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“I don’t think anybody would ever be afraid of me.”
“Give it time,” he says with a wink.
I don’t want to give it time. Suddenly, I want to be home. I want to be in my little apartment with my gray appliances and my gray bedding and the digital red clock that determines all the activities of my day. It was a simple life and an easy one. I knew who I was and what was expected of me. I don't know who I am or what I am here. All I know is that I don’t belong, and that there’s an undercurrent of menace in every glance and stare that comes my way. I crave familiarity and the safety of meaning nothing to anybody.
And then it all gets much worse.
“You finish eating,” Shah says. “I’ll go talk to Malik and be back for you soon.”
“You’re going to leave me here?” I look around at all the people, the dangerous outlaws whose company I do not want to keep. My entire life I have been taught that these are people to be feared — and I do fear them.
“Not going to keep you locked up in my bedroom, Dreamy,” he says, putting one last snack in his mouth. “At least, not all the time. You may have the run of my ship, all the public spaces. I’ve authorized you on my accounts. If you’re hungry, eat. If you want something you see for sale here, get it. You’re my hostage, but you’ll live free, Dreamy. As we all do.”
With that, he gets up and leaves me adrift in a sea of criminals and thieves.
Shah
“It’s fucking crazy!” I hear a scandalized female voice coming from inside Malik’s rooms. I know that voice. It’s Zeki. She went running to Malik, complaining about my choice in partner and the slap she got for mouthing off. I don’t know why she’s bothering. She won’t find any sympathy from Malik.
“You know what your problem is? You’re a fucking pussy.”
I chuckle to myself. Zeki’s temper just got the better of her again. Malik doesn’t let anybody speak to him that way. She’s about to experience a whole world of pain if I know anything.
Sure enough, I hear another sharp impact, followed by a curse. He probably smacked her ass. Yep. Sure enough, she comes racing out of the room, clutching at her butt. She catches my eye on the way past but doesn’t say anything. Might be the first smart thing she’s done all day. Someone really needs to get that girl in hand before she causes serious trouble.
I go in through the door she left open and find Malik looking thoroughly annoyed.
“Where does she get the nerve?” He asks me the question, shaking his head. “She’s asking to have the absolute hell beaten out of her.”
“I don’t know. What did you want to talk to me about?
It’s a waste of a question. There’s only one subject of conversation on my ship right now. Dreamy.
“She’s cute,” Malik says. “But she’s going to be eaten alive here. Make as many threats as you like, they’ll eventually come for her. The weak don’t survive. You made sure of that. Zeki? She’s a piranha. But there are sharks on this ship.”
“They won’t dare touch her.”
“You don’t have to touch someone to destroy them, Shah.”
He might be right. Dreamy isn’t made for my world. She’s made for rigid structure, routine, performing the same task over and over. At least, that’s what it looks like on the surface. But I know better. She broke the mold to go to Omega, and she’ll break out of it again. I know true wildness flows in her veins, even if she doesn’t, and even if nobody else sees it.
“She’s going to be fine.”
“She’s not. She’s like a captive animal who has never known life outside a cage. You can’t just set her free in the wild. She won’t even recognize her own kind, and she won’t smell right to anyone else. They’ll do their best to kill her, Shah.”
“She’s going to have my scent on her,” I tell him. “I already made it clear, one fucking fingernail bent, and people die.”
“Where is she now?”
“In the food hall.”
“Shah!” Malik near curses my name. “It’s not… you can’t treat her like she’s one of us. You can’t leave her in public on her own. Look at what happened last night.”
I think he’s overreacting. In fact, I know he is. Calling me away from my food to tell me he’s worried about the same girl I just left alone to talk to him is, well, foolish on his part. There are two things I do not like to have interrupted. Sex, and food.
“I’m going to finish my lunch,” I tell him. “If you’d like to freak out about her, maybe do it between meals. I handle drama better on a full stomach.”
* * *
