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I frowned. “But why do you keep doing it? We could go back and get my guys. They’ll help you. They’d do it anyway, just to be nice, but they won’t even question it with me in play.”
She sighed, looking down at her hands. “It’s not that simple. Clarke can track us, even when we’re in space. If I turn this ship around, he’ll send more and more until he gets what he wants and that, Raven, like it or not, is you.”
Her words hit me hard. I’d tasted freedom and love, but that was gone. In front of me stretched a life I wasn’t sure I could tolerate ever again. Tears leaked from my eyes, and I batted them away just in time to see Cambree pretend she didn’t notice them.
“Do you know who it is? Who’s he selling me to?” There was bad and then there was much, much worse. A night with a person who wanted to hurt me for his pleasure, I could handle. A lifetime? I wasn’t sure I’d make it.
Then again, my guys would know I got taken. If I escaped Clarke’s compound, could they find me? Would they? It’s not like I wore a tracker. Or maybe I did. But the guys couldn’t use that to locate me, could they?
Maybe there would be a time when I could escape, and I could figure it out. I couldn’t read, but I was smart. I’d find a way to get myself back to them, even if it took time. They waited years for Amias. Maybe they would wait for me, too. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
Too many maybes.
“I don’t, but it can’t be good, right?” At least she’s honest. “Decent men don’t buy women, so the fact he wants to buy you means he wants you under his control, where no one else can see you.”
I feared she was absolutely right. I gave her a cockeyed smile and raised my brows. “No chance you could report me as dead?”
“I’ll do anything for Danny, to save him, even if it means that I have to hurt someone like you. If it wasn’t for Danny, I’d prefer to help. You have a month until he takes you. You have no reason to believe me, but if I can figure out a way to save you between now and then, I will.”
A month. Anything could happen over that time, although I doubted very much that any of it would be good.
* * *
I hated looking at Clarke, but that wasn’t anything new. He was tall, good looking in the way of all the Super Soldiers. They’d designed them to be beautiful, but when I looked in the eyes of my guys, I saw only goodness. In his, there was nothing. Maybe it had made him, ultimately, a better soldier than my guys ever were, but he hadn’t been their leader. He couldn’t control them, and they didn’t think highly of him.
Right then, he was my nightmare. I ran away from his ‘care’ as he loved to put it, so I would be punished for my crime. That’s all there is to it.
“You broke the rules, Raven.” He said my name like we were close friends, when we’d only spoken exactly four times over my lifetime. Once, when he’d told me it was time for me to take my place as one of his girls. The second happened briefly in the hall, when I’d passed him after a client beat the shit out of me. The next two times were similar. Nothing more than a hello or worse that client liked you.
And now we’re here.
“So did you.” I should probably just drop my eyes and say sorry, but I wasn’t in the mood. Maybe I finally found a little backbone?
He lifted a dark eyebrow. “How do you figure?”
“Turns out I’m worth something to you. A lot of money, actually. You promised us, if we became profitable to you, that you would let us use the med machines. I’m worth something to you, so much so that you sought me out on a planet in the middle of nowhere.” He knew I left, but he didn’t know who was there, or anything about that place. As far as he was concerned, I just ran off. “But you didn’t let my brother use the med machine, so I think it’s fair to say you also broke the rules.”
He was quiet for a second, although I held no illusions that he listened to my words. Instead, he raised his hand and struck me so hard across the face that my ears rang. I hit the ground, barely catching myself with my hands.
“Maybe, where you were, you forgot yourself? Allow me to remind you. I am your better. Every enhanced in this room is your better. You are nothing. I’m selling you to a man named Peter Alpin. I presume you remember him? Peter doesn’t give a shit if you come damaged, so you should remember your manners when you talk to me. Otherwise, I’ll deliver you to him unconscious and nearly dead.”
I could hardly think. The room blurred in and out of focus, but I’d heard him. And I knew Peter. Yeah, he is the nightmare scenario, the worst possible person to want to buy me. I wasn’t going to live to escape, as I barely made it through the night we shared previously. Amias tried to go up against Clarke and he failed, so I didn’t have a chance.
Hands grabbed me from behind, and I was held against Cambree’s chest. “Don’t do that to her. I didn’t bring her here for you to beat her.”
“Have all my whores lost their minds?” He looked at the man next to him, an enhanced man named Stocks. “Take her.”
His goon grabbed Cambree and dragged her backward by her hair, leaving me flat on the floor again. I lifted my head. “Apologies.” There really wasn’t anything else to say.
He sighed. “As I was saying, you ran off and caused me no shortage of problems. I can understand you wanting to run after your brother died, but I think the real problem is that I let Amias be nice to you for so long. This is what happens when I show my big heart. It always comes back and bites me in the ass.” This time he looked to the right with his long sigh. “Take her to the doctor. Tell her no med machine. I want her to still be bruised when he comes for her. She can keep her alive, and if she runs off again or does anything I don’t like, tell the doctor I’ll take it out of her ass.”
The enhanced I didn’t know picked me up off the ground. At least he didn’t drag me by my hair. But as I left, Clarke had a final blow to deliver. “I may decide you should work a few jobs between now and when you leave me. I might not, but be ready, in any case. It’s so fun to watch you on the screens with your legs spread.”
I hated him. Everything about him. The enhanced man set me down, but I saw none of the kindness of my men at home in his hard eyes. I blinked. Yes, it had become home, I realized. That was home, and this was hell.
When he set me down on a bed in the infirmary, he scowled. “Amias was always so full of himself, like he was too good to be here. I hated him.”
“I’m sure he hated you, too.” Something was wrong with my mouth. I just couldn’t seem to keep it closed.
