AllFreeNovel
Share Us
No, she was right. Of course, she could be lying, and I wouldn’t know. Did I want to risk it?
I began, “Listen, I’m…I get that you think you have to do this.”
“I don’t think it, Raven,” she yelled at me. “I know it. Okay? I don’t have any more choices than you do. So let’s get the fuck moving.”
I kept talking, even through what she said to me. “And it hasn’t been very long, I know that, but I’ve made a life here. I didn’t think it was possible, but I fell in love, and they love me back. Please, just go. Tell them I’m dead. What does Clarke even care? I’m nothing to him. I’m not an important whore.”
She laughed. “Do you think he’d tell you how important you are? Raven, you matter a shit ton. He had someone lined up to buy you. Do you know how rare it is? One of your regulars wants to own you.”
Which one? No, that didn’t matter. I didn’t want any of them. Fuck. No. They were all repulsive. “I can’t just go. I won’t do that. I love them. Do you understand?”
“Oh, Raven.” She sighed, and for the first time, she looked human to me. Tired, even. “Men are just men. They don’t really love us. They want us. They may even be nice to us for a while, if they want to fuck us. But make no mistake, they don’t love us. Super Soldiers don’t love at all. They’re genetically coded to kill us. So, move.” She grabbed me then stopped. “We’ll even be kind and tell them you’re leaving.”
She pulled a paper out of her pocket and wrote on it, speaking aloud as she did. “This way they don’t wonder. Dear, Guys, Sorry. None of it was real. I’m just a whore. We lie. XoXo, Raven.”
I stared at the paper. They would know I didn’t write them a note. I couldn’t read or write. She’d actually done me a huge favor, so I let her drag me out. Just because my Super Soldiers couldn’t hear me didn’t mean others couldn’t. I started to scream.
It didn’t matter. No one came, and by the time we got to the shuttle that could make it through the lightning, I was soaked.
I never expected to stay there, and it looked like, in the end, I wouldn’t.
* * *
Wet and shivering under a blanket, I stared at the blonde woman who piloted our shuttle. I wanted to hate her, but I didn’t. Couldn’t. She had my markings. Whatever happened to her, she wasn’t any more in control of her life than I was . With a swift movement, she got up and left the control room. In a second, she returned with a bathrobe. “Get changed. You’re freezing.”
She didn’t look particularly cold, but she also wore a coat. “I don’t do wet very well. I freeze fast.” I took the robe and turned my back to change. We didn’t care about nudity at Clarke’s, only now I did. That’s going to be a problem. Who was I kidding? All of it was. I couldn’t do my job anymore. Any of it.
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
Maybe she’d tell me or maybe we’d be in silence for the rest of the trip. She kept the metal device on me, which was probably smart, since I might decide to crash us back onto the planet. Or I would have. It had been too long since we’d left orbit, headed back to Clarke’s. I couldn’t believe it. I’d actually decided that I could be happy, and it vanished.
“My name is Cambree.” She looked over her shoulder. “I don’t expect any sympathy from you, Raven. I’d hate me, if I were you. I hate myself a bit, but I really don’t have a choice. I’m sorry.”
I lay back on the couch behind me. “How does he make you do this? How did you even start doing it? I mean…I didn’t know he had a fleet of us running around.”
She snorted. “We don’t have a fleet. They basically have me. I guess he sometimes sends out some enhanced to do things for him, but they always come back having seriously damaged the merchandise.”
The merchandise. It was funny to think of myself that way again, yet as one of Clarke’s belongings, it seemed apt. I pointed at the device she attached to me. “This is less permanently damaging?”
“Yes, and only one runaway has made me use it so far. Thanks for not being number two.” She sighed. “As for why…I suppose you have the right to know. Funny, because you’re the only one who has ever asked me. Clarke has my brother in cryo. Do you know what that means?”
I did, actually. “A long, cold sleep. They used to use it with the Super Soldiers, to transport them.”
“That’s right. Don’t use that phrase, remember? Clarke doesn’t like it. Super Soldiers—they’re enhanced. You should know better.”
I closed my eyes. “I did. But, the guys I love? They don’t like ‘enhanced.’ Sorry, you were telling me about your brother in cryo.”
“Right.” She sat down in her chair. Cambree was older than me. I didn’t know by how much, but it was at least a few years, since she could read and write, and I obviously couldn’t. She clearly forgot when she wrote the letter that was supposed to be from me.
“He was fifteen when they put him in to blackmail me. At the time, they wanted me to perform better as one of his whores. I’m really, really bad at it. They had complaints, but then Clarke decided my proficiency with the ships—I stole one and had to be recaptured before they put Danny in cryo—might prove a more useful way to torture me for the rest of my life.”
She’d ripped me away from my lovers, so I shouldn’t feel bad for her. Only I absolutely did . Before Stone died, I would’ve done anything for him. “What does it mean, that he’s in cryo?”
“It means he’s paused in time. He was fifteen, and he should be twenty now, but he’s still only fifteen. Forever paused, unless I can get him back or Clarke has him killed. Those are the two options.”
I couldn’t imagine having my brother frozen, just to be used as a bargaining chip. My heart wrenched. “I’m sorry,” I said softly, not really knowing what else to say.
Cambree shrugged. “It’s not your fault. It’s Clarke’s. He’s the one who makes us all do horrible things. And now I’ve done a horrible thing to you. I don’t believe in love, but you said that you had it. That’s over now, too, and that’s on me.”
