Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
I waggle the weapon at him. I’m not going to shoot him. I don’t want to make that much of a mess in the ship, plus I don’t want to accidentally blow a hole in the side of my own vessel. Nobody in their right mind would use this kind of weapon inside a ship in space. But he doesn’t know that I am in my right mind. I’m sure I don’t look like it.
“Get in the airlock, Raz.”
“No.” He refuses, but I’m not giving him a goddamn choice.
I take a step toward him, ushering him off the bridge. He steps back, no doubt with the image of the guy on the outlaw station in his mind, but he’s not moving fast enough. He keeps hesitating, stalling for time, and that is pissing me off. I can hear Sheriff issuing threats from the bridge comms. I’m sure he heard me threaten Raz too. Good. I want him to hear all of this. I raise my voice so it carries to Sheriff. These two really thought they had me. They picked me off from any protector or ally, and they were going to bring me in and kill me. That makes what I am about to do eminently reasonable.
“Get in the fucking airlock, or I’m going to pick the limb I delete with this gun. If you don’t do what I say, I will shoot your arms off, and then your legs off, and then I will roll your torso into the airlock. This weapon cauterizes where it hits, so you’ll probably stay conscious the whole time.”
Raz looks shocked. “You are a brutal, twisted little thing. You didn’t deserve the kindness I showed you.”
“Probably not. Get in the fucking airlock.”
He betrayed me, but of course he doesn’t see it that way. Guys like him never do. They think the women they lie to deserve to be lied to. They think their intelligence and lack of morality makes their actions not only justified, but even admirable.
As he realizes the game is over, he starts telling me what he really had in store for me.
“You’re going to be hanged, human. You’re going to get what you deserve. Creatures like you are the ones who deserve to be deleted.”
“Right. So it can’t exactly get worse for me, can it? I can do whatever I want to you. Get. In. The. Fucking. Airlock.”
He does as he is told. He’s got to be terrified, but he is wrestling with himself not to beg me for his life. He knows Sheriff is listening, and he doesn’t want to die a coward. Apparently dying a liar doesn’t bother him nearly so much.
“Here’s the thing, Raz. I’m going to open this airlock, and you’re going to be sucked out into space. There will be a split-second in which Sheriff can save your pointless hide by transporting you to his ship. That will slow him down long enough for me to make good my escape. Let’s hope Sheriff values your help, otherwise he’s probably going to shoot me into oblivion, and you’ll be turned inside out in about three seconds.”
“Reckless, cruel, foolish little human,” Raz says. He isn’t nearly as cheerful as he was before. That easygoing, suave demeanor has been completely erased. In its place is his true face. He is cunning. He is full of guile. And he is dangerous, or he would be if he wasn’t on the wrong side of the airlock door.
I kick the door shut and hit the purge lever.
The outer door swings open, and Raz is gone like a bug being sucked up a cosmic vacuum. I wonder if he’s been erased from existence or saved by his ally. I don’t particularly care either way.
I run for the controls and hit maximum speed, heading deeper into the violent storm of magnetic eddies. The ship is thrown around dangerously, but I want to go where I truly cannot be followed. Sheriff wants me dead, but he’s not going to put his own life on the line to achieve that. He’s a persistence hunter. He’ll follow. He’ll find me again eventually. But not today.
I’m alone again.
The ship is tossing about like an old-fashioned ship on ocean waves. It’s nauseating. It’s terrifying. That’s what freedom feels like. It feels scary and gross and it makes me wish I’d never chosen it, but it is also the only choice.
I ride that storm for days, letting the eddies of the interstellar currents decide my path. Pretty hard to be intercepted if you don’t know where you’re going. I feel violated by Raz. There was no part of his being he was not prepared to turn over in order to help Sheriff kill me. I wonder why. I wonder what Sheriff had on him. Guess I’ll never know.
5 AFTER THE STORM