Captive (The Survival Race)

by K. M. Fawcett

  She was going to have children when she was ready. There was no way she would chance an “oops” happening. Yet here she was...unmarried, pregnant, and resentful.

  Apparently an apple doesn’t fall far no matter where in the universe it lands.

  Still, as angry as she was with Max and her situation, the baby was a part of her and she couldn’t just give it up. Not to Tess. And certainly not to Ferly Mor. She had to protect her baby from the alien.

  But how?

  Addy tossed the glass shards into the trash before sweeping the smaller pieces into the dustpan. She needed to change the subject before she went crazy thinking about her choices, or lack thereof.

  “What happened when the aliens realized you couldn’t...” Addy didn’t need to finish the sentence.

  Tess wiped the floor with a wet rag as she spoke. “Well, I had two more cycles with the same man and one with another. During my fourth miscarriage, I hemorrhaged so much I bled to death. After that, Ferly Mor never brought me to a breeding box.”

  “You died?” Having worked with emergency medical personnel, she’d known a few cases where people have been revived with CPR or defibrillation. But they’d never talked so casually about their experience like Tess did.

  “For nearly an hour. Any longer and Ferly Mor wouldn’t have been able to reawaken me.”

  Reawaken. That was the second time she’d heard that word. Max had used it in the breeding box. “You mean resuscitated?” Was it even possible to resuscitate someone after an hour?

  Tess sat back on her heels, wet towel in hand. “Didn’t Da explain reawakening?”

  “No. And I’m beginning to think it’s time someone did.”

  Addy’s personal ringtone sounded from the Yard. She glanced out the observation wall to see Ferly Mor waiting with a leash in his hand. The music played again.

  “You best go. I’ll explain later. And Addy? Think about what I said about the baby. Please?”

  Addy nodded and left the house with head hung.

  Although grateful that Ferly Mor didn’t use the leash—instead, he carried her to HuBReC—she couldn’t stop grinding her teeth. Once inside the office, she couldn’t tune out a woman’s labored breaths and grunting coming from an open doorway down the hall.

  A newborn cry made her heart sink. Placing a hand on her belly, she sighed. Four weeks down. Sixteen to go.

  Ferly Mor placed her on a cold examining table, leaving her with her prenatal doctor, Rosalita. Since Addy had been the first person in the Yard to encounter the new Hyborean at the Survival Race party, Duncan said Addy had the privilege of naming her. She figured if Ferly Mor was the Great Gray Man, his chestnut-red girlfriend should be Little Rose.

  Addy was weighed, measured, and shot in the navel, yet again, with her same EpiPen. The device must have contained some kind of growth hormone because her hair had been growing about a half-inch every week. Once her exam was finished, she sat on the floor putting her shoes back on.

  Ferly Mor charged into the room, nearly stepped on her as he guided in a hovering gurney. She jumped out of the way before she became one with the floor. He handed off the gurney to Rosalita, picked up Addy, and placed her on the counter.

  By the look of the skuzzy, injured man they transferred to the examining table, an emergency had come up, which meant Ferly Mor wouldn’t take her home until he finished. Oh well, it wasn’t the first time she watched him at work.

  As she’d seen him do before, he dipped his hands in a bowl of pink liquid that must have been some sort of antiseptic, then dried them before cutting the tattered clothes from the man’s body. Rosalita also cleaned her hands and arms before hooking the guy up to machines.

  Ferly Mor stepped aside to throw the filthy shirt in the garbage shoot, and Addy gasped at the horror before her. Bloody whip marks, both fresh and scabbed, crisscrossed the man’s entire emaciated back. The flesh not torn apart was covered with welts and bruises. Each rib and bony vertebra were clearly visible beneath his skin.

  How the hell could these animals beat and starve a man like that? The fetid smell of his filthy body and matted hair made her dry-heave. She pinched her nose to find relief from the stench.

  Rosalita sponged him down, uncovering more bruises and whip marks beneath the blood and dirt. Ferly Mor cut and removed the man’s pants revealing a bloody leg bone protruding from his skin.

