Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 66904 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66904 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
If I weren’t a pretty young girl, he’d be suspicious about following me, but as it is, he follows me back to the stinking alley between the bar and the repair shop like a horny lamb. He thinks I’m about to fuck him at best and suck him at worst.
“How much for all your holes?”
He asks that crude question without the slightest shame. I’m not a woman to him. I’m not anybody besides meat to be used.
I reach up under my skirt, and he watches my hand with an expression of lustful, stupid enchantment. He doesn’t like what I pull out from under there, though. It’s a handy little stun-gun. I hit him with it, and I watch 20,000 volts run through him. He crumples like the sack of shit he is, and I start robbing him.
I take his credits card. I take his coin. I take the chocolate bar he was probably saving for a special occasion out of his pocket and I rip the wrapper open with my teeth and I start wolfing it down while still going through his pockets. He has a watch. I take that. One of the fences I see regularly will take it.
I leave the guy in the alley and wander off. My gait is unsteady, either because I don’t drink enough water, or because I’ve been drowning my sorrows since I hit this station a week ago. They have substances here that make me feel ways I never imagined it was possible to feel. Euphoria, peace, happiness even. It’s crazy. And the only price for all of this is money, which I can get from men like the one I just robbed.
“The whore stole my fucking money!” An outraged scream erupts from behind me.
He woke up quickly.
Usually I have some kind of an escape plan in mind, but on this occasion, I forgot that part. I’ve been getting sloppy lately. Not really caring if I get away with crimes or not. The first couple of times I robbed a filthy old man who wanted to ravage me there was a thrill. I was careful. I hid myself away. This time I didn’t even bother to get all that far away from the alley.
“Oops.”
I run, and it’s not a good run. It’s a long-legged, wobbling-on-shoes-with-heels-that-are-too-high run.
“Eeek!”
Someone grabs me and drags me into a ship. I find myself looking into the laughing eyes of a woman with bright blue eyes and wonderfully curling blonde hair.
“You seem like trouble,” she says. “I like trouble.”
With that memory running through my head and feeling the kind of gratitude you can only feel when you’ve had nothing and just been given everything, I rush forward and tackle hug Sullivan. It’s not the best idea. She lets out a scream of shock that is way too loud and drives her elbow back into my midsection, winding me instantly.
“It’s me!” I grunt the obvious from the floor. “Lettie.”
“Lettie!” Sullivan’s tone is scandalized and surprised and excited all at the same time. Her eyes are wide as she tries to process the fact that one of her crew has once again come for her. “What are you doing here?”
She grabs me up from the ground and hugs me back tight, kind of hard enough to wind me for a second time. I let myself sink into her embrace. I have very much missed her. Sullivan was the first person who made the universe make sense to me. She helped detox me and she set me up as a successful pirate in her crew. I owe her, and Raine, and the others my entire life. They’re more than a crew. They’re my family. This feels like coming home.
“What are you doing down here? And what are you wearing?”
She asks two very good questions.
“I know I look a mess, but I’ve come to extract you. We need to get out of here. Bad, really fucked up things are happening, and the Mare…”
“What about the Mare?”
“Suli!?”
A deep saurian voice comes from outside the room. It has to be Alpha Thorn. Makes sense. Sullivan did just scream like she was being murdered.
Sullivan’s eyes go wider still. She opens a cupboard in the wall and without any further preamble, shoves me inside it. Moments later, the door opens and the saurian who must consider himself her mate enters. I can’t see him, but I can hear the rumble of his voice as he starts asking questions. It is deep, and resonant, and holds authority.
I can see a sliver of the room through a few of the seams where the doors meet the wall. Sullivan takes a step back, and I catch sight of a very large, very rust red and orange saurian. I heard about this guy. The girls who tried to rescue Sullivan the first time described alpha Thorn as the scariest alien they’d ever met. I thought they were exaggerating, but even in the relative safety of the interior of this piece of furniture, I sense his gravitas. This is not a guy to be fucked with, and I am absolutely in the process of fucking with him.