For the simple crime of not letting my body get snatched, they've turned my girlfriend against me.

When the Lumisi came, the military was uncharacteristically smart to put a tight lid on it. For "put a tight lid on it," read "capturing all the aliens' victims and locking them up, under the pretext that they would one day cure them of whatever parasite they were infected with."

Guess how well that worked. It didn't. Talk about impatient - not two days after they made their mass breakout, the cure was finally tested and found to be effective. But only because their chosen test subject was the last one in line to escape.

The Lumisi's human puppets are out there now. Meat suits hijacked by an alien queen from somewhere in space, spreading her pernicious infection to unsuspecting denizens of this planet.

One of them is Taylor Leonard. My Taylor. I promised I'd get her out of Wiseman before the Lumisi could take her. I failed.

My mission - and I choose to accept it - is to rectify that mistake.

I wish I could say I can do that alone, but I don't have the necessary skill set. I do have a skill - the only good thing the Lumisi invasion did for me - but it's not going to come in handy unless I can get into Wiseman again and track Taylor down. As far as necessary skills go, that's what the voice in my head is for.

"If there's still satellites taking feeds of the town," Spike says as I stalk down the sidewalk towards Taylor's place, "you'd think the army would just decide to end it all by dropping a MOAB on the place."

"Don't even kid about that," I whisper, using the "subvocalizing" technique I learned from reading a few good books by James Rollins. That way, nobody can hear me except Spike, through the ultra-sensitive mini-mike stuck directly to my neck, where my Adam's apple would be if I were a guy.

"I'm just saying-"

"This is my town we're talking about. Don't make me shove your own words back down your throat."

"Or up my ass," Spike snickers.

"Didn't know you were into that."

"I'm not, honey. But only for you."

I can't help but roll my eyes. Spike's endless flirting can get annoying after a while. He knows that we're destined to be just friends, and nothing more. But somewhere, subconsciously, he must think that if Taylor dies (God forbid), I might eventually have eyes for him too. It's not a possibility I'd rule out - I'm attracted to Y-chromosomes as well as double-X's. But right now, my heart only has room for Taylor.

I can't stay still very long, though. The main reason why Spike told me, time and time again, to not return to Wiseman has nothing to do with his hormonal nature. For once, it was his big brain, the one in his head, talking. He warned me that the Lumisi would recognize and remember my physical presence if they saw me again, and they would redouble their efforts to complete my transformation into an obedient superdrone.

However, my argument included a friendly reminder that I had the same ability to sense others with parasitic Lumisi cells in their DNA. Everyone in Wiseman has that power. It's how they really got their hooks into people - first, give them a taste of their hippie-dippy alien collective with the infection's waterborne first stage. People would not only start talking oh-so-reverently about a pantheon that almost sounded straight out of the pages of L. Ron Hubbard, but then they'd look at their neighbors as if for the first time, and feel all, "OMG free love at first sight! must b 1 w/every1!" Then, they'd use one well-placed plant to trick almost everyone (meaning, those without a nugget of doubt in their brains) into breathing in the chemicals containing the airborne final stage.

Spike, having been cured, no longer has either stage. And he's fine with that - he very strongly prefers to have dominion over his own mind.

Me, though...I could keep on using this unwanted gift a little while longer.

Finding Taylor proves easier than I expected. I mentioned the hippie-dippy collective thing before, and after that began, everyone started moving into each other's houses, getting into suddenly open relationships and shacking up with as many as eight or nine people to a two-bedroom bungalow. But once the full infection took root, the idea of sudden communism fled the townsfolks minds. Instead, the Lumisi overlords directed them to go about their business like normal. Their definition of "normal," surprisingly, was different from that of humans. The key change being that anyone who hadn't become a full member of this extraterrestrial community was to be hunted down and forcibly infected.

So, long story short, I make my way through town until I find Taylor where I expect her to be - in her house. It's a house I've visited countless times over the years. Unlike my parents (who turned me out of the house as soon as they could), hers were cool with her sexuality, and always considered me a welcome guest. I'm not used to the idea of sneaking into her room late at night like a lovestruck teenager. Or, in this case, a potential savior.

"Good thing you learned to climb walls," Spike laughs.

I stretch my Gecko Gloves (that's what I call them; they're not an officially trademarked name or anything) over my hands. These, I lifted from the guard at the one and only checkpoint on the strictly-enforced ten-mile exclusion zone around Wiseman. I had no problem enticing him to kiss me - which made him go to sleep. Inspired by a certain infamous comic-book movie of the late nineties, Spike supplied me with sedative-laden lipstick stolen from the military lab that's existed outside of town for the last year or so.