  She winced and diverted her gaze from the gruesome wound, rubbed her own shin in sympathy, as if that could possibly help ease this poor man’s suffering.

  After spraying something in his hair—most likely to kill lice or fleas or some weird Hyborean insect—Rosalita shaved his head. More dried blood and scabs. Around his neck were thin burn lines that must have come from his choker.

  “My God,” she whispered. “What have they done to you?”

  They rolled him onto his back and he turned his head in her direction. Vacant, green eyes stared into Addy’s. Her mouth dried the instant she recognized the man who haunted her sleep and dominated her every waking, irate thought.

  It was Max.

  How could he be alive? Regan had killed him during the survival race.

  Though Max’s glassy eyes gazed in her direction, they didn’t appear to see anything. His shallow and labored breaths sounded as though he was standing at Death’s sublimated door.

  Not taking her eyes off him, not even to blink, she waited for his last breath. Almost wishing for it. Perhaps, then, her rage and resentment of this past month would quell.

  But did he really deserve to die? Hadn’t he suffered enough? Tears pricked her eyes. Did any man, even her enemy, deserve torture?

  Damn. Why did he make it impossible for her to hate him?

  The pain must have been sheer agony, but Max never moaned or grunted. Maybe he’d been given drugs, or maybe he was too damaged to make a sound.

  The Hyboreans worked quickly, rubbing cream on his wounds, giving him injections of who knows what and monitoring his vital signs on some kind of chirping equipment. After another injection his breathing slowed to almost nonexistent. The chirping also slowed. His eyes shut and opened as if he fought heavy lids. It didn’t take long before they remained closed.

  Her pulse quickened. She held her breath in order to listen for his. Had he been euthanized?

  As Ferly Mor and Rosalita worked on Max’s leg, she watched his chest. Each time it rose, she prayed it would stop. Each time it fell, she prayed he’d inhale again.

  Tears streamed down her hot face. She wiped them away and realized Ferly Mor was pointing to the leash next to her. Another Hyborean, the sandy-colored alien who had held her down after the breeding box incident, nodded and grabbed the leash. She scooted backward on the counter but couldn’t escape his big leathery hands. After attaching the leash to her collar, Sandy set her on the floor and walked her to the Yard.

  She didn’t need a mirror to know her face turned beet red. That was what happened to a person when they held their breath in humiliation.

  The door to the Yard sublimated. Sandy placed her outside, unclipped the leash, and gave her a pat on the head like a good little doggie.

  Addy spun around to kick him in the ankle. The door solidified and her foot smashed into the camouflaged wall. Pain reverberated up her leg. She clenched her fists trying to keep the rage from exploding into a piercing scream. It didn’t work.

  “I hate this place! I want to go home!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was another sleepless night as usual.

  A gentle shower misted outside Tess’s transparent bedroom. Tired of watching tiny raindrops merge into large beads and roll down the observation wall, Addy got up from her pillow bed, pulled on her jean shorts and a sweatshirt, and crept to the kitchen in search of an apple.

  The fruit bowl was empty except for an orange. In her constant state of hunger, she had eaten everything else. She held the orange, wishing it would change into a Granny Smith. Smooth. Green. Crunchy. Tart.

  Sw
allowing saliva, she replaced the fruit. Only one thing satisfied her midnight cravings. She put on her shoes, grabbed a lightstick and one of Tess’s baskets, and slipped out into the rain.

  The gentle mist from the sprinkler system cooled her face and roused her senses. The pungent damp earth comforted her, as it had all her life growing up in the wilderness areas of Klamath National Forest. Not one to shy from Mother Nature in any season, she always felt right at home in the great outdoors.

  Of course, she wasn’t really outdoors now, was she?

  Apple picking by the peaceful moonslight shining through silver clouds lifted her mood. Even as the full basket weighed heavy on her arm, her spirit grew lighter. And when her teeth sank into the fruit’s tangy flesh, she sighed in blissful satisfaction. The trip in the rain had been more than worth it.

