Planet Athion: The Complete Series by Angel Lawson
25
Mercy
Queasiness isthe first sensation I feel when I wake, along with frigid air and a terrible stench. My back is pressed against something hard and I know without a doubt I’m no longer on Athion.
I’m on a ship.
I spent six months traveling on a space vessel and although I was asleep through it all, I’m certain about where I’m being held.
Yep—held.
I feel the weight of chains around my wrists. Kane. He’s one of them. He tricked me. Took me. God knows what his plans are from here.
I look around the dark room, somewhere deep in the bowels of the ship. It only takes a moment for my eyes to adjust and see that I’m not alone. There are other women here.
I nudge the one closest to me with my foot. Her blonde hair is dirty and she wears a thin dress over her skinny body. She rouses at my touch and curses under her breath.
“What?”
“Where are we?”
“Huh?” She blinks and I must finally come into focus.
“Where are we?”
“Ah, we got a new one.”
“A new what?”
“Product. Object. Item for sale.”
“Sale?”
She shifts until she’s sitting. Her hands are bound, just like mine. “You really don’t know where you are?”
I shake my head, wishing I hadn’t asked. Wishing I could wake up from this terrible nightmare and find myself with Kai, Dimka, and Alex in the bunker.
“It’s your unlucky day, you’ve found yourself on the Master’s ship.”
“The what? Who?”
“The Master—our master. Yours now, too.”
“And what does he want?”
She laughs darkly. “He has everything he wants, girl. You’re just part of his collection. Another piece of his game. He’ll sell you, trade you, fuck you. Whatever he wants.”
“No.” My hands begin to shake.
“Yes,” she says, without a trace of doubt. “You’re a slave. Just like me.” She nods out to the rest of the room, where other figures lie on the floor or on small, metal bunks. “Just like them, and the Master owns all of us unless he decides to sell us off.”
I want to call her a liar but I can’t. I feel it in my bones. The missing woman on Athion. The alarm. The constant vigilance by my Custo. They knew there was a threat. I felt it in their kisses and in their protective care.
My Custo.
They’ll come for me.
“Ah, I see that look in your eye.”
“What look.”
“Hope.” She smiles wickedly. “Toss that out now. It doesn’t exist down here.”
“They’ll come for me.”
“Who?”
“My…the…” I clamp my mouth shut. I don’t want to speak their names down here.
“No one’s coming for you, girl. No one. Don’t you think they would have stopped the Master before if they could? They can’t. He’s too strong and he owns us. He owns me and all these other women.” She looks at me with hard, soulless eyes. “He owns you.”
I turn away from her, shutting my eyes, blocking her out. She’s wrong. I’ve been claimed by three men already. They own me, not some human trafficker.
That’s what I tell myself as the ship rattles on and I grow colder and more and more frightened.
They’ll come for me. They’ll rescue me.
And if they don’t?
I’ll follow my sister’s lead and let death claim me first.