[00:00:00.170] – Danielle Forrest
So here’s a quick sneak peek of today’s episode. She took off at a dead run, racing for the back door. Her footing was unsteady as she reached the pavers, but she barely let that slower down, her focus completely on the closed doors between her and safety. A loud, sharp crack of noise disturbed the silence behind her. She flinched, then slammed up against the glass.
[00:00:17.640] – Danielle Forrest
Wait, someone said, their deep voice far too close for comfort. She scrambled for the door handle, but her panic was making her hands shake and she couldn’t get a good grip. Stop, please. She ignored the words, instead yanking on the handle the moment her fingers finally.
[00:00:32.860] – Danielle Forrest
Curled around it, but it didn’t budge.
[00:00:35.810] – Danielle Forrest
Instead rocking back and forth in its frame. Hi, my name is Danielle Forrest, and on this channel I do videos about myself, my writing, and anything related to those topics. Today we are doing episode nine of Fated Mates of the Drakoan. Last time on Fated Mates of the Drakoan Jess had just spotted an alien outside of her window. Let’s see what happens next.
[00:00:59.250] – Danielle Forrest
“Jess? What’s wrong?”
She heard the words, but for the life of her, she couldn’t tell who had spoken them. Her ears were ringing with her own scream and the pounding of her heart in her chest. He was staring at her through the window, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him.
How can he be here?
How did he find me?
But those questions were irrelevant. What was more important was that he had found her. He was here. And she still didn’t know if he was a good guy or a bad guy.
Considering he followed me back home, I’m leaning toward bad guy.
“Jess?” Someone touched her shoulder, and she jumped.
“Sorry,” she said, finally looking away and over at Amanda, who was staring at her with concern in her eyes. Jess turned back to the window, and her heart lurched in her chest. He was gone. She jerked forward, Amanda’s hand slipping from her shoulder, and scoured the scene for any trace of him, but her view from the window was still and quiet, not a person in sight.
Did I imagine it?
“Jess?”
She opened her mouth, her first impulse being to tell the truth, but what was the truth? She snapped it closed again, starting to question her own sanity a little.
No one else has seen them.
The panic and urgency she’d been feeling slowly drained out of her as the moments ticked by, and she gave the vista one final peruse, not sure if she hoped she would see him or not see him.
Am I losing my mind?
She didn’t think she was. But could you ever be certain?
Jess turned away from the window, taking in the expressions of concern on her friends’ faces. In that moment, she knew she couldn’t tell them what she’d seen. So instead, she shrugged, trying to smile and laugh it off. “I guess I’m just a little jumpy.”
Amanda leaned in, wrapping her arms around her and hugging her, then rocking her back and forth as she always seemed to do. “It’s okay. We’ve got you. Nothing bad’s gonna happen, no matter how scary it is outside. Anything could happen…”
Yeah, like an alien following you home.
She didn’t say that, though.
Amanda leaned back. “…but here, you’re safe.” She smiled.
Jess wanted to contradict her, but she also didn’t want to scare her friends, especially if it really had been a figment of her imagination. So instead, she said, “I just need some time to myself.” She shrugged out of Amanda’s hold, then looked around her. “See you guys in the morning?”
Amanda nodded, a fragile smile on her face as Jess turned away, intending to go up to her room.
But she stopped at the bottom of the stairs, a thought occurring to her.
A lot of the windows are open.
Even the ones that were closed weren’t exactly military grade. She could break one with very little effort. If that alien hadn’t been her imagination, the house was no protection at all. For a brief moment, the fear from earlier returned. She reached out, gripping the stair railing. The smooth wood pressed hard into the flesh of her hand as she became lightheaded, her vision narrowing alarmingly.
She reached out, slamming a hand into the wall. “Stop this,” she whispered to herself, taking in a ragged breath. She pressed harder, trying to feel in control again through sheer force of will. “This is not helping,” she said under her breath. “This type of fear helps no one. Face your fears.” She took in and let out another deep breath. “What am I afraid of?”