What can I say? It pays sometimes to have a hacker and a thief on your side.

The gloves help me stick to the stucco on the outside of Taylor's house for the climb to her second-story window. From here, I have to use one hand to keep myself glued to the wall, awkwardly hanging fifteen feet off the ground. The other hand, I use to pop open her window with a knife.

Inside, the moon illuminates Taylor's sleeping form. Even as a Lumisi puppet, she looks the same as ever. Red hair down to her shoulders, framing her face. Her lips turned down - what I used to affectionately call her "sleeping bitch face." Her chest expanding and contracting ever so slightly as she breathes. That was my favorite part of spending the night with her - feeling her breath, feeling her heartbeat against my back.

That's what I need to feel again. That's why I need to rescue her first.

I wake her up as I always used to wake her up - by stroking her cheek with the back of my hand.

She snaps awake much faster than she ever did as a human. Then she gasps, and I have to clap my hands over her mouth right away before she screams. "Shh! Taylor, it's me!" I hiss.

"Kiss her, you fool," Spike says. "Then get your asses to the lake."

"Taylor?" She blinks in response to her name. "Taylor, do you remember me?" She nods. "Good. I told you I'd save you, didn't I?"

She mumbles something I can't hear through my hand, so I lower it. "Save me from what?" she asks, her voice still sounding the same, but her eyes looking so...dead and inhuman. "Being a part of something greater?"

"Who needs something greater when they've got you?"

"Why does nobody ever tell me that?" Spike asks.

I lean forward and whisper, "Taylor, you're not gonna be a Lumisi anymore. You'll be human, 'cause you were born that way, and that's how you should be."

"Did you know Lady Gaga's one of us?"

"Why does that not surprise me?"

I don't have time for this - not with the sounds of footsteps in the hallway outside. "Sorry, baby." I kiss her, allowing the cute poison coating my lips to seep into her gums and put her to sleep. Then I lock the door and pick her up - being half a foot taller than her helps - and lower her slowly out the window. Not too slowly, though - her parents are rattling the handle, trying in vain to get in. Unsure of how long it'll be until they think to break down the door, I lean out as much as I can, then drop Taylor with her feet still halfway to the ground. The hydrangea bush, being in full flower, easily breaks her fall. I jump out and land right next to her right when the door gets kicked in.

"You gonna move or what?" Spike asks as I catch my breath. "Next thing you know, they're gonna call all their neighbors, and there's gonna be a reckoning."

"Wayward Pines this ain't," I say. "There's a world beyond this town, Dean, and I need to bring Taylor back to it."

"Using my real name, are we? My, my, things must be getting serious." Spike sighs. "Just hurry up! I can't keep the boat idling indefinitely on the lake forever!"

"Fire up the engines," I say, lifting Taylor and draping her unconscious form over my shoulder. "I'll be there in five minutes."

"If you're lucky."

Five minutes later, we're still a few hundred feet short of the lake. But I can't go any further, because the Lumisi of Wiseman have swarmed onto Lakeshore Street, blocking our way. To make matters worse, Taylor wakes up and jumps off my shoulder, then punches me in the face.

I don't process that for a full four seconds. Even then, I'm stunned. Taylor Leonard, the one I've loved more than any other, getting that violent with me? When I see the dead look in her eyes shift to one of disgust, one that screams, "You rebel scum!", I burst into tears. It's not a tactic to sway her into sympathizing with me - it's genuine.

"How...?" I ask.

"You should've surrendered with me," Taylor says. "We could've been happy together."

"We w-were happy-"

"No. You've never known true happiness. As a human, you're not enlightened en-"

She stops short, then turns around, as does everyone else at the approach of a throbbing engine. It's Spike on his speedboat. Well, not his speedboat, but you get the point.

Speaking of pointing, that's what he's doing with a gun - presumably stolen from a guard patrolling the other side of the perimeter, across the lake. He's pointing it directly at the Lumisi crowd.

"You want me to shoot?" he calls out. "'Cause I will! I shit you not!"

They don't listen until he really does shoot. It's a warning shot - or he really does miss, firing at an angle just high enough that the bullet narrowly misses everyone's heads before impacting on the brick face of the Chamber of Commerce.

Two such "warning shots" later, and even alien mind control can't overcome the human instinct for self-preservation. Every Lumisi, except Taylor, runs away screaming in fear.

Taylor only doesn't run because I grab her and steer her over to the water. She thrashes and cries for help the whole time.