  Long, wet strands of hair hung over her eyes. Her clothes clung to her. Not wanting to return just yet, she strolled further along the orchard’s straight path with Lunas Major and Minor lighting the way.

  She sucked the last bit of juice from the core of her third apple when the hair on her neck bristled. Sensing she wasn’t alone, she turned in all directions searching the shadows of the orchard.

  Nothing.

  Her pulse quickened. Someone was out there. There was no denying that creepy sensation of someone’s—or something’s—watchful eyes.

  She dropped the core. Keeping her gaze focused among the apple trees, she felt for the lightstick amid the apples in her basket. She pulled it out, turned it on, and spun in a circle with the beam drawn in front of her.

  Twenty feet away beneath a tree she had passed, he sat with his back against the trunk, watching her. He didn’t move when she shone the light in his face. He just stared with those vacant green eyes.

  “What are you doing out here?” she asked.

  No answer.

  “Did you follow me?”

  Nothing.

  Confidence building and anger swelling, she moved off the path, stepping over twigs and rocks toward him. She stopped, leaving about eight feet of space between them.

  Though the Hyboreans had shaved him a week ago, his hair had already grown out a half-inch and was completely drenched. Rain dripped down his face and off his ears and nose. He didn’t seem to notice or care. From his drowned rat appearance, he must have been sitting there a good long time. Sodden clothes clung to his gaunt body. His left pant leg was cut off at the knee and a brown cast ran the length of his lower limb.

  Anger and pity battled inside her. Oh hell, she refused to feel sorry for him.

  “You raped me.” Her words sliced through the cool night air.

  Max hung his head.

  “Look at me when I’m yelling at you.”

  “I meant to seduce you,” he whispered into his chest. She almost didn’t hear him over gentle rain splatters on the leaves.

  “Not that time, you jerk. After they shocked me with the collar. I passed out and you raped me that first night.”

  Life flashed in his eyes. “I didn’t do anything to you while you slept.”

  “Then explain how the hell I got pregnant.”

  His jaw set in anger. His green eyes blazed in the darkness. “No.”

  “No? No? God, I want to kick your broken leg.”

  “Go ahead.”

  She took a step closer but couldn’t do it. That would be police brutality. Yet she wanted to punish him for violating her, an innocent woman. And anyway, she wasn’t a cop on this planet. She dropped the lightstick and pitched an apple at him. It smacked him in the chest and bounced off.

  He didn’t flinch. “Is that all you got?” His tone, iced with derision sent molten blood through her veins. “Go ahead. Throw another one.”

  She did. And then threw another. And another.

  He never moved. Each time she hit him, he yelled for more. “Hell, woman, can’t you throw harder than that? Hit me. Hurt me!”

  The physical exertion fueled her anger for him. And for the baby growing inside. And for her loss of freedom. Max was the target for all the raw emotion she’d been keeping under wraps since waking up on this planet. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t her abductor. It didn’t matter that he’d been forced to stud or risk punishment. The only thing that mattered was that he’d violated her and then lied about it to her face. And she couldn’t get over that, not with her belly swelling everyday as a reminder.

  The apples ran out before her rage did. When her fingers scraped netted wood, she threw the empty basket at him. “I hate you,” she screamed. “I wish they killed you.”

  Max’s eyes closed. “Hell, woman. So do I.”

  * * *

  He watched her stride away. Once she was out of view, he rubbed his aching chest. Damn, she threw hard. Her aim was spot-on, too. Not one damn apple missed him.

  He supposed he deserved it for not telling her the truth, but he couldn’t relive his shame. He wasn’t strong enough. Besides, did it really matter how she got pregnant? Nothing could change that fact now.

  What mattered was that she was a fighter. Unfortunately, this world chewed up fighters and spat them out. It might take longer for her to break, but when she did—eventually everyone did—her defeat would be all the more unbearable.

  He would hate to see that happen.

