He rolls his eyes and sways. “Don’t be like that.”
I can’t wait to leave this part of my life behind. “You and Verity have to solve your own problems now. I’m not paying your rent, finding the shit you can’t seem to organize, and I’m definitely nothelpingeither of you with anything after you cheated on me with her!”
I am so done with Earth: the two-faced friends and family, the planet getting too political about basic needs, and the toxic rat race I’m stuck in. If I stay here, in this job, Imightmake crew foreman in another five years and manager in ten. But the pay only increases a handful of credits. If I want a house, health benefits, and retirement, I have to work in the port office or be, at a minimum, a shift manager.
It’s always pissed me off how the jackasses who sit in an office all day can make more than the crews that risk life and limb to build the ships. We get beat to hell and a quarter of the pay. If I had my way, it’d be the other way around.
Fuck this place.
I don’t want to feel like I’m 100 when I’m forty. It’s why I know I have to marry up. My only fear is that whoever he is, he won’t understand me because he's had a good life.
Soldiers only. No royalty.
Elwin’s eyes fall to the datapad I just put away. I know he’s thinking it could be hers and, if it’s not, how he can take it andmakeit hers. That’s the trouble with people like him and my sister. They accuse others of the things they do. It’s maddening how they deny the truth.
I know their projection and deflection tactics are just to help them cope with the struggles of this life. We all have mechanisms. I can’t blame them for trying to survive the dirt and grime of low-class grunts. Their methods just suck for everyone around them.
“Don’t.” I point at him in warning, flip my datapad over, and show him my code. “And I have a copy of the log on my gauntlets, showing this datapad belongs to me. So don’t get any damn ideas about trying to convince Tool Checkout that it belongs to anyone else.”
Elwin grits his teeth and growls like he didn’t expect me to be so prepared. But I’ve had to be since he turned on me.
I can’t afford my own tech on starship manufacturing pay because every last penny goes to my Alien Bride Race ticket. I got rid of every bill and picked up a second job so I could afford food and supplies. No one except Talros, my crew partner, knows I live in my hovercar, shower in the locker room, and haven’t left the port in months except to drive to the minimart for food.
Elwin rests a hand on the roof of my car, hangs his head, and sighs.
“You left me for her. She’s your problem now.”
He scowls at me likeI’mthe problem.
“What happened to you? You used to be nice!”
How my ex and my sister could betray me together still surprises me. And yet it doesn’t.
He curls a lip and grins. “She gives good head.”
I gag in my seat. “Stars, Elwin! Is that all that matters to you now?”
“In this shit life?” He squints at me and then circles a hand, motioning to the port around us. “Feeling good isallwe have. If you’d have been a dirty girl, too, I’d have stayed with you.”
Somehow, I don’t think so. Now, I’m relieved I didn’t give him what he wanted.
Elwin grabs my door with an augmented hand and rips it open, then lugs me out by the chest of my jumpsuit. My body nearly goes airborne as his augmented one—for moving ship parts—frees me from my car.
The sudden weightlessness makes my heart surge in my chest, my gauntlets light up, and panic strangle my yelp.
His eyes cut into me. “You’re loyal to your family. Youwillhelp her. She’s stuck here on Earth and doesn’t have the money for ABR!”
I stagger and spread my feet. “She could if she saved! But she’d rather blow it on booze and narcotics! Besides, ABR wouldn’t take her.”
“Yes, they would.”
I think he’s desperate and realizing he got a shittier deal with her. If she gets fired, they won’t have enough for rent. “No, because she sterilized herself so she couldplayforever withoutconsequence.”
“Even better, then.” He reaches for the bag that’s still strapped across my chest. When I swing it away from him, he grabs me and crushes me against the car.
Pangs punch through my body from the hard metal edges of the hoverpads and old-school angled body. Something about the bodyslam knocks my thoughts to ABR and wondering how they know the males won’t treat us like this—nice at first, then use and abuse us.
It doesn’t matter. No one will arrive in time to help me or any woman on Earth these days. I cannot change him. I won’t be able to change an alien. I have only my defense system and my minimal skills. But at least I have a weapon this time.
