“What kind of match?”
“A gladiator match. Many of my brothers are gladiators.”
My eyebrows go up. “Wow. Your brothers are starting to sound cool as fuck.” Then I add, “Cool means ‘awesome.’”
Pride flashes across her face and warms her eyes, even though she sighs. “They are. They all are.”
“What happened?”
Her wholesome (I’m sticking with it) lips purse. “While he was in the ring, I was taken.” She peeks at me out of the corner of her eye and speaks fast like she’s suddenly pleading with me to understand. “You see, I’d begged to ride along with him to this match because I wanted to be off-planet. I’d never been anywhere but home, and it should have been safe enough. I just wanted to see his game and cheer for him the loudest.”
It should have been safe enough.
Words that become a little terrifying in the context of a conversation where the speaker was taken against their will. Because obviously, it wasn’t safe. My brain runs through every abduction story I’ve ever heard, plays every horror that the survivors had to endure at the hands of their captors. A mental alarm blasts between my ears.
See, I was raised to protect women, to watch out for them. Think an ultra LGD (livestock guardian dog) versus a Pomeranian. A Kangal shepherd, a Karakachan, a Cão de Gado Transmontano—something with serious instincts for protection and defense—as opposed to the average, I don’t know, an Italian Greyhound, maybe.
And human predators are coyotes. To compare society’s depraved to coyotes is probably insulting to coyotes—which is saying a lot, if you’ve ever seen them eviscerate sheep for fun, or pick off a cat, or take off with a chihuahua—but it’s an apt comparison, and my grandfather and my dad were like drill sergeants when it came to training me to watch out for my mom, my sisters, and women in general. I can’t just shake off all of their lessons.
Honestly, I do try to tone it down. I’m trying it right now. I fire up my parasympathetic breathing system by inhaling deeply through my nose and releasing my breath calmly, signaling to my body that there’s no need to turn into the Hulk.
Even if Inara was snatched right from the bleachers as she cheered her brother on during his game.
Because she’s clearly fine now. But man, do I feel for her brother. The guilt must crush him. I mean, who wouldn’t think it was safe to leave their kid sister to scream their name just a few seats away as they played? Deep breath, Hulk. She’s obviously in one piece. “But you weren’t.”
Her expression is sour. “It proved not to be safe.”
“Were you…” Steam should come out of my nose. Warning: tactical breathing exercises not effective. “Did your abductor... hurt you?”
She shrugs. “Not really.”
GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER, DR. BANNER. I want to press—well, actually, I want to shout—but it’s not really my business, and thankfully she doesn’t seem upset. Angry but not upset. “That’s…” I lick my teeth and force out, “...good.”
She nods.
I wrap my hands around the treadmill handles and apply my feet in a steady (pounding) forward manner, suddenly needing to occupy myself. “How did you get taken?”
She starts walking again too, her movements easy, although her tail makes an audible snapping noise as she flicks it behind her. “A group of Luvuuds sat down in front of me.” She throws me a glance. “They’re very tall.”
“Right,” I nod, having not the foggiest clue. But the curling sensation in my stomach tells me I get where this is going.
“Thus, I thought I’d go down to the side portico, where I’d be able to watch the fight at arena-level.”
“This does not sound good.”
She sighs. “It was perhaps not wise. But normally, only gladiators have access to that area of the arena. To my mind, it was a safe move, because nobody would be there to harass or harm me.”
Before I can say anything, she continues, “And I was allowed to take up a place there because everybody who saw me knew I belonged with one of the combatants.” Her glance at me now holds pride. “My people tend to be noticeable on that planet.”
“Something tells me your family is noticeable on any planet.” I eye the dorsal spines that stick out of the back of her tunic. And her tail, so animated behind her as she tells this story, snapping and rattling like she’s angry.
“It’s true,” she says proudly. “Anyway, my brother spied me and paused his fight to point at me. But his attention must be focused on his combatant at all times. I felt terrible to realize I was dangerously distracting him. I immediately moved to return to the stands where he’d first put me.”
My tennis shoes start pounding the treadmill, my steps aggressive. All I can see are my own sisters in this scenario, and it’s killing me. “Okay.”
“I started to go. But when he turned back to his opponent—”
“Oh hell no, sweetheart.” I wipe my hand over my face, too many late night human trafficking documentaries dancing behind my eyes. Acid is churning in my stomach. Like if I don’t chill soon, my insides are going to make gut-eating butter. There goes my gastric health. Also? I’m taking this information straight to heart: if I tell this woman to stay somewhere, use duct tape or Gorilla Glue.
“I didn’t disobey him! I only thought about it. But I’m not senseless,” she defends hotly. Her scales flash in the crappy light from above and her tail snaps and she’s really pretty.
DAMMIT, MATT, WHAT DID WE SAY ABOUT THAT WORD!
But seriously—I bet whoever took her thought she was pretty too. “What happened?”
“Well, it turned out that it was no accident that the Luvuuds sat in front of me and blocked my view. They had been hoping to drive me from the sight of my brother’s friends, who had been spread out in the stands also watching the match. As I was heading back through the tunnel to return to the stadium, the Luvuuds met me, and took me. By the time my brother’s watchers reached the tunnel mouth, it was too late. Just out of their sight, I was being loaded onto a slaver’s cart. What’s the matter?” she asks, concerned.
“Stress ulcer,” I say raggedly, holding a fist to my gut as I jog harder. “Go on.”
She eyes me worriedly. “It was determined that I was a virgin—”
So this is what a brain aneurysm feels like.
“—and I was put on a freighter and transported with a ship full of other beings to an auction planet,” she spits out quickly.
But she may as well be ripping a Band-Aid off of an alligator bite.
A faster delivery doesn’t do a whole lot.
“Inara…” I choke.
She speeds up her steps to match my pace. We’re jogging. Like there’s a pair of T-Rexes chasing us. I’m panting. She’s not. “It was a frightening experience,” she grumbles before stressing, “but I’m fine. Nothing happened to me! My brothers rescued me before the auction began.”
“AUCTION,” I cough out. It was ‘determined’ you were a virgin just what the hell kind of auction was this... Thank God some of her brothers are gladiators. No doubt they all have a very particular set of Liam Neeson-level skills. Skills they’ve acquired over a long career of ass-beating other aliens. Skills that make them nightmares for aliens who abduct their one and only sister. “They were going to auction you.”