To her immense relief, the phone continued to buzz down there on the carpet out of sight. She rushed down to retrieve it before Dee Dee hung up. Only ...t wasn't DeeDee calling, but her mom."I'm okay," she assured her frantic mother."Are you sure? Is the house okay? Melissa, the building next door to us collapsed!"Melissa was half-horrified at the news. As horrified as any ninth-grader can be about anything not affecting she or her friends directly."I'm fine, Mom, I'm fine. There's a crack in the. He was deep behind enemy lines, completely out of contact with command, and he had no hope of rescue. He was going to have to walk out of here under his own power, and if this alien really did know the Covenant’s patrol routes, then she might be his only ticket out of his mess. Besides, if he said no, she’d probably just crush him like a soda can.“A’ight,” he replied. Her yellow eyes seemed to widen beneath the brim of her helmet, and then she slowly lowered him to the floor. He paused to pick. And..." (a shudder seemed to wrack her body) " ... obedient." And when I count to three, you will awaken. And all the things I have told you will be true for the rest of the night. You will accept them as real and undeniable, and you will not try to resist them. One, two, three."She blinked up at me, shuddered, and again leaned forward into me, her "bound" wrists lowered so that she pressed as much of her naked body into mine as possible. "Oh, Rod, what have you done?" she whispered."I've done. .. I wanted to drop by and say thank you..." I got out, nervously."Oh!" There was another long pause, "Andrew! You surprised me; won't you come in?"I handed her the flowers and she fussed about, finding a vase, crushing the stems and putting them in water."I ... didn't expect you back so soon..." her voice had a sort of forced cheerfulness that I didn't believe."I promised Zeke to call back," I explained, "how is he?"She ... collapsed. Oh, not physically; she stayed on her feet, though she.