What are the Krinar’s ultimate plans for us as a society?”
I made a face. “Pass. Reasonable question, but too vague and easy to dance around answering. Besides, they obviously don’t want us to know all of their intentions. Highly doubtful we’ll get any worthwhile answer out of a K to that one.” I could already envision Vair deflecting such a question with humor and sexual innuendo. “Next?”
“Why intervene and insert yourselves into our society now if you’ve had the ability to do so for thousands of years? If you were concerned about the health of our planet, why didn’t you come to its rescue sooner?”
“Exactly!” I nodded. “Why indeed? I like it, but Ks aren’t likely to answer that one either. Maybe we should start with x-club-related questions and try to pepper others into the convo as we can?”
“We?” He shook his head. “Baby girl, I’m afraid you’re on your own with this. I’m dying to interview a K, but Vair was clear about only you doing the interviewing at his club.”
Naturally. “Fine. I’ll start with x-club-related questions. Got any of those?”
“Do I evah,” Jay sing-songed. “Here’s one that I wrote for Vair: It’s rumored that more and more humans are frequenting your x-club. Many humans have shared stories on online forums about how addictive the experience of being bitten and having their blood sucked by a Krinar alien is. Is drinking human blood equally addictive for a Krinar?”
“Nice. Definitely an important, key question.” Professionally and personally. And it was possible Vair or other Ks would entertain that one and perhaps provide some response from which I’d be able to extract a half-truth or two.
“You’ll like this next one for Vair even better. While the Krinar continue to preach the merits of veganism and have strong-armed the entire planet into a predominantly vegan lifestyle, you’ve established an exclusive club where Krinar may access the fresh blood of willing humans—because apparently, the Krinar version of ‘veganism’ includes the blood of mammals? Care to explain that hypocrisy for the human public?”
I giggled and bounced in place on the balls of my feet. “I’ll have to tone it down a bit, but I love it. What else?”
“How many other women have you been with in the past month?”
“Jay!”
“What?” He looked up from his phone with a devious grin. “Okay, so I admit that as I was writing these, they somehow became a bit more Vair and Amy hook-up specific than general K and x-clubber questions.” His finger tapped and scrolled down the screen. “Let’s see… I’ll just skip over the next few,” he said with a chuckle. “We can come back to the ones about how your blood tastes later.”
“Ew! Not funny.”
Jay got his laughter under control, cleared his throat, and continued. “I’ve heard that Krinar can be highly possessive. Does that mean that Krinar pair off and mate for life, like penguins, coyotes, and termites?”
I covered my face with my hands.
“What does it mean when a Krinar says that they’re going to ‘take great care of someone’ for all eternity? Is that like a Krinar euphemism for engaging in an extended sexual encounter?”
“Oh, my God.” I flopped down onto the chair laden with my “substandard” dress choices. “I am not asking those questions. Let’s move on. How about asking about their language? Or about how they’re capable of understanding all of our languages so readily? Or about their technology and whether they ever plan to share any of those advances with us?”
Or if they intend to just keep using them against us—for control, intimidation, general spying, and the occasional sex tape compilation.
“Lame and lamer. Consider the venue, Amy. We’re not meeting up at an Apple store. You’re interviewing Vair and other horny Ks in a sex club. Besides, Vair said no boring, safe questions would be answered.”
“What?” I jerked upright in my seat. “You talked with Vair while I was out?”
“Texted again.”
“I want to see!” I demanded, reaching for the phone in his hands. “Show me the texts from this morning, too.”
“I’d show you, but they’ve been erased.”
“Bullshit.” I jumped up and snatched the phone right out of his hands. “Why would you erase them?”
“I didn’t. Vair did. Or something did. Because they disappeared seconds after I read them.”
I scrolled through his recent text messages and confirmed that it was true.
“It’s something with their technology, I’m sure.”
“No doubt,” I muttered, nodding absently. A new wave of anxiety curled in my gut as I heard my mother’s voice in my head. They wouldn’t want to leave evidence behind of how they lured two unsuspecting human reporters to their beheading.
I shook it off internally. I couldn’t afford to go there. Jay seemed certain that we’d be safe tonight at Vair’s club, and I had to trust his instincts on this. I knew that my own instincts were flawed—warped by years of my mother’s constant fearmongering and “sky is falling” proselytization.