Her mind went blank, and she realized she didn’t have an answer.
My God, am I just freaking myself out over nothing?
With that thought, the tension in her body suddenly dissolved. Her jaw relaxed, and she let go of the railing and wall. She stood up straight once more, looking around her like she didn’t even recognize her surroundings. “Why am I afraid?” she whispered.
Why was seeing an alien scary? When she thought back on it, she realized none of the aliens had been terribly threatening. They’d looked military, but while they’d been carrying weapons, they’d held those weapons with lax grips, like they weren’t expecting a fight.
And more recently, the one staring in at her hadn’t even been holding a weapon. His hands had been empty.
Truth be told, none of them had made any threatening gestures toward her, even when they knew she was there.
She turned, leaning against the wall as she thought some more, her brow furrowing.
They could still be the bad aliens. She couldn’t dismiss that possibility, but if they were, why had that one shown up here? Why was he alone? If he had nefarious intentions, why did he just stand there?
She didn’t have any answers, but did that really matter? In the grand scheme of things, no one was ever truly safe. You could drop dead of an aneurism, never knowing it was even a risk. You could get hit by a car or die from a chunk of a skyscraper falling off and landing on your head. You could never anticipate all the dangers in life. You could just try to be as careful as possible while also living your life with confidence. In fact, sometimes that very confidence was what kept you safe. After all, bad guys often chose their victims carefully. They were far more likely to choose someone skittish over someone confidently taking up space.
With that in mind, she pushed off the wall and changed directions, passing through the kitchen and onto the sliding glass doors. She stared out into the growing dimness, seeing no one and nothing in the familiar space.
Prove it to yourself, Jess.
Prove you’re not afraid.
Jess took in one final slow, deep breath, then pushed the door aside. She stood there for a moment, a light breeze touching her face while insects chirped before her and her friends’ constant voices hummed behind her. If she were letting fear get to her, she could have been alarmed by the shadowy corners, imagining all the things they could conceal. She could obsess over the sections of the house’s back wall currently hidden from her view, places where an alien could easily hide, invisible until it was too late.
She forced a laugh past her vocal cords, determined to make light of those imaginings.
No one’s in the backyard, Jess.
Don’t be silly.
Prove you’re not afraid.
You’ve got this.
She stepped out onto the uneven pavers, then turned to close the door behind her, determined not to be a chicken by giving herself an easy way out. Even if the alien had been outside the window, what were the chances that he’d not only stuck around, but that he’d snuck into their backyard like a pervert? That was just silly. He was clearly a soldier. That was the type of antics teenagers got up to, not fully grown adults.
She continued forward, passing the picnic table where they’d eaten dinner and the smoker, which was still belching sweet-smelling aromas into the air. The pavers quickly ended, and she stepped onto the grass, which was showing some yellow spots where it had not received enough water lately.
Jess looked down at the grass. Then on an impulse, she kicked off her shoes, savoring the feel of the cool blades on her bare soles, letting it ground her in the moment. She imagined her fear slowly oozing down her body, down her legs, into her feet, then out into the soil. She sighed as the weight of it seemed to evaporate, making her feel like herself for the first time in hours.
With a smile and a new lightness to her step, she set her sights on a patio chair on the other side of the yard. She crossed the intervening distance with rapid strides, then settled into the chair and leaned back, enjoying the way the last rays of daylight silhouetted the house’s outline before her. For the first time in days, she honestly felt like maybe everything would turn out all right. This wasn’t just empty reassurances like she’d been giving her friends. No, she truly felt this. A calm settled over her.
She laughed. “Damn, why don’t I do this more often?”
Her career involved spending long stretches of time indoors, and it was pretty common for her to lose track of time. She would often look up to find that night had settled in around her while she wasn’t looking. She kept telling herself she would spend more time outside, that she would go for walks, spend time at the park, or sit out here with her friends, but it was just so easy to let time slip away from her, especially when she was most productive in the mornings and afternoons.
