“Nope.” C.J. shrugged. “I insist you take this field trip with me and Nolan. You need a change of scenery. You spent yesterday obsessing over the color of the wall in the botanical lab. We never even go in there. That was Cooper’s deal.”
“A prince of a Noble spent his days working on plants?”
“Yep. He’s really smart.” He took a deep breath. “Come on.”
I wrapped my fingers in his and let him lead me to the shuttle. Nolan waited for us inside. He looked over his shoulder and nodded when I walked inside. If I was honest, I dreaded two things about this trip and neither of them had anything to do with the space station itself. I hated take offs. The shuttle was bound to make me throw up, and I really didn’t want to puke in front of Nolan.
I strapped myself in and hoped for the best. “Nolan, are you going to fly this? I don’t want C.J’s flying skills right now, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Hey.” C.J. dropped himself in the co-pilot’s seek before he grinned at me. “Don’t knock my special brand of flying. You and I learned from the same people. We don’t fly pretty, but we get the job done.”
“No one has let me fly anything since Wes showed me how to point and click. I have to believe there’s more to it than that.”
Nolan shrugged. “Where would you have found the time, with all the redecorating you’ve been doing? Blue or navy blue are much more pressing than learning how to properly operate the very place that is the only thing keeping you alive in the wilds of space.”
“Thanks for that.” I leaned in my seat. “Haven’t seen you in weeks, and yet here we are with you and the judging.”
C.J. rubbed his forehead, one of his stress moves. “Okay, starting off well.”
“Let’s get out of here.” Nolan pressed several buttons on the console. “I want to get the scrap we’re towing out of here. Get paid and get on to The Bridge, if we’re still going there.” He eyed C.J. sideways.
Had plans changed and no one discussed it with me? Not that they needed to, I was certainly not contributing anything of use to anyone, as Nolan had to point out. Why had I thought things were getting better?
Nolan pulled the shuttle out, and I waited for the nausea to overtake me the way it had in the past. Nothing. My stomach remained as steady as it stayed on the Artemis. C.J. put his legs on the controls in front of him. “I’m going to take a nap.”
He pulled headphones out of his pocket and put them in.
“Are those Wes’ headphones?” I’d never seen C.J. with any, while Wes almost never seemed to be without them.
“Yep. I stole them. He’s going to be mad at me tomorrow.”
I leaned forward. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Moralizing, M? We steal things. We’re Nomads. We take from the bad and give to the less bad.”
I snorted at his description. “No, I’m only concerned he won’t be able to sleep. Other than when he stays in my room, he can’t sleep without the headphones. He listens to low sounding music.”
C.J.’s face fell. “I didn’t know that. When did he start?”
“When she died,” Nolan cut in. “Amazing he can sleep without them even with you there. Must be some magic sex you’re giving him.”
That was it. I’d really had enough. “Nolan, if you can’t find anything nice to say to me, could you just keep your mouth shut? I’ve really had enough of the criticism and the sarcastic remarks.”
“Just making conversation,” My bald husband who I didn’t know even a little shot at me.
“You might want to work on those skills.”
C.J. looked between the two of us. “Well, now I feel like a jackass for taking Wes’ lovee.”
This was going to be a very long trip.
We got to the station two hours later. C.J. had eventually taken the nap he wanted, and Nolan had kept quiet the rest of the trip. My head ached, which threw off what little emotional balance I’d found lately.
Stepping out onto the station didn’t help anything. Blaring lights, music, and more people than I’d ever imagined seeing in one place at the same time flooded my senses. For a second, the world pitched black before it righted itself again. A strong hand pressed into my spine, a presence grounding me. I turned to thank C.J. when I realized it was Nolan who’d kept me upright.
“Thank you,” I whispered. Nearly fainting in the Truest Space Station gave him another reason to hate me.
He nodded, not looking at me but scanning ahead. “I hate crowds.”
“Then how did they manage to convince you to come along?” He never spoke to me except to criticize. This was the closest thing we’d ever had to a conversation.
