by Lyn Gala
Tom bucked as hard as he could. “You don’t go talking about my fucking father.”
“Distract them with hate and they’ll think Ramsey unimportant.”
“Oh I can hate you just fine,” Tom said, still straining to free himself. What the hell right did she have talking about his father? When he found out who had let her into his records, Tom was going to space them right after shoving the damn printout of Tom’s personnel file right up their ass.
“Do,” she whispered, her hands still holding him prisoner. “Hate me because I’ll tell them I want you. I’ll tell them to enslave you.”
Tom froze. “No,” he said, fear ripping through him.
“Won’t let you die.”
Tom tried to calm his heart and keep an even tone. “Listen up, pea brain. I’d rather be dead than be a slave, so if you’re giving me to them to cover for Ramsay, I can live with that. I ain’t going to take offense at you making a good strategic move.” Tom took a deep breath and willed Da’shay to listen to the next bit. “But if they’re done with me and they don’t want to go giving me back to Ramsay, then you let them kill me. I’d rather take a quick bullet to the brain than be branded a slave, you got that?”
“Won’t let you die,” she said. With her free hand, she reached up to stroke his neck before her fingers paused right over his pulse point.
“You fucking let me die, you back-stabbing motherless bitch—” Tom tried to hunch his shoulder to keep her away from his carotid artery. It didn’t work. She pressed her thumb into his skin hard enough to sting and almost immediately Tom could feel himself get light headed.
“Hate and more hate, but I’ll still come for you,” she promised, but it sounded a lot more like a threat as Tom slipped away into the darkness.
Chapter Twelve
Tom glared at the new man who walked through the door, but he couldn’t really intimidate anyone chained to a low platform with his wrists chained far enough away from his ankles that he was bent forward. He’d be more comfortable laying down the way the restraints were intended to be used, but hell would freeze over before he’d lay down for these people. “So, I hear you’ve claimed this one once the examination is done.”
“I ain’t playing slave for no one,” Tom said in his most dangerous voice. He’d cleared out entire bars by threatening people with that voice, but the doctor kept his gaze focused on Da’shay, ignoring him altogether. She sat in the corner, both feet pulled up into her chair and her chin resting on her knees.
“Miss?” the doctor asked as he took a step toward Da’shay. She was staring off into space, and for a second, Tom nursed the hope that she would mentally bug off and leave him to be executed in peace. Instead she shook her head and looked up at the doctor.
“Hurt him and I’ll disembowel you,” she said in the same tone of voice she might use to discuss the weather.
“I…of course not. If you’re claiming him lawfully, I would never damage someone’s property.”
“Ain’t nothing lawful about it.” Tom switched to glaring at Da’shay.
“I do believe you broke the law, and on Nodar that makes you a slave.”
“I ain’t property,” Tom snapped. “I’m a human being, and slaving is just about the lowest thing one human can do to another.” Tom didn’t think he’d felt so helpless since he’d been a boy on Beauteous. He hadn’t liked the feeling then and he wasn’t too fond of it now. Facing death at the back end of the Kratos had been a good site less unpleasant.
“If you don’t learn to curb your tongue, your tongue, vocal cords or both could be removed.” The doctor’s voice was cold.
Tom hadn’t even opened his mouth to make a reply before the doctor was nearly flying across the room. He crashed into a small tray and then fell to the ground as silver instruments clattered to the stone floor all around him.
“No. They can’t be. He’s mine and I said you can’t hurt him. Hurt him and I’ll disembowel you.” Da’shay was standing beside Tom’s platform, her elbows bent and her hands curled into claws so that her body reminded him of those pictures he’d seen with her ripping slavers to pieces. He really wouldn’t mind her going into a killing rage right here and now, but he sure as hell didn’t want to beg for her protection. He wasn’t playing that game.
“Fuck. I’d rather have him rip out my vocal cords than have any reason to be grateful to you,” Tom snapped.
