But I didn’t.
He was afraid. Of me. I smiled, slowly. “You don’t need to mess with Artemis anymore. I’m the most interesting thing you were going to find there.”
“We know that ship. Every time we find that ship, whoever is on it causes us endless problems.” His chin shook.
I leaned forward as far as I could. “Stop firing on my ship, or next time I’ll make it hurt.”
“Stop firing,” he practically shouted. “Stop.”
I could have laughed. Every person on this ship, including me, could have heard him if he whispered, and he had to shout to get what he needed done. That was pathetic. Real leadership shouldn’t need this. The Super Soldiers here didn’t respect him, they tolerated him. That meant it would be pretty easy to take off his head. If I wanted that to happen.
I didn’t. I just wanted them to leave me alone.
“We… we can’t let this woman on our ship.” The man hollered again. “She’s going to turn your head. Make you all want to fuck her.”
I blinked at him. Okay. Now that had come from left field. I hadn’t considered that. There were risks with the fact that many of these people had maybe never seen a woman before. But then again, they were put in machines that chemically castrated them every so often so they wouldn’t have those urges. I hadn’t met the five Super Soldiers I loved until they’d worked through much of this.
Did the Vice President want to scare me? It wouldn’t work. I straightened my back. “I don’t believe that anyone on this ship would be so awful. Don’t you have control of your men?”
He grabbed my arm. “If you zap me again, I will have them beat you. They do what I say.”
I looked over my shoulder at the man with the broken nose. “Are you going to beat me? You didn’t even lift a finger to hurt me when I broke your nose. You aren’t. He’s a liar, and you could kill him and don’t. What does that tell me? You’re gentle inside. I don’t even know your name and I know that.”
The Vice President hauled me away from the man who’d held me. How far did I want to let this go? Once I showed my cards to this man, I couldn’t undo that. But the fact remained, if I could get my arm back from Devil and Blaze, I could easily subdue the Vice President of the moment and his pathetic attempts at manipulation.
I’d managed to get him to stop firing on Artemis, that bought me some time. Should I just…
He dug his fingers into my arm, and the answer came instinctually. I yanked my arm back, shoving the ass into the side of the wall in the process.
Well… that solved that. I put my hands on my hips. “Don’t touch me like that again. I’m strong and tough. I never knew that, not my whole life, but I do now, and I’m done with this bullshit.”
“I’m done with it, too. Trance, grab her.”
Stronger hands held me from behind, his arms gentler but tougher on my upper arms. This was a harder hold to get out of, and I didn’t know. We were supposed to have years on Artemis. I’d only advanced to jump higher. I’m sure if Kellan had known we had such a brief training period, he’d have gotten to this part faster.
Instinct could only get me so far.
“Put her in the Carrier. Let them deal with her at home. I have a job. I intend to do it. I don’t want a woman here.”
The Carrier? It had to be the…
I never got to finish that thought as I was stuck in a chair, strapped in, and the door closed around me.
“Hey,” I yelled out. It was pitch black, and this couldn’t be good news. I bit down on my lip, knowing my time to deal with this was coming to an end. “You don’t have to do this.”
The pitch blackness changed to bright lights.
14 The Place Melissa Left Behind
“Someone came back through, Johnny,” a voice called out, and I blinked through the haze that assaulted my head. That had been awful, like a sped up yet longer version of whatever they’d been doing to get from Artemis to their Evander ship and back. I grabbed my head. They’d sent me somewhere.
The door flung open, and two men—of the non-Super Soldier variety—stared at me. They were medium-sized, dark-haired—they might even be brothers, they looked so much alike—and they wore matching uniforms. Gray with the letter E in the corner.
Okay. That settled it. I was at Evander. Probably their headquarters.
“It’s a girl, Johnny.” The one not named Johnny stated the obvious while Johnny shook his head, silent so far.
I had a number of choices. They’d thrown me through this capsule-thingy. I had to use that for my benefit. What did that mean? Punch these guys out? Probably not. That would only take me so far. I wasn’t a Super Soldier, that was abundantly obvious, and they’d catch me. If I started hostile, I’d get hostile back.
With no idea how many people were in this facility, I certainly wasn’t going to take now to test my emotion-taking ability. That wouldn’t get me anywhere. I had to get back to the guys, but the only way currently to do that was back through the machine that brought me here and into the hands of that Vice President I should have just killed.
But there was the whole I-wasn’t-sure-I-had-the-stomach-for-it problem.
And these two might not deserve the killing. They might be an us and not a them.
I was overthinking things, and I had to make a decision. So I made one that occurred to me on the spot. I dropped to my knees. “Oh, please help me, kind sirs.” It was enough to make me gag, but I was doing it. For now, let them think I was a damsel in distress because I sort of was. “Help me. Things are so bad in that place. That man, the Vice President, he threatened and threatened me.”
Johnny finally spoke. “Oh, miss. Yes, you’re a girl. Sorry, we’ve never seen one before.” I couldn’t imagine that. We didn’t have very many women on our side of the galaxy. A virus had wiped out most of the women, and a substantial amount more boys were born than girls. However, we did have enough that most people would have at least seen a woman in their lives. What were they doing with them over here?
I answered my own unasked question: they hid them away like chattel. There was some of that where I was from, too. Just not on my own planet. I’d been luckier than I knew. It hadn’t been perfect, but it had been a lot better than most places. Sometimes the grass is greener at home.
“We’d better take her to the executives,” Not-Johnny spoke again. “We can’t have her here. There’s no one scheduled to go through today. Unsanctioned use will be a problem. And… and I’m not getting blamed for this.”
I watched through lowered eyes. The perfect blend, I hoped, of scared and needy. In the meantime, I listened. No one else was coming through today. That didn’t mean that they couldn’t have someone come through like I just did. Someone to follow me and give me away. If I were the Vice President over there, that’s what I’d do. I chewed on my lip. How should I try to make the next moments happen? What did they need to be?
“You know they’re not going to be happy while they’re in negotiations with Faustas Corporation.”
Now that caught my attention. I kept my eyes down. “Sorry? I’m so confused. Who are these people you’re discussing?”