by C. L. Stone
I rushed forward and tried to hit him in the head. He darted left. No one had ever taught me how to fight, and I was not a natural study.
He grabbed me by the wrist and slammed me down on the couch. I tried with the toothbrush. Nothing worked. By then he had me totally pinned. Okay, I’d tried and this was happening. It would not break me. I would not let it.
A loud explosion sounded, and the ship dipped left. I fell over and so did Phil. Several more explosions went off, and my captor and would-be rapist ran for the console. He stared down.
“How the fuck did they find me?”
Who? I wasn’t going to ask him. I had a chance. There had to be a way to escape. I ran toward where he ate. Pots were heavy. I was going to bash him over the head.
I came up short. On the wall was something I’d never imagined seeing. A woman, a dead woman, with her eyes popped out, hung by her wrists over the stove. I gasped and nearly threw up in my hands. What kind of sicko was this? Why would he have done this?
“They think they’re getting you back; they have another thing coming.”
He smacked me hard against the cheek. I hadn’t seen it coming, and the truth was I couldn’t have blocked it if I had. I hit the ground hard.
“Hey.” A voice I hadn’t expected to hear caught both of our attention. Quinn McQueen stood a distance away. How had he gotten on the ship? I cried out, reaching for him. I’d never been so glad to see anyone in my life. The room spun from where Phil had slapped me.
“I’m Quinn Sandler. I heard you were looking for me. You took something that belongs to my family. We want her back. Now.” He raised his gun and, before Phil could even react, Quinn shot Phil in the head. Phil dropped to the ground in front of me, dead.
I shrieked and darted backwards. A second later, I was in Quinn’s arms.
“P? Talk to me. Are you okay?”
I’d never have imagined Quinn killing anyone. Not like that. I was glad he’d done it, but damn and … I didn’t care. I threw my arms around his neck.
“Oh thank you. Quinn. He was going to … hurt me.”
His eyes were hard. “Did he?”
“No. I tried to defend myself. With the soap dish. A toothbrush.”
He kissed my cheeks, both of them. “We’re going to teach you. First we’re getting out of this awful place. Paloma. You can’t know … I’ll tell you on our ship.”
Just then the ship shook. He rushed to the control panel, still holding onto my hand. “Oh damn. The fucker. He set autodestruct. Come on. Now.”
I ran to keep up with him. Quinn closed the door behind us. “Sit fast. We have to get out before the ship explodes.”
Why was he alone? This seemed really strange to me. “So glad to see you. Don’t get me wrong. But why are you doing this? Doesn’t seem your role.”
“You’re not wrong.” He grinned and pressed some buttons. “Tommy had to attack the ship so I could dock unnoticed. Keith and Clay are leading the other bounty hunters away from here. The Finder always has two trailing him. So you got me. Don’t worry about it. As you saw, I am capable of handling the dark stuff. Particularly for you.”
We jolted as Quinn rushed us into space. The explosion that followed us was loud but not as loud as the one I’d had in the pod. I covered my ears just the same.
“Hold on,” he yelled at me. “We’re going to take the edge of it.”
The ship flip-flopped back and forth before it started to spin. I cried out, and Quinn narrowed his gaze at the console. “He had some sort of explosives on there. It’s dinged us. We’re in a tailspin.”
“What do we do?” Had he gotten me off just for us to die?
“Tommy.” Quinn sounded calm when he spoke into the comm. “I’ve got P. Ship blew. It’s dinged us. Gravity of planet Joker 4 is pulling us in. We’re going down.”
We were? I sat up, and he tsked at me. “Put your seatbelt on.”
Tommy’s voice came over. “You know the protocol. The ship will hold. Make contact at the bottom. You got this, Quinn.”
I really hoped he did because we were going to crash land. “Quinn?”
He winked at me before he grabbed the controls. “Going to be a great story to tell our kids someday.”