“Only I can negotiate with these guys. We come from similar backgrounds. I get them, they understand me. The other guys would get screwed in this transaction.”
C.J. popped up next to us, nodding toward the main street ahead. Shops and stands were everywhere. A huge screen kept changing pictures, one person encouraging us to report crime while the next asking us to check out a particular bar.
“I’m going to go get supplies and arrange to have them delivered to the shuttle. You two go take care of getting our stash sold.”
Wait…what? I started to ask him when Nolan beat me to it. “You’re not leaving me with her.”
I’d thought the same thing, but hearing him say it panged my chest. When it came to it, I had a hard time being hated. If that made me pathetic, then so be it. I was a person who wanted to be liked. Whether that was because of Master’s, the mind wipe, or something inherently about me, I didn’t know.
“I am.” A muscle in C.J.’s jaw ticked. “This doesn’t work like it’s been going. You don’t get to hide in your room and pretend if you stew and yell loud enough she’ll suddenly either vanish or become who you’d prefer her to be. She’s your wife. Has been for longer than she’s been mine.” He turned his attention to me. “As a single woman, with no husband, and only seventeen years old, you found this man in the worst circumstances imaginable and you picked him out of everyone in the world to be yours. Trust me when I tell you no one saw it coming, and although you never gave a shit about other people’s opinions, there were lots of them. There were a lot of reasons for it. You can’t remember them, and that’s not your fault. Fine. Learn what they are now. You’ve been trapped on a ship together for weeks and gotten nowhere. Let’s see how you do in public. I’ll meet you both here in three hours, and if you haven’t killed each other, we’ll go find you some clothes, M. This isn’t up for discussion. We voted. This is happening.”
Having said his piece, he ran off into the crowd, negating any response from either Nolan or me. The stillness I’d come to associate with Nolan’s anger surrounded me. I tried not to move even as I spoke.
“I didn’t know.”
He gave a quick nod. “I didn’t think you did.”
“Please don’t explode on me.”
He exhaled loudly. “My temper is not directed at you this time.”
“Listen.” I didn’t want to tell him how afraid I was, how utterly terrified it made me to think about even being on a place with so many people, let alone with him. But I only dealt in truth with the others. I had to with him, too, or I might as well give up. “I know you don’t want me with you.”
“I haven’t been hiding my feelings on the subject.”
He could never give me one break. “So leave me here. I’ll stay on the shuttle. You go do what you want. I’ll simply wait here. You can come back. C.J. set this whole thing up. It doesn’t mean we have to do what he wants.”
“He has the fucking keys. Neither of us is getting back on there without him.”
Damn C.J. for thinking of everything. “Okay, so not in the shuttle. Leave me here. I’ll wander around, look at things. I don’t have any money. I’ll just wait for you both to get back.”
He whirled around to look at me. “Do you have a death wish?”
“Not particularly, no.” Although I suspected he wou
ldn’t mind me dropping dead right there.
“This is not a place for a pregnant woman to go wandering around alone. Particularly one who has no fighting skills, no idea what the hell is going on, and the innocent look you carry around that screams please take advantage of me. There are hundreds of men there who haven’t seen a woman in years. You think they’re going to care you’re pregnant while they force you into a hallway and rape the fuck out of you?”
I shoved him, hard. I don’t know what came over me that made me think I could even budge him—and I didn’t manage it—yet I did it anyway. His eyes widened as he stared at me. I breathed hard. Anger was preferable to the other things I felt. I wouldn’t cry, not in front of Nolan.
“You act like I asked for this, wanted it. As though I would choose to be memoryless, and adrift in the world. I want to know as much as you do. This inkling I have in my head, is that I’ve done something bad. Cooper’s message somehow feels right. I’m going to get my memories, even though it feels like a death sentence to do so, although I could end truly brain dead from the process.”
His face went blank again, the way it did when I displayed too much emotion—when he was disgusted with me. All the fight left my body.