“If she won’t control you, the city guardians can confiscate you, slave. Remember that.” The doctor’s face was twisted with hate as he stood up. This wasn’t the sort of man who would unchain Tom to give him a fair chance to protect himself and all that stood between him and Tom was Da’shay. How long would it be before she lost interest or got confused and left him to get beaten to death by some worm like this doctor?
Tom pulled against the chains again. At this point, he wanted to die, but he sure as hell didn’t want some cowardly pissant doing the killing. He couldn’t control the rage that rolled through him. All he could do was pull against the chains, knowing that he wasn’t ever going to be able to break them.
The doctor looked from Tom to Da’shay, his expression slowly vanishing beneath a mask of indifference. “Some people want to see him.”
Da’shay shivered. It wasn’t a little thing like getting a chill; this was a huge, whole body shiver—the kind Becca always called having someone walk over your grave.
“They won’t take no for an answer.” The doctor took a step forward and Da’shay’s arms bent more. Oh yeah, she was getting ready to go off. Tom grinned at the thought of her disemboweling the doc. For a second, time hung in the balance, and then Da’shay turned to look at him. Her hand came up to touch his face and Tom jerked back as far as he could with the chains. It wasn’t enough. She rested her fingertips against his cheek and then stood there, breathing fast. Her large eyes were so dilated that they looked all black and her face was strangely flushed, leaving a chalkiness to the blue color of her skin.
“Anyone who sees has little bits of their brain ripped out.” She leaned forward and Tom strained against the chains holding him. “Chewed on bits. Gnawed away.”
“Fine. They can gnaw my brain out with a bullet. Dead is better than playing slave.”
She shook her head sadly. “Not dead. Never dead, just little bits and pieces pulled away, skin with the scab. They’d pull bits of Tom out, gray matter rich with neuronal cell bodies lying on a silver tray.”
Tom curled his hands around the chains and tried to control the fear that threatened to overwhelm him. He said no, but they could strap him down to a table and pull his brain out of his head one cell at a time and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
“No. Tom should stay Tom. Always. Can’t see them with their fingers come to touch and taste.” Her hand darted forward and caught his shirt. Tom frowned, wondering what she was doing, and then she ripped the fabric. The bottom third of his shirt pulled off in one big strip of fabric.
“Close your eyes,” she said as she took the shirt fabric and folded it.
“Fuck you,” Tom answered. He braced for the hit that would follow, but she reached up with the blindfold. Tom strained back so far that his wrists popped, but he couldn’t actually stop her as she tied it around his head.
Both her hands came around his face, her warm palms resting on his cheeks, and it was everything Tom could do not to go wild with panic. She pulled him closer until he could feel her breath against his skin. “Hate. All hate. They’ll brand you next, but as long as you don’t see them, the fire will only touch your skin, never you. Never you.” She shifted, and then he could feel her forehead against his. The intimate gesture panicked him about as much as the steel around his wrists.
His stepfather had been like that when he’d first started coming around. His father hadn’t been dead but a couple of months and the farm had been turning to weeds when this man showed up, all smiles and gifts and promises. Tom had been fool enough at six to think that promises meant somethin
g, but he sure as hell didn’t have that illusion now. He was locked in the dark and in the middle of enemy territory. There really wasn’t much room for many illusions.
“Do what you’re going to do. I’ll die still hating you,” he promised her. Her hand slowly withdrew and Tom focused on listening to the room. The door opened and he could hear shoes against the stone floor.
“Captain Smyth’s death runs through him?” The voice had an almost childlike tone, high and nasally. “Here is Da’shenya. Unexpected.”
“Little rivers change the course of big ones,” Da’shay said.
“Big rivers drown women. Little rivers swim new banks.” Then the new one started speaking some alien language that wasn’t anything Tom knew. It was a wheezing sort of sound. The speaker finished and the room was silent; Da’shay didn’t answer.
Tom held his breath. The voice wasn’t chirping and clicking like a meaiai and casslit didn’t talk at all. Maybe it was a pure genta. The pure ones were large and had tentacle-like arms that doubled as legs. They were so massive that to move fast they had to switch to a six-legged run using those thick tentacles.