But here? In this chair? Sure, time was slipping away, but she didn’t care. In fact, the longer she sat there, the more her body seemed to melt into the chair and the more she forgot about why she’d been stressed in the first place. The color slowly leeched out of the sky and darkness settled in, but she was still hesitant to go inside. She watched the house as candles were lit and her friends wandered off to their beds. Meanwhile, crickets and other night creatures started serenading her in earnest, their voices swelling into an orchestra around her. She was tempted to sit out here until the mosquitos invariably ate her alive.
But it wasn’t the mosquitos that ended up disturbing her peace. It was a noise, both subtle and impossible to define. It shattered the stillness of the night like someone kicking over a metal trashcan. She tensed, and even the insects grew silent in the wake of it.
“Hello?” she said, sitting up straighter in her chair. The darkness had closed in around her. At some point, all the candles had been snuffed out inside the house, leaving only the moon and stars to illuminate her surroundings, neither of which was doing a terribly good job.
She waited, simultaneously hoping someone would answer and that no one would. Her mind drifted to the alien man she’d seen out front what felt like hours ago. Could he still be around? Had he been waiting for the perfect opportunity?
No.
She shook her head, frowning at her own silliness. Why would he have waited so long? Night had settled in quite a while ago, and she’d been sitting on this chair alone for even longer. If he’d had nefarious plans, he could have enacted them at any time. Her friends had been at the front of the house. They probably wouldn’t have heard a struggle.
Reassured by her reasoning, she began to settle back into her chair, still alert but starting to believe it had just been an animal. More than a couple of their neighbors had large dogs. A Great Dane, a lab, she thought there was even a husky down the street. Any one of them could have been let out into their own backyard for one final romp before bedtime. Maybe the sound had carried through the night air in a way she wasn’t used to. After all, she didn’t usually sit out in the dark.
As she let herself believe, her back unfurled, her shoulders gradually settling against the chair once more. Like a blanket settling over the night, the insects resumed their songs, the sound filling the air, and a yappy dog started barking in the distance. Everything felt so normal that it was hard to believe she was living through a global crisis.
But even with all her assurances, even with how normal everything felt, she just couldn’t settle into the peace she’d found before. She was now uncomfortably aware of every shadow and the dangers that could lurk within them.
Would it get darker? She looked up and around her. She could still see fairly well and didn’t think she would have trouble getting to the back door, but how long would that last? Was it already as dark as the night would get? Or would she soon find herself stumbling blindly as she tried to reach the house?
I should go inside.
Jess stood up. Her friends were already in bed, and they would probably be up banging around at the crack of dawn. She didn’t relish the idea of trying to sleep through that. She missed the days when they used to stay up until all hours playing games or chatting, but without electricity, there just wasn’t much to do once the sun set.
With a sigh, she bemoaned how things had changed as she took her first step, but then froze when the shadows to her left shifted, drawing her gaze. She didn’t move her head. Instead, like a startled animal, she focused on what she could see from the corners of her vision. She saw nothing at first.
I’m not afraid, she reminded herself. She knew that shadows could play tricks on her, that it was probably nothing but a bird or squirrel ruffling branches. She watched, waiting for some telltale sign, a reassurance that all was well. As she waited, she became keenly aware of just how far away the back door was. She wasn’t exactly a runner, and if that shadowy form was dangerous, she didn’t think she could make the door before it got to her.
Jess started moving again, her steps slow and steady as she kept her gaze on the potential threat posed by the shadowy movement. The longer she watched, the more her eyes adjusted. Gradually, she registered more detail. The outline of branches and leaves. The edges of the wooden fence. An empty pot laying on its side.
And something else, something that felt out of place, but didn’t at first have an assigned identity in her mind. It was the graceful curves that caught her attention. Too thick and smooth to be that of a tree and too big to be anything else from that end of the yard. It was silhouetted against the fence, eerily ominous in spite of its stillness.