"That's what we're here for, dammit!" Spike says in response, raising his eyebrows. He jumps off the boat and walks through a few feet of shallow water up to the sandy beach, where he meets me and Taylor. A syringe is in his hand. He gets rid of any air bubbles, then injects the translucent white antidote into her neck.

She yelps, but then relaxes as the cure seeps into her bloodstream. It relaxes her - I think the cocktail includes a generous serving of the same sedative in my lipstick. Spike's said he himself went to sleep for about ten minutes or so when he was cured.

With his help, I lay Taylor on the bench seat near the speedboat's stern. Behind us, the Lumisi have been left reeling and dizzy by her cure. I'm not sure why it doesn't just spread through the mental link they all have between them, but if saving Spike wasn't enough to save them all...

"Go!" I yell at Spike.

"Gladly." He guns the throttle and takes off onto the water.

While we speed across the lake, I nestle on the bench seat behind Taylor, lying on my side just as she's lying on hers. Normally, she'd be the big spoon, but not tonight. Tonight, it's my turn to hold her. To make her feel warm and safe and loved, should she wake up in tears.

Which is exactly what she does when we get to the other side of the lake. According to my watch, it's been eight minutes since we left town. Now it's two minutes to midnight, which is the point when the guards change on the perimeter. The searchlights will go out for one minute - thirty seconds for the guards leaving their posts to climb down from their towers, and thirty seconds for the next set to climb up.

I place my finger on Taylor's lips to shush her. "We're almost outta here," I whisper. "Be quiet and follow us." Spike's already off the boat and back on land, combat-crawling towards the fence, then stopping before he can get within range of the searchlights.

We follow him, reaching his side just as the lights go out. Then we get to our feet and make a full-tilt run for the fence - even Taylor, who's just been sedated twice in less than ten minutes. Adrenaline, I bet. The fence is normally electrified, but Spike took care of that on his way in, cutting a hole in it and sticking rubber caps on the exposed wires so we could get back out.

We run a few hundred feet more, then stop to catch our breath. I embrace Taylor tightly, then pull back and hold her face while I gaze into her eyes. "I told you," I say. "I told you I'd be-"

"Uh...ladies?" The pitch of Spike's voice rises as harsh light shines in his face, reflecting off his almond-shaped eyes and interminably messy hair - the source of his nickname.

The petrified look in Taylor's gray eyes is a mixed sign, both good and bad. Good because it means she's back to normal, bad because she thinks we're fucked.

I turn around as the uniformed military guys yell, "Freeze!" and aim their guns at us.

We put our hands up and get on our knees - I'm between the other two - then a tall, handsome guy with dark features strides out in front of us and orders the other soldiers to lower their weapons.

"You sure, Chief?" one of his subordinates asks.

"Do it," Chief says. I can't read his name - he must have it printed on his jacket or something, but with the lights all pointing over his shoulder from behind, it can't be seen.

Chief walks in front of us, addressing us all by name. "Dean Nakamura. Sarah Elden. Taylor Leonard. You kids think you're so smart, don't you?"

"Maybe not," Spike spits, "but we've got bigger balls than all of you assbutts put together."

I knit my eyebrows at Chief. "We did what you never could - we saved someone from those aliens!"

"Aliens?" Chief scratches his head. "What aliens?"

"Don't give us the classified Patriot-Act bullshit," I say. "You know who we're talking about - the goddamn Lumisi!"

"Oh, those," Chief laughs. "Sorry, my bad. That's what you kids say these days, right?"

"Yeah," Taylor says. "Those. Can I cross my arms?"

"Asking permission to show defiance," Chief says. "That's a first." He leans down so he can look her in the eye directly, at her level. "Didn't you ever wonder why we never saved the people of Wiseman from the aliens? Truth is...they don't exist. You guys are part of a classified experiment - neither Patriot Act nor bullshit, I might add. And in your case, it's...failed. Again."

"Liar!" we yell simultaneously.

Unfazed, Chief turns around and walks back behind the line of his men. "Take them back to town. And if they get free...well, I authorized lethal force ten escape attempts ago. Why none of you have acted on that approval yet mystifies me."

Three men step forward and cock their guns. I instinctively grab first Taylor's hand, then Spike's, before screaming, "GO TO HELL, MOTHERFUCKERS!"

Three men pull their triggers.

Chemical-tipped bullets bury themselves in our shoulders.

Taylor slumps, her light body falling unconscious first. Spike and I hit the grassy ground at roughly the same time, and then I know no more.