Something brushed over Tom’s cheek and he flinched away. “Fuck you,” he snapped. He didn’t care if this thing could have his vocal cords ripped out; he wasn’t a kid who had to smile as someone shit on his life. They’d shit on his life all the same, but he had a right to tell them to fuck themselves as they did it.
Hands caught his head. “I can gag him if you like.” It was the doctor. Tom twisted and nearly got his teeth in the doctor’s hand before a stronger hand caught his chin.
“He’s mine.” Da’shay’s fingers tightened, holding Tom still as that same feathering touch brushed across his cheek. “Taste but no eating. Mice gnawing tunnels through rock and termites through flesh.”
“Control him or I’ll call in the guardians,” the doctor said, but the words were barely out of his mouth before Da’shay’s hand vanished from his face and then Tom heard a god-awful crashing noise. He gave a grim smile. He might hate Da’shay, but he hated all these other bastards too, so she could go right on hitting them.
“My slave,” Da’shay said firmly, her hand catching his face again, and Tom felt a new flare of hatred. He’d come to terms a long time ago with the probability of dying in the line of duty, and three days ago he’d decided that maybe death weren’t even worth avoiding, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to be anyone’s slave.
“Motherless bitch,” he snapped out. Oddly, the fingers holding him loosened. The feather touch returned and Tom shivered in revolt.
“Hatred uncontrolled. He’ll break neck on rope.” The feather-light touch vanished and air moved past him as something moved. Fast. He tried to flinch back more, but he was already straining as hard as he could against the restraints. “Kill fast for kindness.”
“No.” Da’shay snapped the word out.
“Da’shenya,” the voice said. The word lilted oddly in the middle.
“Mine,” Da’shay just about snarled. “Tasted him. Mine. He didn’t see.” Da’shay’s hand cupped Tom’s face, her fingers resting on his blindfold. “Take him and I will disembowel.” From her tone, Tom could guess that she wasn’t bluffing. Her anger skittered over his skin like spiders. He held his breath as he waited to see how this new man would react, but a new plan was forming now.
He’d grown up fast on the farm. From his stepfather, he’d learned how to make a full grown man about as angry as a human could be without having his heart explode. By the time he was fifteen, Tom figured that if he couldn’t make his stepfather happy, he was going to control when the old man blew up. Getting a strap taken to his backside felt like an odd sort of victory when he’d been the one to pick the time and place.
So if Da’shay had that same temper, the same explosive rage that lurked under a slimy layer of sweet, then Tom knew how to strip away those layers. Give him time and he’d get her to turn that anger on him. Then he wouldn’t have to feel this helpless rage or, even worse, the nagging feeling as if he should be grateful to Da’shay for protecting him. It was that gratitude that was the real evil and he fucking knew it.
“New rivers break new bones.” The new voice declared. Da’shay’s hand moved down to his shoulder and Tom wished he had enough slack in the chains to shake her off.
“Old rivers gone dry. New rivers only break what swims upstream.”
“Da’shenya upstream swimming.”
“Nope,” Da’shay said firmly. Tom was starting to think he was the only sane person in the room. The silence lasted several minutes and Tom couldn’t do a blessed thing but sit helpless on a table and silently curse all of them.
“Him you keep.” With that, the door opened, but Tom couldn’t hear any footsteps. He held his breath, struggling to figure out what was going on in the room, but things had gone deathly silent.
“I doubt you have the ability to care for or keep track of a slave, especially one so untrained.” That was the doctor. Tom eased forward a little to take the strain off his wrists.
“Mine,” Da’shay repeated, her hand still on his shoulder.
“Yes, well, have you considered having someone train him?”
“No,” Da’shay snapped, her hand vanishing from Tom’s shoulder. Tom hoped that meant that the doctor was getting hit again. He did appreciate a woman who knew how to throw a right hook.
“Yes, well, you had better do something or you will lose him as quickly as you brand him. Understand?” The door opened again and Tom could hear the doctor march out, his footsteps a little too fast for anger. He was afraid. That felt good, at least until Tom realized that meant he was alone with Da’shay.