But whatever it was, it was dark, blending partially into the shadows.
Feeling an urgent impulse to get inside, she picked up her pace. Her heart had got the message as well, now racing in her chest like George of the Jungle cranked up on java, making her feel on edge. But her brain still hadn’t put the pieces together yet.
Then she spotted that final piece. She noticed something swaying back and forth closer to the ground, like a low-hanging branch swaying in the breeze, and she froze one last time. She knew that movement. She’d seen that movement before.
It’s him!
She took off at a dead run, racing for the back door. Her footing was unsteady as she reached the pavers, but she barely let that slow her down, her focus completely on the closed doors between her and “safety.”
A loud, sharp crack of noise disturbed the silence behind her. She flinched, then slammed up against the glass.
“Wait!” someone said, their deep voice far too close for comfort.
She scrambled for the door handle, but her panic was making her hands shake, and she couldn’t get a good grip.
“Stop, please.”
She ignored the words, instead yanking on the handle the moment her fingers finally curled around it, but it didn’t budge, instead rocking back and forth in its frame.
Shit. I forgot.
She tried again, but finesse was outside of her skill set at the moment, and it rocked again but didn’t open. “Damn it!” She turned around. He was practically right behind her, his form looming impossibly large and backlit by the moon, so she could see nothing but his shadowed outline.
Her entire body ran cold, and for a moment, she could barely breathe. She pressed back against the smooth glass of the sliding door, her hand losing its grip on the handle.
What do I do?
He was too close. There was no way she could get inside before he was on her.
Her mind scrambled for options. The front door? Probably locked. An open window? He would just follow her. No phones, so no calling the police. None of her friends had any self defense or martial arts training. Hell, the bulkiest of them was probably Scottie, and he wouldn’t harm a fly.
I’m fucked.
No, think, damn it. There has to be something.
Then she remembered. One of her neighbors was a cop. She’d never met them, but she remembered seeing the patrol car in their front drive from time to time. It was the corner lot, and so far away that she couldn’t for the life of her imagine reaching it before she was caught, but it was her only chance.
Fuck it.
She pushed off from the door, racing off the patio and into the night.
You’ll never make it.
She tried to push that voice out of her mind, but when she passed the corner of the house, she heard a large form barreling after her and all hope fled her.
I’m not gonna make it.
[00:16:29.630] – Danielle Forrest
Thank you for watching to the end of this video. I hope you enjoyed it.
[00:16:32.340] – Danielle Forrest
What did you think? What do you think is going to happen next?
[00:16:35.230] – Danielle Forrest
Leave a comment below.
[00:16:36.990] – Danielle Forrest
So, if you hadn’t noticed, I got a new tablet.
[00:16:39.860] – Danielle Forrest
My old one decided to kick the bucket, and so I decided to get a new one. But it was full of drama. First, it took them days to ship out. Then when I got it, the thing wasn’t what I’d ordered, so I had to exchange it. To make matters worse, my old tablet was under constant threat of dying for good at this time, falling into DFU mode every time the device powered down.
[00:16:59.910] – Danielle Forrest
But fortunately, that’s all over now and I got this adorable little tablet, which is working perfectly. Anyway, that’s all I have for now. If you liked the video, consider giving it a like and subscribing to the channel and hitting the bell if you want notifications and if you want to connect with me and my content in other places, you can find links to my various social media accounts in the video’s description, along with places where you can find my stories and books online. Most of my stories are available for sale in ebook, paperback and hardcover formats, and if you’re the type of person who just can’t way, you can get early access to my stories on my Ream subscription, which also includes most of my back catalog with the subscription. Ream is five episodes ahead with Fated Mates of the Drakoan, and I’m currently sharing my unedited WIP of Match to the Alien Captain. Anyway, until next time, here’s a few things you can watch while you’re waiting for my next video.
[00:17:50.180] – Danielle Forrest
And bye.