9
Crash and Burn
I don’t remember much about what happened after that. Sometime with all the spinning, loud signals, and explosions, I passed out. I woke up strapped in my chair. We were still in the shuttle, finally on the ground, and the alarm was going off endlessly. I managed to lift my head even though it throbbed. Quinn was still strapped in his chair as well; he was out cold, his head hanging down. Something must have hit him in the forehead. He bled a steady stream down his cheek.
Although it took some effort, I unhooked myself from the chair and managed not to stumble forward onto my face. I got around some of the debris and made my way over to Quinn. I touched his shoulder, but he didn’t rouse. My heartrate kicked up in alarm. How hurt was he? I felt for his pulse and found it. Still, he didn’t move.
“Quinn.” No response. I wanted to scream. We’d crash-landed who knew where, and he was seriously hurt. I breathed in through my nose. Screaming wouldn’t help anything, and I knew from my first days with the Sisters it got me absolutely nowhere. Quinn needed help. It was just the two of us.
But first things first, I had to get the alarm off so I could think. I pushed some buttons on the control panel, and eventually it stopped.
“Okay, Quinn. Now that I can think, I can help you. Not that I can fix your concussion. But the medical machine, it can. Then you can wake up and not die. I can’t let you die.” I forced myself to stop going down that line of thinking. “I’m going to live in the now. I’m not good at it. I always think of everything two steps ahead, even when that thinking does me no good. I get down the road, and I see there’s no way out.”
The trick was going to be getting unconscious Quinn into the machine. I was strong, but this was going to push even me. I grabbed him under the shoulders, trying to keep his head pressed against my chest. I didn’t need to make things worse.
“Hold on.” I kissed the top of his head gently. “We can’t screw up your big brain. We need you to mentally beat the shit out of your father. I’ve kind of met him now. Or seen him over the view-screen. I hate him even more than I did when he was just a description.”
It took me an endless amount of time to get Quinn to the machine. I lay him down on the ground. I couldn’t lift him into the machine, but fortunately it lowered down to the ground. Someone had been smart when they designed it. As gently as I could, I rolled him inside. A doctor would know which buttons to push, which instructions to give it when it came to making him well again.
I had the skills to push go and hope it followed directions. Sometimes the machine couldn’t fix what was wrong. Humans still died from injuries. The machine could only fix things if they weren’t too far gone.
I really hoped Quinn didn’t fall into that realm.
In the meantime, I could clean up some of the mess. Tommy would come for us just as soon as he could. He wouldn’t leave us here, and he’d be able to manage things when he did. I needed to keep my hands busy.
Or I could try to figure out how to use the com system …
A groan sounded in the room a second before the shelving system above my head came down on me. This time I didn’t pass out. I felt every second of the assault on my person by shelves. I cried out, tears pressing from my eyes. My legs were pinned beneath the mess, and I wasn’t getting anywhere. The pain was immense.
I pounded my hand on the floor. “Damn it, Tommy. Not a great design. Shelving units that fall when you crash.”
He was obviously not around to hear my complaint. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through the ache that travelled up my leg. The medical machine buzzed. Quinn might be in there for days.
Time slowed to an aching crawl. Every so often I’d try to push the shelves off me, but something heavy in the middle tha
t I couldn’t see kept me from moving.
At some point, my body shut off the pain. I couldn’t feel it anymore, and I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Loud noises pounded on the roof of the shuttle. There must be some serious weather happening, which was why I hadn’t seen Tommy yet.
Unless Tommy was dead.
I bit my lip. “I’m doing it again. I’m not living in the moment. Why would Tommy be dead? The bounty hunter died. Quinn shot him in the head. They handled it.”
I closed my eyes and let my mind wander. My thoughts were strange, which might have concerned me if I could have done anything about it. My mother didn’t cook much, but the chicken soup she rehydrated filled my thoughts. It had smelled like home until they’d ripped that away from me. She used to hum when she got dressed. I would sit on her bed and watch her. She’d stroke each item of clothing before she selected it.
No one on the station was as beautiful as my mother, not even Melissa Alexander. When she moved, men noticed. But she’d only had eyes for my father. She loved him. When he came to her family to court her—his first visit on Earth—she’d known he would be her one and only.