I had no more, not in the entrance portal of the Truest Space Station anyway. I shook my head. “Lead on. I won’t talk to you. I won’t get in the way.”
He didn’t agree so much as start moving. I followed, the unwanted girl tagging after him for the next three hours. What had C.J. been thinking? What had I, when I was seventeen and I’d apparently decided Nolan should be part of my life?
The black market on the Truest Space Station turned out to be done across a counter of a rib joint in the southwest quadrant. Aromas wafted through the place and my stomach rumbled. I’d been placed at a table to wait for Nolan while he did business in the back.
I guessed I was safe enough where I was. People came in, they walked straight to the back, and left again. A few people stopped and ordered before leaving again with their food. No one made eye contact, in fact, no one so much as looked at me. Whatever happened in there, which was certainly taking Nolan a long time, kept everyone on their very best behavior.
Unfortunately, I hated to admit he’d been right about the rest of the station. The cat calls and lewd statements directed at me while I walked, with my head down and covered by C.J.’s hoodie, had been enough to make me shaky. Was it even possible to have sex with someone’s foot up my ass?
I couldn’t ask for food. I didn’t have any money to pay for it and I didn’t know if Nolan would be willing to give me any when he came out.
With little else to do, I watched the ever-changing screen at the center of the space station. Wanda Montgomery appeared on the screen, and I nearly stopped breathing. What was the woman who ran Master’s Rehabilitation doing on the screen at Truest Space Station?
“Hello.” Her voice boomed into the station, not louder than anyone else on the screen’s had been, yet it raised every nerve ending on my body to attention. “Please be on the lookout for this woman. She should be considered armed and dangerous. A large reward is available for her safe recovery. Please help us find her. We want to bring her to the righteous path.”
Her face disappeared, replaced with one it actually took me a second to recognize, which was really strange considering I was looking up at myself. Only I appeared so completely different, I could have been two separate people altogether.
I laughed at the screen. My hair fell shorter, barely touching my chin, not halfway down my back like it was now. I’d been heavy-handed with my makeup. Apparently, I didn’t think bright red on my lips was too much or purple on my eyes out of fashion. With a hand on my hip, I posed. My face was fuller, which was funny considering I was pregnant and should be bigger—a reminder I wasn’t eating enough.
The baby kicked hard. She needed me to do better.
My heart lodged in my throat as I waited to see what I would say.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am Melissa fucking Alexander. I am the rebel princess, and you can all kiss my ass.” I laughed up on the screen, throwing my head back. Behind me there were figures I recognized, although no one else would know who they were. Wearing hoods, C.J. and Geoff moved around behind me. We were in the docking bay of Artemis. I held a package out in front of me. “See this? Let’s call it an unstoppable bomb. It fuses onto whatever I want it to and then it goes BOOM when I tell it to. Hear that, Nobles? We’re coming for you. We can be anywhere, doing anything. Hey, you people out there? Blow them up. Tell the Nobles we’re done with their tyranny. Death to the Nobles.”
Wanda reappeared. “Help us find her before she hurts anyone else.”
I couldn’t breathe. My chest tightened. How many people had I hurt? What had I been doing? How many deaths were on my shoulders, if not from my own hand then from me telling others to do so?
There were lots of Nobles who didn’t deserve to be blown to smithereens, people not in charge. What about Cooper? I’d been living with him. How could I have advocated his death?
I jumped to my feet, needing to be out of there. Nolan had to get finished. I pulled the hoodie closer around my head. I hadn’t seen any Noble forces on the station, it was Nomad friendly, but they still broadcasted the warning. No one could recognize me.
Or maybe they should. I stopped at the thought. I killed people. I planted bombs like the one in my heart. Geoff made them, and I set them off to end lives. I should be punished, arrested, made to pay for what I’d done.
Except they wouldn’t put me away. No, they’d wipe my mind and give me another chance again, and they weren’t any better than myself.
I was a criminal, and so were my husbands. The people I fought against were nightmares wearing expensive clothing.