  She was so beautiful when fired up. So passionate. So like him when he was younger. Maybe that was why he couldn’t stop thinking about her. She reminded him of who he used to be.

  Eventually, he’d lost all of his humanity. How long until she lost all of hers? How long could fire last in a world made of ice?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Addy?” Duncan called when she entered his house. “What the devil happened to ye, lass?” He retrieved his cloak from the opposite wall and wrapped her wet body. “Ye’re shivering. Have ye been out there all night?”

  She nodded.

  “Come.” He walked her to the sofa. “Sit ye down and I’ll get the furnace. Then ye can explain.”

  He moved the eating table in front of her and placed the die-sized cube on it, and it began to glow red.

  She wasn’t sure how long she stared at it, but it must have been a while, since three cups of tea now steamed on the table in front of her, and Tess stood at her side holding a towel and change of clothes. Duncan left to give Addy privacy and, in a daze, she dressed.

  “Now then,” Duncan said when he returned. “Have ye no sense to come in from the rain?”

  “Da. Can’t you see she’s been through something?” Tess took Addy’s hand in hers and stroked it tenderly. “Do you want to talk about what happened?” Her face wrinkled with concern. It was then she noticed Tess wore a bathrobe. Her hair was disheveled from sleep. Duncan must have woken her up.

  Guilt churned in her gut. No one should lose sleep over her. She always took care of herself. Even as a little girl she’d learned to become independent hoping that would ease her mother’s burden so Mom wouldn’t be depressed all the time. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry everyone. I couldn’t sleep, so I went to the orchard to pick apples. Then I walked awhile.”

  “Mmph. Perhaps next time, ye should leave a note when ye go wandering in the midst of a stormy night.” Duncan punctuated the last word with a head nod as if to say, That’s that. He moved around the room then came back. “Where are the apples?”

  “Oh, uh, in the orchard. I sort of pegged them at Max.”

  “Ye attacked a wounded gladiator with apples?”

  To hear Duncan say it made her feel stupid. “You’re right, I should’ve beat him with a stick. He deserves much worse for what he did to me in the breeding box.”

  Tess’s arms encircled her. She hadn’t expected the gesture, but took comfort in her friend’s embrace and the warmth of her body.

  “Aye. I’m sorry he wasna gentle with ye lass. But are ye not aware of the breeding box’s purpose? Are ye going to attack every gladiator that yer paired with?”

  “Really, Da. That’s how you
choose to consol her?”

  “What? It’s high time she stopped moping around here, and accept her new life.”

  Tess glowered at Duncan sipping tea in his wingbacked chair. She returned her attention to Addy. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m used to it. It actually sounded like something my mother would’ve said.” She turned her attention to Duncan. “Here’s the problem. I don’t accept this life. And I never will. I am not a broodmare. And I am not staying here.”

  “What do ye mean?”

  “I mean I’m getting out of here if it kills me.”

  “Ye canna escape, lass.”

  “The hell I can’t. Someone did. I just need you to tell me how.”

  Tess’s eyes popped open and she jerked her attention to her father.

  “I dinna know anything about it.” Duncan got out of his chair and paced back and forth across the tiny house. Tess kept her eyes on her father but didn’t move, not even to put her teacup down. Was she holding her breath?

  “I know you know about it, Duncan. You always know everything.”

  He moved to the kitchen and poured himself a whiskey.

  “Don’t you think dawn’s a bit early for drinking?” Addy asked.

  He left his glass untouched on the sideboard, returned to his chair, picked the lint from an armrest. Rain pitter-pattered on the observation wall.

  “Whether you tell me or not, I promise you that I will escape.”

  “But where would ye go?”

  “She could go to the equator.”

  “Tess!”

  “It’s not like it’s a big secret. She’s going to find out sooner or later.”

  Addy sat up on the edge of the couch. “What’s at the equator?”

  His audible exhale sounded more dramatic than was necessary. Like it pained him greatly to tell her what he was about to say. “A clan. They live in a place uninhabited by Hyboreans.”

  “How come the Hyboreans aren’t there?”