My father hadn’t loved her much. She’d been a means to an end. A political connection he needed. His family hadn’t been on our side of the black hole that long. My mother was old Earth. To some, it still made a difference.
Somehow, she never noticed. But I did.
I wondered what my mother would do if her leg was stuck under a shelving unit.
I passed out.
“P, wake up.” Quinn’s voice tugged at me, and I tried to ignore it. Awake meant pain. Sleep was better.
I heard loud noises as things were being moved, and then a surge of discomfort followed by a horrible assault on my nerves forced me awake.
“Quinn …” I didn’t so much speak his name as pant it.
“Hold on. What the hell were you doing? Why was I in that machine when you were out here? You’re going to explain things.”
I grabbed onto his shirt. “Shelves. Fell.”
“Fuck.” He scooped me up, and then I was in the machine. He shut it. I imagined that, like me, he’d hit run and hope it did what it needed to. I refused to look. If it had to regrow bone, I’d rather not know. The sedative hit me.
In what felt like minutes, but what must have been days, the machine opened. Quinn stood on the other side of it, staring down at me. He was okay. His head had been bleeding. I reached up to touch the spot, and he didn’t even wince.
“Hi, handsome.”
He smiled before he leaned over to press his forehead to mine. “You scared the shit out of me. I thought you were dead.”
“You scared me too.” I still felt sleepy. The drugs had been heavy. “I’m going to throw up probably. I don’t do well with any of this. As soon as they start to wear off, I’m going to get dizzy and puke.”
He helped me sit up. “I spent the last day cleaning. I think you were under those shelves a long time. Scared me. Sorry I keep saying that, P. You can’t die. Okay? Between you getting taken and this? I can’t … I’ll talk more about it when I can think. I can’t think through this kind of fear. Sit on the couch. Part of it survived the crash. I can’t get the guys on the line. Rough weather.” I couldn’t have gotten a word in edgewise if I’d wanted to. He laid me back on the couch and then brought over a garbage can. He sat down on the floor next to me. “Let me know when you start to feel sick. I’ll bring you a washcloth.”
“Right now I feel sleepy. Have you rested? At all? You had a head injury. You need to rest.”
“I woke up to find you nearly dead on the floor, and the med had to regrow your bone and reattach it. You’ll have to excuse me if I feel wide awake.” He looked down at his feet. “May never sleep again.”
Well, I needed to. The machine was great until it made me lethargic and then sick. I wasn’t going to complain. It had regrown my leg.
“I require more sleep, and I can’t do it alone. I’ve been kidnapped, hurt, threatened, and injured. Could you maybe hold me a little bit? Stay on the couch with me. Even if you’re not going to sleep.”
He jumped to his feet and scooted over until he lay on the couch and held me on top of him. “The cuddle will be good for me, too.”
Quinn smelled familiar. I breathed in his male scent. “My mother used to hum when she picked out her clothes. Funny memory. It was all I could think about when I was under the shelf.”
“Really? What did she hum?”
“A song from her childhood. She told me it didn’t have words.” I hummed a little bit of it. “I’m not a mother. I might never be. Who knows what will happen with my life? I wonder how she let me go. My father, okay. I get him. He never liked us as more than chess pieces to move around. Daughters are collateral. But my mom?”
He nuzzled his head against mine. “Almost dying makes us all reminisce, makes us think about what was and what may be. All I know is I love you. You belong to all of us. That man took you. He took you.” Quinn’s body vibrated.
“I know. And I was there when you came in and rescued me. Then you took the shelves off me and saved my life. You did that. I needed you, and you came. I need you now, too. Can you help me?”
He kissed my temple. “Sleep, P. I’m here for you.”
I believed him. Sleep was soft. Until it wasn’t.
I woke with a start, knowing the room spun and I was going to lose my lunch. Quinn snored lightly under me. He’d fallen asleep. That was great. Maybe he could stay that way while I lost my lunch.