Rushing toward the rear, I entered the back room of the rib joint. In addition to being a kitchen, it was a huge warehouse space. Things were strewn everywhere. Nolan stood in the middle, facing a man equal to him in size. There was nothing about their stance that spoke of tension, only I recognized it when I saw it.
Maybe it had to do with the way Nolan didn’t move. His companion did, however, turning to look at me. He whistled through his teeth. “Melissa Alexander. I hear you can’t remember anything.”
“Don’t talk to her.” Nolan didn’t turn when he spoke to the stranger. I didn’t want to deal with posturing. I wanted to go, to get away from the place making my skin crawl, causing me to hate myself even more than I already did.
“Can we go?” I stopped myself from rushing forward. If it had been any of the other guys, I would have.
“Not quite yet. Go sit. Wait for me.”
With no other choice, I walked outside and to my table, but not before the other man jabbed at me. “Boy, she looks like shit.”
I sank into my chair. I really did look like shit compared to the Melissa Fucking Alexander in the video. She was gorgeous, sexy. She could lead six guys through the galaxy.
What was I? Nothing but a scared girl on a space station carrying the baby of who knew which father. I couldn’t be Noble, but I was clearly not a Nomad, either. The very idea of blowing people up made me want to hurl. The door opened and two men walked in, crossing past me and heading straight into the backroom. They’d probably come and go before Nolan was finished.
I watched them as they walked by, a shiver running through my body. The one on the left particularly bothered me. He was tall, broad shouldered, and half of his face was tattooed red. They weren’t carrying any merchandise, but then neither were we. Whatever arrangement Nolan made would involve his business associate coming to the shuttle to pick it up.
Getting arrested with illegally obtained Noble materials struck me as a very bad idea.
Half the people on the station were inked. Nolan was. I’d never gotten a good look at his, only the top of it, which was dark green. Whatever shape it eventually took I’d have to see him without his shirt on to check out.
Why was red-
faced guy causing such havoc to my stomach? I stood up. Annoying Nolan couldn’t be a wonderful idea. By the time we got back to C.J., we’d be lucky if we ever spoke again. Still, I crossed the small distance and made my way to the back of the rib joint again. I’d ask him for money as an excuse. I was pregnant. I needed to eat.
A loud bang caught my attention. The man Nolan had been talking to, who insulted me, was on the floor, a large red stain covering his shirt. Nolan dove to the floor as another bang sounded. He must not have been hit as he reached into his pants and pulled out his own gun. Nolan fired, hitting one of the gunman right in the chest.
Red-faced man rushed forward wielding his gun. “I heard you were here,” he shouted at my husband. “I promised you I would get my revenge.”
I didn’t think, I reacted. I rushed forward, jumping on the remaining assailant. He didn’t hear me coming or maybe the momentum surprised him, but he fell forward to the floor, with me attached.
Nolan shouted out, “Baby, no.”
I rolled left, and grabbed for the gun of red-faced man’s fallen comrade. Without thinking, I fired twice. Two shots. Right to his head.
Time slowed. The man didn’t die right away. I was directly left of him, which gave me the chance to see him blink rapidly, the blood seeping from his brain to match the side of his face. Strong hands pulled me backward while the man fell to his knees before falling straight down
I just killed a man.
My ears rang and the room spun.
I’d promised myself I would never again faint in front of Nolan. I couldn’t keep that oath. My knees buckled and the world went black.
I woke in a room I didn’t recognize, on a stiff, uncomfortable bed with scratchy sheets. Somewhere nearby, water dripped loudly. My head hurt and I rubbed my eyes, the world and the memory rushing to me. I’d killed a man.
I shot him right in the head without thought or reservation. I’d known exactly how—because I was Melissa Fucking Alexander. Maybe I killed every day. I swung my legs over the side of the bed.
“Baby?” Nolan walked through the small entranceway of the barren room and knelt in front of me. “You okay?”
Kidnapped by Her Husbands Page 18
