The can’s door slid open. Once her eyes adjusted, Mitchel could only stare in shock at what she saw. At the end of a short hallway, she saw cages stacked inside what she assumed was a cargo hold. Most of them were empty, but the few that were occupied…

            The two Ruinos she was with hustled her out of the container. As soon as they exited onto the metal plated floor, she felt as if she’d gained fifty pounds of dead weight. She nearly collapsed, but the skinny Ruinos holding onto her helped her to stay on her feet.

            An Arra came in sight. It pointed to her, but the Ruinos bared his sharp teeth and hissed at the creature. “Etari t’korra! Ami notay! Kaffa!” He clutched her more tightly, and for some unknown reason, she threw her arms around his neck and held on. Given the choice between the Arra and the Ruinos, she prayed she wouldn’t regret her decision.

            The Arra hesitated before oozing away. She craned her neck to see where it went when another one of those oily, pus-looking bags came into sight. This one also pointed to her. At the same time, a voice came from overhead.

            “Dujo bah.”

            Turning her head, she tried to see what it was talking about.

            A cage. One of the empty cages stood nearby with its door open. When her captor headed for it, taking her with him, she immediately knew why.

            “Let me go! Let me go!” She fought him again as she struggled to get away from him. She struck him across the face and head with her fists. They made loud smacking sounds as she struck his flesh. She’d half-expected his skin to be hard like armor or a shell. Instead, it was much like hers, firm and fleshy, with the exception of the caps on his shoulders. Those areas hurt like hell when she smacked them.

            He suddenly dropped her onto the floor and stared at her. Mitchel caught the undeniable look of hurt and disappointment in his Halloween eyes. She didn’t think she’d injured him that badly, when a gurgling sound behind her broke her momentary paralysis, and she scrambled to her feet. She was about to turn around and search for the tin can that had brought her up here, hoping it could take her back down, when a cloudy white form appeared in front of her. The Arra reached out, and tendrils from its arm wrapped around her wrist.

            It was like being hit with a hundred volts of electricity. Electricity that made her feel like she was being seared alive. Mitchel screamed from its acid touch that burned through her skin, across the muscle, and down to the bone. Falling to her knees, she shrieked from the scorching heat that flooded her bloodstream until her arm was jerked away, hard, and nearly dislocated from her shoulder.

            “Ah casi boh t’korra!” a voice directly above her growled in defiance. Possessively. Protectively. “Hoo foh ah mah!”

            She knew without looking that the skinny Ruinos was standing over her, straddling her. Shielding her. The initial agony injected into her arm was gone, but the scorching pain remained. In fact, it was getting worse as it spread through the rest of her body, leaving her sobbing helplessly on the floor.

            She lost all sense of what was happening around her until a pair of green arms gathered her up and carried her somewhere. A slight metallic clang confirmed she’d been taken inside one of those cages.

            The sizzling sound was gone, but the feel of what she’d swear was her blood literally boiling continued to race up and down her arm. Now it was trying to infuse into her lungs. Mitchel gasped for air, struggling to breathe, when the Ruinos grabbed her by the shoulders.

            “Eekah! Eekah hah! T’korra! Eekah hah!”

            She tried to look at him through her tears. At those Halloween eyes filled with worry and compassion. Seeing her watching him, the Ruinos began taking slow, deep breaths through his nose and letting it out just as slowly through his mouth. He squeezed her shoulders again.

            “Eekah hah.” He took another deep breath and paused. “Eekah hah.”

            Mitchel breathed in through her nose and exhaled. “Okay, okay. I’m eekah hahing.”

            “Fohdoh.” He inhaled a third time, paused, and stared at her, clearly waiting for her to do the same.

            Taking another breath, it suddenly dawned on her that the burning in her arm was lessening. It wasn’t completely gone. Not by a long shot. But it wasn’t as painful as it had been.

            She kept breathing in the long and slow manner he’d shown her. She stared at her injured wrist. The band of skin where the Arra had held her was pebbly and covered in large, pea-sized cysts. She didn’t dare touch one of the cysts for fear of causing herself more pain.

            The Ruinos squeezed her shoulders for her attention. “Eekah hah, t’korra.”

            She automatically did the breathing technique again. She couldn’t explain why or how it had the effect it did. All that mattered was that it helped. Mitchel looked into his unique eyes. “Thank you.”

            The creature smiled. He smiled! Before she could react, he let go of her shoulders and sat back on his heels. “Pah namas, t’korra.”

            T’korra. The word sounded familiar, but she couldn’t recall where she’d heard—

            Mitchel started. Last month. She’d met Jenny at Maggie’s On Main for lunch. She’d forgotten that Hannah Morr, the wife of the Ruinos Jeb Morr, worked there as a waitress. Luckily, they’d managed to snag a table that was served by a different waitress, or else Mitchel would have suggested they go to a different diner.

            They’d just placed their order when Jenny drew her attention to the front door. By now, everybody in town knew who Jeb Morr was. For the same reason they recognized Roni DeGrassi, Deputy DeGrassi’s Ruinos wife. Even when the aliens were in their human forms, most people gave them a wide berth.

            Mitchel watched as Morr walked over to where his wife was working behind the counter, not too far from where Jenny and she were seated. He said something to Mrs. Morr. Something that made her smile. And he called her…

            “’T’korra.’ Clear as day. The Ruinos had said that word. ‘T’korra’,” Mitchel softly repeated.

            This time a strange smile came over the male facing her. “T’kor,” he murmured and pointed to himself. “Esah t’kor.” He touched a taloned finger to her chest. “Ussa t’korra.”

            As realization washed over her, almost leaving her faint, Mitchel knew she couldn’t brush off or ignore the ugly truth, no matter how much she wanted to deny it.

            If the rumors she’d heard spread around town were true, she now belonged to him. And from what she’d been told by others, his claim would last for the rest of her life.