It wasn’t a short walk, but she didn’t give up, powerless to move her arms more than a sorry swing but sharp with her tongue. She threatened the stranger’s life, swore she’d tear off his cock if he put it anywhere near her. His mother. His family. Creative in her expletives until a door opened and cool air blasted her back.
There really was air conditioning on that boat! One taste of it on her skin and she went from spitting hellcat to sobbing wreck.
The trivial thing she’d craved most from the life stolen when the bombs fell was just as divine as she remembered.
“Hey, Joan, here’s a new one. Captain wants her cleaned up and kept alive. Level 15.”
“Well”—a woman spoke, a no-nonsense, middle-aged voice—“won’t that just get the men frothing at the mouth? And just look at all that red hair.”
“Temper to match. She’s a biter.” Hefting Eugenia down against something soft and forgotten, the bruiser who dragged her into air-conditioned hell warned Joan, “Watch yourself.”
“Yeah, I heard you. Now go. No men are allowed up here until the bell.”
Chapter Two
Water enough to make her belly poke out, blessed air conditioning, a bed with real sheets that were so clean her dirt made a mark... it should have been bliss.
It wasn’t.
According to the solitary porthole in her room—a porthole too small to climb through and too high above the lake to survive the fall should she dislocate a shoulder and squeeze out—Eugenia had measured two days.
Time to recover from dehydration, most of it spent sleeping, drinking, eating food that was delivered by the no-nonsense Joan. Using an honest to God toilet when her taxed kidneys continued to do their job.
A porthole with a bird’s-eye view of the cliff face that concealed the ship from any wandering travelers brave enough to dare the seemingly endless, decaying wood.
Dogs howled each night, the familiar, dreaded sound sending her to her feet, heart in her throat as she reached for a knife that wasn’t there. As she scrambled to hide. Only to find herself blinking in the dark. Confused. Protected by inches of solid steel.
No stray pack was getting at her there. Something worse would try.
Her gut never lied.
And it wasn’t like she hadn’t been in a similar position before. But always in a ruin, a hut, a pen, a ditch in the ground. Never a massive ocean liner with working electricity and flushing toilets.
New situations required a new perspective. Her body required rest.
She’d die without water.
And water was delivered aplenty, with ice clicking against the side of the glass. They had ice machines, for fuck’s sake! They had guns, which meant they probably had the ammunition to fire them.
They had resources to feed what had been deemed a slave, and the luxury of time to allow that slave to be more than… what she’d seen so many other women turned into.
Bland food three times a day, mostly stew, brought to her like she was some princess in a tower. Yet no morsel ever served with any sort of utensil—heaven forbid she try to make a weapon out of a freaking spoon. Only a bit of crusty bread that, in itself, was so rare she gobbled it down despite the brick in her stomach.
They had ovens. They had stoves. They made bread.
No one, save Joan, entered her room. No men came jeering at the door. There were no squabbles in the halls over who got to fuck her first.
When she yelled for answers or threw her weight against the door, no soul took her bait.
Another stark reminder that this was very different compared to all her other situations of capture in the past.
Two days turned to three before her solitude was broken by more than a tray and congenial older woman. Joan arrived with orders.
First, a shower overseen by Eugenia’s overpolite taskmaster. Joan, standing over her, making certain every inch was scrubbed clean of filth, that stray body hair was removed. Joan scrubbing caked mud from red curls when Eugenia’s shampooing skills were apparently under par. Joan slathering her locks with conditioner to take out the snarls, pulling a comb through Eugenia’s wet mane until it felt like half her hair had been ripped from her skull.
Tsking, shaking her head at another errant tangle, Joan complained, “Young lady… you had three days to wash, and I have to be the one to come in and make you? Do you have any idea how you smelled?”
Well excuse the fuck out of her. “How was I supposed to know that water was safe?”
And why on earth would Eugenia want to wash off her filth and potentially grow appealing to the things that crept around this place?
Under her breath, the older woman continued to fight a knot that would probably need to be cut out of her hair. “Can’t have washed this mop in years.”
It was less that she was naked in front of a stranger, and more that the stranger’s snark was really getting on Eugenia’s nerves. “Oh yeah, every chance I get, I trot right up to the Four Seasons and book the presidential suite, followed by a day at the spa. How long has it been since you’ve been out there, lady? Let someone get a glimpse of the goods and you’ll end up on a whore ship, shaving your legs and armpits in front of a stranger. Oh, and there will be a man with his back to you, two feet away in case you try to use the safety razor to attack Madame Joan, wrangler of unwilling women who’d would really like off this boat.”
That earned a smirk, Joan’s silver bob better suited to a business meeting than stranger scrubbing. “But you owe a debt now. Food, water, two nights’ board. Oh, and those clothes you so kindly refused to wear. Don’t get me wrong; the men would love to see the new girl naked on her first day, but let’s take things one step at a time.”
“How the hell did you even come by clothes like that out here?” Lacy panties. A plaid, pleated mini skirt. A shirt designed to tie under her breasts and leave her belly exposed. “This is a stripper’s version of naughty Catholic schoolgirl outfit… and I’m not a whore.”
“No, you’re not. They won’t be paying you.” Joan didn’t mince words, which Eugenia had to admit was somewhat appreciated, considering the circumstances. “They won’t be paying you for your time. You, young lady, are an indentured guest.”
Fancy language was a tool smart people used to confuse stupid ones. Leaving Eugenia with a don’t even try it smirk as she said, “My mom used to call me ‘young lady,’ but only when I was in trouble.”
“You have been a bit of trouble, but that’s nothing a few weeks’ hard labor won’t wear out of you.”
“Or, and hear me out.” Raising her hands and not at all concerned that the bodyguard was listening, Eugenia gave her most winning smile. “All the women can mutiny, poison the men, and take over the boat. We could christen this ship New Amazonia. Eh? Good idea, right?”
“It takes a crew of three-hundred strong men to keep this ship running, to gather food, to manage maintenance and power, to make repairs, to fight off invaders, and run trade. Sorry, young lady, but I’m comfortable… and you will be too once you accept the world isn’t what it was.”
“It’s not my fault all you older idiots voted for the wrong president! I wasn’t even eighteen when that potato stole his first term. You killed this world, and now I am expected to whore in it?” There was no question of the bitterness hanging tight in Eugenia’s heart. None at all, when she added, “Thanks, but no.”