Or whatever was left in my system after days of eating almost nothing with the psycho who held me.
I darted off his lap and knelt in front of the bucket. A second later, Quinn was behind me. “Is it bad?”
“Do me the favor of not watching, okay? Don’t argue on this one. Quinn, please. I wouldn’t watch you puke if you didn’t want me to.”
He groaned. “All right. I’m going to see if I can find a way to finally reach my brothers. Call out if you need something. I don’t have a problem with puke. Not after seeing you on the ground or in the hands of that bounty hunter. Puke is nothing.”
I was glad he felt that way. When the first waves of nausea hit me, I was really glad he wasn’t there to watch.
Hours later, I’d cleaned up what I could and used the shower to clean myself up. I sat on the floor by the couch.
Quinn poked his head around the corner. “You can’t possibly have anything else left in your stomach.”
I nodded. “Empty. See? I wasn’t kidding about the drugs and my stomach.”
He scooted down next to me. “Are you hungry?”
“Not in the least. Did you reach the others?” I touched his head again in the spot where he’d been hurt, and he grinned at me.
“I didn’t. Still not signal.” He rubbed the part of his head that had been bleeding when I first woke up after the crash. “I have a hard head. Tough to kill me. And I managed to get us down before I got smacked by something.” He lay back, his head on the couch. “I’m so glad I woke up in time. When I think …”
I smoothed my hand over his lips. “Don’t think. I washed up. Shouldn’t smell too bad.” Without giving it any more thought, I kissed him. Quinn had been distant since he started working on beating his father. He wasn’t now.
Immediately, he was kissing me back. His hands roamed my back, and his breath sped up. I moved until I was on his lap, straddling him. He moaned against my mouth and then flipped me over until I was on the ground and he was above me.
Quinn must like to be in charge. I didn’t mind it at all.
“I’m always going to take care of you. From now on. No one will hurt you, P. Not while I’m alive.”
He kissed me again. I could feel his erection pressing into my stomach. He was hard but not hurried. Quinn seemed content to kiss, and I let myself get lost in his embrace.
Soon his hips were moving as he kissed me. He sucked in his breath, and our lips met
hard. I moaned as he thrust against me. I spread my legs. We were still clothed, but I wanted the movement, craved the feel of his hardness against me.
“Paloma.” He spoke my name low, more like a growl than a word, and went back to kissing me. I had no doubt about what his kisses meant—this was a claiming. I raised my hips to meet his thrusts. We were both breathing hard, and this was fully dressed. How much more intense would it be if we were naked?
“Hell.” He kissed the side of my face, my neck. “I’m going to come from this alone.”
My body buzzed with excitement. “I’d love to make you come. I’d love nothing more.”
A loud bang sounded when the outside door opened with a whoosh. “Everyone alive?”
Quinn groaned, pressing his forehead to mine. “Keith always has the worst timing. Hold that thought.”
His twin stared down at us. “Looks like fun. Can we pick it back up on the ship? All together.”
“No. Get your own time.” Quinn rolled over with a grimace and stood. “She almost died. It was bad. And that bounty hunter. Never been so glad for someone to die.”
“Tell me about it on my shuttle. This one’s going to stay here. I’ll blow it before we go.”
I let Quinn help me up. I sighed. “Tommy needs to be told about the shelving units.”
Keith extended his arms, and I walked into them. A second later, Quinn hugged me from the other end. A McQueen sandwich was a good place to be.
The trip from Keith’s shuttle to the main one was uneventful. I had a hard time keeping my eyes open. Eventually, Quinn picked me up and set me in his lap. Keith held my hand. I was out like a light.
I woke to lowered voices. Clay sat on the edge of my bed. He grinned when I sat up and tugged him against me. “You gave me a heart attack.”
“Not like I chose to get taken. It wasn’t a decision I made.”
He pressed me down on the bed, his body on top of mine. “You are going to be pretty much attached to one of us from now on. No more pods. No more separation. We are going to be practically conjoined to you from this moment on.”