I’d seen a therapist about it in college. Being at school and away from my mom’s influence for the first time had made me recognize just how poor my ability to judge the inherent danger of situations was. I’d learned in therapy that kids who were raised to fear everything in life were more likely to be victimized as adults—because being taught to see danger everywhere in the world, including in places and situations where there was none, left them with no reasonable gauge for identifying true danger when they were faced with it.
According to my therapist, when danger becomes normalized, people stop hearing their intuition, until eventually they can’t differentiate between the nebulous daily “sky is falling” threats and the “obvious to everyone but you creeper at the bar blatantly plotting to roofie your drink” threat.
My therapist had also cautioned me that sometimes those who were raised to see fear everywhere became subconscious thrill-seekers or adrenaline junkies in adulthood.
Knowing my instincts might be faulty, I relied on observation and fact as much as possible. And on the instincts of people I trusted.
Jay had been adamantly against the idea of me going to investigate and report on x-clubs at first. However, once we’d gotten in and were standing face to face with Vair, it was I who had become half-immobilized by fear and shock, while Jay had warmed to the situation, his instincts telling him that the threat was not as great as he’d initially feared. And he’d been right.
That time, my mother’s voice warned in my head.
I handed Jay his phone and stood silently by the bed, lost in my thoughts.
“You want to text him for yourself and see?” he offered after a beat, awkwardly extending it back out to me.
“Oh, no. Definitely not.”
“I could give you his number and you could use your own phone to text—”
“I’m good!” I snapped, then caught myself. “Sorry. Can we just veg out for a while? Watch a movie or something? I need to get my mind off things.”
“Sure. I got Men in Black, Alien vs. Predator, Independence Day—”
“You’re about to be strangled with a puce dress.”
And as he erupted with laughter, I threw said dress at him.
Chapter Seventeen
I opted to wear the von-Fürstenberg-Burch bastard lovechild to Vair’s club.
The perfectly symmetrical-faced K who’d confiscated and subsequently restored my boxes of office belongings the day before was waiting outside of Jay’s building to collect us at exactly eleven p.m. He was driving a sleek but understated hybrid Lincoln Town Car. We learned that his name was Zyrnase.
Zyrnase seemed easygoing and friendly enough, chatting with us about how he liked living in the city, until Jay made the horrendous faux pas of asking if allergens were a common problem on Krina like they were on Earth—and followed it up with a joke about how “Zyrnase” sounded like the K might’ve been named after an antihistamine drug.
I cringed and slunk low in my seat as Zyrnase stoically informed us that no such ailment existed on Krina because allergens weren’t the problem, our feeble human immune systems were. We fell silent for an uncomfortable length of time before Zyrnase activated the tinted glass divider and blocked us out entirely.
“Really? An antihistamine?”
“What? It was funny. Good clean K humor. Guy needs to lighten up,” Jay grumbled under his breath. “Perfect facial structure gets dull fast when a person can’t laugh at himself.”
“I knew it!” I whisper-exclaimed. “You’re into him.”
“Duh. He’s hot. Was hot. Before his personality disorder crashed our limo party. Which, by the way, sucks. There’s no alcohol or even any snacks back here.” Jay proceeded to rummage through all of the compartments he’d already ransacked. “You know, I get why drinking alcohol before getting your vein sucked might be a bad call, but how about offering your human suckees some frigging apple slices or mixed nuts? Even the shittiest blood bank offers crackers and cheap cookies to donors.”
“Oh, God, you’re nervous, aren’t you? You’re totally regretting coming tonight. Do you really think they’re planning on biting us? I’ll understand if you want to back out and not go in with me when we get there, okay? Zero judgment.”
“What are you talking about? Of course I’m going in with you.”
“You don’t have to. I’m serious, Jay. This is my problem. I insisted on going there the first time. I’m the one who wrote the article that pissed off the Krinar Council.”
“Well, I’m the best friend who insisted on coming with you that first time. And I had the hottest sex of my life that night, thank you very much. I’m also the same friend who negotiated this evening’s reprise, and I’m not missing it.”
“But, Jay—”
“But nothing.” He pressed his fingers and thumb together in front of my face in the “zip it” gesture. “If you think I’m letting you hog all the hot aliens for yourself, you’re blinder than those blinder glasses you’re still wearing for no rational reason. Vair said I could come, and I’m going. End of discussion.”