Fingers touched his cheek and he flinched back before he could control the urge. She could do what she wanted, but he sure as hell didn’t have to give her the pleasure of reacting. After that he sat still as she reached around and untied the blindfold. She stood looking at him.
“I’d fail as a slave. Be best for both of us if you just ended it here,” Tom said, swallowing the bile that climbed up his throat at begging for his own death.
She backed away, her hands tucked deep in the pockets of her dress. Slowly she started to shake her head. “Behind enemy lines,” she whispered. Her eyes darted around the room as if searching for something and Tom found himself looking too. There were a couple of dozen good places to hide a microphone or camera, but chained to the table, he couldn’t check any of them. “Lie in wait. Tall grass, waiting. Watching. Captain scratches. Watch the ship.”
He wasn’t a total idiot. Even though she was rambling, he could tell easy enough that she thought he should survive and counterattack. Sometimes on a job the best part was the waiting. Lying stomach down in the grass by himself, he felt a real calm as he focused on the job, so it wasn’t the waiting that was the problem. The problem was that he didn’t trust her to be right about having a chance to strike back. If they branded him, Tom would be nothing more than a slave.
“Wrong, wrong. Strong hand. Wait for the right scratch,” Da’shay said with a frown as she moved back into the corner. Tom opened his mouth to argue, but when Da’shay’s eyes went up to the opposite corner of the room again, he closed his mouth without saying anything. Reasoning with her wasn’t exactly a winning proposition to start with, and if there was any chance that someone was listening, Tom didn’t want to give them any more ammunition. So far, it seemed as if people were buying the story that him and Ramsay were only pissed off mercenaries, and he’d like to keep it that way. If he started talking, he might go and say something stupid.
The door opened and a new woman stood in the opening. “So, I hear we have a branding,” she said with far more cheerfulness than Tom thought was really warranted. He opened his mouth to say as much, but then Da’shay came spinning out of the corner where she’d pressed herself.
“Words spun in light. Want it pretty,” she said, her eyes getting that blank look they sometimes had on the ship.
“Fuc
k no,” Tom snapped. “I ain’t having you put something pretty on me.” He gave the woman a feral grin. “Touch me and I’ll snap your fucking neck.”
The woman looked at him with big eyes. “Oh dear. Maybe I’d better get some help.” She backed up a step and was gone before Tom could even promise to be good. Fuck. Now he was going to have some sons of bitches strap him down while they branded him anyway.
Da’shay had turned toward him, her head tipped to one side as she stared at him.
“Yeah, well fuck you too,” Tom said wearily. He was just tired of trying to find the smart way through this. Da’shay sighed, but she didn’t say anything as she went back to her corner, her hands stuffed down into the pockets of her dress again.
Chapter Thirteen
Tom pulled against the handcuffs. He wanted to squirm and struggle because that felt a whole lot better than giving in. It wasn’t as if Da’shay cared. As long as he didn’t pull against the leash, she didn’t seem even to notice him. That wasn’t entirely true. She’d noticed him this morning. When he’d wanted to fight, she’d used her genta strength to hold him still and stare at him until he had a need to check his face for any food that hadn’t made it in his mouth. That wasn’t likely seeing as how he was chained, but something in that genta brain of hers was spinning faster than usual. She insisted on leaving his shirt off so that the new mark down his chest was visible to anyone and everyone in the market. His mother used to say you shouldn’t speak of the devil or he’d appear. Maybe there was some truth to it because Tom hadn’t done more than think about the God’s rotten mark and Da’shay stopped in the middle of the passage and slowly turned.
She cocked her head to one side. “Whispers.” The word came out so soft Tom could almost imagine it had only been a sigh. Then she stepped closer. Her hand came up and fingers trailed down over Tom’s arm, making the arm hairs raise up. Tom tensed, his muscle bulging, and Da’shay paused. She looked up at him with those dark eyes, and Tom wished he could read her mind. Something was rattling around up there. She pressed her lips together in an expression that almost looked like a cross between frustration and a woman verging on crying. Seeing as how Tom was the one sold as a slave, he figured he had more right to feel frustrated than she did.
