A nurse and an alien battle for trust in a devastated world Laurel is a nurse working in her hometown hospital when disaster strikes. Aliens from planet Progg-Res attack Earth, vaporizing most of the population from huge spaceships. Then ground troops march town to town, house to house, eliminating the rest. Laurel survives by hiding out in a cave, living day by day hoping to evade detection. After many months of quiet, she dares to venture out. And finds a critically wounded Progg man in the woods. Instinct tells her to finish him off, but she can’t bring herself to kill in cold blood. Besides, he’s going to die anyway. However, she worries that leaving his body for his comrades to find will bring them too close to the hiding place that has served her well, so she drags the Progg’s body back to the cave. Unfortunately, the alien scum survives and throws her into a dilemma. She can’t keep him prisoner forever, which means she has to release him and risk her life—or kill him. Death at the hand of the enemy is an honorable one, but to his shame, Grav doesn’t want to die. Although he’s an aide to the admiral in charge of the Earth campaign, he’s never killed anyone, never even discharged his vaporizer. But he doesn’t think that will matter to the young human woman who took him hostage and looks at him with revulsion in her eyes. The only thing he can do is try to build a rapport and convince her he’s harmless in hopes she’ll see him as a person and not one of the hated aliens who killed her family. If he can’t, he’s afraid he’s in deep trouble. Because he suspects she won’t release him. Which only leaves one other option. Can two people bitterly divided by fear and loathing bridge the gap and trust one another so they both can survive?