“Aw, Jay…” Blinking rapidly to stave off the tears stinging the backs of my eyes, I scooted closer and linked my arm through the crook of his. Leaning my head against his shoulder, I told him, “You’re the best—you know that? Thank you.”
The words sounded lame to my ears. They were grossly inadequate, given all that Jay was risking on my behalf. But I was never good at expressing such things. And I couldn’t afford to get emotional tonight.
I knew Jay had always gotten that about me, because he never pushed emotional topics like some of my other friends did. Sure, he might tease me about having intimacy issues, but he always kept it light and playful. And he backed off whenever he sensed my discomfort. It was one of the qualities that made him such a remarkable friend.
“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. “So I’ve been told.” He leaned his head on top of mine and gave my arm a squeeze.
We traveled for several blocks in contemplative silence.
“But for real,” he broached as we passed through Greenwich Village, “why are you still wearing those glasses if your vision is worse with them on?”
I sighed and straightened in my seat, unlinking my arm from his. “Because it doesn’t make sense. I’ve worn glasses since second grade. Vision doesn’t just get better on its own.”
“What if it did?”
“It’s not possible.”
“So you’re still wearing them out of denial?”
“No, of course not. Look, maybe I just like the way they feel?” My statement had meandered into a question by the end.
Jay’s blossoming lopsided grin said he wasn’t buying it.
I couldn’t blame him; I didn’t either.
“What? They go with my dress!” I insisted with a giggle. “I like wearing glasses, okay? Can we drop it?”
He shrugged. “Whatever you say, baby girl.” He gave me a wink. “Totally your business if you want to hide those gorgeous green eyes behind spectacles you can’t see out of.” His amused expression turned to puzzlement and his attention shifted to the window beside me when the car made a right turn. “Why is he turning here? This isn’t the way we came last time.”
I swiveled my head and saw that we’d turned down an alleyway. I didn’t have the world’s best sense of direction, but this definitely didn’t look familiar to me. Granted, I couldn’t see much between the darkness of the dimly lit alley and the blurriness my glasses created. “No,” I said worriedly. “Doesn’t seem like it.”
My heart began to pound in my throat as all sorts of awful scenarios sprang to mind. I wished I’d been paying better attention to the route Zyrnase was taking.
“Well, I suppose it makes sense,” Jay said as my panic was setting in. “He must be taking us through the super-secret high-profile celebrity entrance in the rear.”
I forced out a nervous, half-assed chuckle. Jay took my hand in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze as our car came to a stop alongside the back of a nondescript, old brick building.
“What now?”
I’d barely whispered the question when, to my astonishment, the brick wall next to our car began to dissolve, creating an opening large enough for a car to drive through. And that’s exactly where Zyrnase steered our car.
Darkness engulfed us as we drove straight down a ramp and into what appeared to be an underground tunnel. We proceeded to journey at slow speed with only the car’s headlights to illuminate our way. I tried to remain calm, but after we’d driven for what felt like three whole blocks, I began to feel like I might hyperventilate.
“Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have compared him to an antihistamine,” Jay mused quietly next to me. I knew he was attempting to inject some humor into the tension-filled moment for my sake, but I heard the apprehension and alarm beneath his joking words as he asked, “Shall we jump out and make a run for it?”
“Somehow I doubt we’d get very far,” I told him truthfully. “Let’s not panic.”
“Who’s panicking?” he muttered. “No one in this car. You and I are not the panicking types.”
I laughed so I wouldn’t piss myself from fear.
My pulse jumped when our tires rolled to a stop once more in the middle of the darkened tunnel.
“On second thought—”
Jay’s words were cut short as a reddish-purple light suddenly flooded the passenger cab. A large hole had opened up in the side of the tunnel where we’d stopped. Zyrnase drove us through it, and we found ourselves inside a subterranean parking garage.
About twenty feet later, we rolled to a final stop in a parking space marked with the letter “Z,” and Zyrnase cut the engine.
“Jesus.” Jay exhaled an exasperated sigh of relief as Zyrnase hopped out of the driver seat and made his way around the car to my door. “That was just a little over-the-fucking-top dramatic cloak-and-dagger, don’t you think?”
