"Admit it, brother!" I laughed again, letting two more punches land on his sides. "You have lost. That pussy is mine."
"Kylie is not a pussy!" Myro stared at me, eye swollen and dark, golden blood seeping from a cut on his lip.
"You're right. You are." I punched him again, leaving him to sag unconscious against his books. "If I didn't know better I would say that you wanted her here. You needed to be punished for your sins."
Myro groaned as though he could hear me, his body twitching as proof of my victory.
It wasn't a true win, considering that he was still breathing, but I think this time I’d won an even better prize.
6
Myro
What the hell was I thinking?
I should have known going into a fight with Fey that I would end up face down in my own bed, head throbbing, jaw aching, with the overwhelming taste of blood in my mouth. I turned my head and instantly regretted it. He had left the lights on. Everything screamed in pain as the impact of his punches hit me with their full power.
"Lights off!" I screamed, everything rattling more as the burning agony of the powerful lights flicked off and left me in merciful darkness.
"Ship. Where is Fey?" I asked with a moan, rolling back onto my back and closing my eyes, which practically screamed for me to go back to sleep.
I already knew I wouldn't be able to. I knew what was coming.
"Fey is no longer on the ship," the computer returned, her synthesized voice meant to insight arousal. It was mostly pissing me off. "He has left a message."
Great. Of course he did.
"Play message." I threw my arms over my head, expecting his grating laugh to fill my room as he rubbed in his victory once more.
Instead, it was the same female voice of the ship, the message strangely distorted by the mismatched tones.
"Hey you fucking bastard, don't know why you tried that. You knew it was pointless, if I had to guess, you want that girl’s screams to fill the ship. Well, wish granted. I'm going back. Gonna go make her my mate through TerraLink, make it all official and shit. Kylie Robbins. Clean out your room you ass muncher because we are going to need it, I plan to ravage her in every room on that ship."
The computer's relay of his message ended with a poor imitation of his laugh, the low sound rattling my head even further.
"This is not going to end well." I rolled out of bed with a groan, collapsing onto my knees and crawling over to the food generator in the side well. "FireSlug juice!" I roared, grateful when everything buzzed to life. At least Fey hadn’t disabled that.
The stuff was normally meant for hangovers, but with the amount of pain I was in, I would take anything. Drinking the foul stuff, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. So much for the allure of golden skin, I was a million shades of grey and orange. There was even some black under my left eye. How fucking hard had the bastard hit me?
I would have to clean that up before Fey got back with the girl...
Wait, what the hell was I on about?
I couldn't let him go and get her, that would get us all killed. I didn't care how much of a bastard Fey was, I knew that Kylie was worth more than a good fuck before we all were on the receiving end of ritual sacrifice. She was worth protecting. Savoring. Treasuring.
"Fucking Fey." I slid into the squishy chair before the computer panels in my room, waving my hand over them to turn them all on. Nothing happened.
"Fucking Fey!" I caught my fists inches from colliding with the glass. Left me with food, but no computer. "Ship! What did he disable?"
"Fey has left the ship."
"Yes, yes, I know that," I growled, head in hands as I half wondered if Fey had turned off the ship's logic sensor too. "But what systems did he change before he did so? Exactly how trapped am I in here?"
"Fey disables access to all door locks, and altered many access ports."
I was amazed that I got that much information. Access ports must mean he changed the passwords. The Coxian wasn't that smart though, I was sure I could figure it out. Chances were high it was something about how much he hated me, or something about the girl. I would start with the girl, and I already knew where to look.
Chugging down the rest of the FireSlug juice, I slammed the glass down on my desk and opened my drawer, pulling out the old communicator that I had purchased a few planets ago. Old Earth technology fascinated many in the solar system and I was happy to get my hands on a working model.
Hitting the buttons on the side a few times, the thing flickered and buzzed to life, the swirling characters of the international language gracing the surface.
"Kylie Robbins. Earth. Full History." I spoke the words clearly into the mouthpiece before placing the device on the glass receptors on my desk, the tiny pictures on the communicator transferring to my intel screens.
The little thing had found what I was looking for immediately. Pictures of Kylie buzzed to life, one after another all-in different stages of her life. Her TerraLink enrollment card as a child, citing registration but not availability. The logs from a job she’d had at a shirt factory in the center of the Smog City. She had freckles then, and her hair was a lot wilder than what I had seen in the club. But she had the same eyes. Eyes that stared into me and sent a buzzing rumbling through my nerve endings.
I shivered. The things that this girl, even in pictures, were making me feel we're not making it easy to follow through on my decision to leave her behind.
Tapping the screen,
