Suddenly the scraping sound stopped and there was complete silence for a long…long time.
Maybe he left! Maybe he’s gone! Maybe he decided I’m not worth the trouble. Maybe, maybe, maybe, chanted a little voice in her head.
After what felt like an eternity, Penny finally dared to look up…
Only to see Skrug’s yellow, slitted eyes glaring down into hers.
“Hello there, girly,” he said, grinning his snaggletoothed, lipless grin at her. “So this is where you’ve been hiding.”
Seventy-Two
Penny’s heart felt like it was going to burst with fear.
Oh God! she thought, her brain working like a hamster on a wheel—running like crazy but going nowhere. Oh no! Oh God! OhGodohGodohGod!
“Get up and get out of there.” Skrug brandished his huge cleaver, the blade of which was still smeared with blood from whatever—or whoever—he’d been chopping up before the Public Breeding had begun. “Get out here, girly,” he snarled at Penny. “We got unfinished business to attend to.”
The words in Penny’s brain had changed. Have to get away! they insisted. Have to get away, have to get away, have to get away!
Yes, but how?
She had no weapons and she couldn’t reach anything but the crumpled loaf of bread she’d been carrying for her last customer—that was hardly going to be of any help. There was nothing in the mixing bowl with her but about six inches of the dark blue svetty flour which she was crouching in.
The flour! whispered the little voice in her brain. The flour, Penny—use it!
“Get out here now and give me what I want and I might not tell your supervisor that you was hiding and trying to avoid the Public Breeding,” Skrug commanded, giving her a cruel smile.
“What…what do you want me to do?” Penny remained crouched in the bowl but she gripped a handful of the coarse, grainy flour in each fist.
“Get out here and bend over this table.” Skrug clanged the blade of his cleaver against the metal worktable, drawing sparks. “I’m gonna breed you right proper, girly. Gonna shove my thick cock in that tight little snatch of yours and there’s not a damn thing your mate can do to stop me!”
His mention of V’rex made Penny wish for the big Hybrid with all her heart. But V’rex wasn’t here and even if he could get away from work, the greenhouse was across the Compound from the Marketplace. There was no way he could get to her in time.
She was on her own and she had two choices—submit or fight.
I won’t submit! She gripped her fistfuls of flour tighter. I’d rather die! If that big bastard is going to rape me, he’s going to have to work for it!
“Get out here, I said!” Skrug clanged the blade of his cleaver on the table again, impatiently. “Hurry up! I don’t got all day!”
“Put down the cleaver first,” Penny said and was surprised at how steady her voice sounded. “Put it down or I’m not coming out.”
“I could just cut you up right where you are,” Skrug pointed out, sending a chill through her. He frowned. “But it’s no fun fuckin’ a corpse.”
God, he sounds like he’s speaking from experience!
Penny felt sick, but she held her ground.
“Put it down and I’ll let you…let you breed me,” she said, her stomach fisting in revulsion at the thought. “But I’m not coming out while you’re holding that thing. It’s dangerous.”
For some reason this seemed to tickle Skrug’s funny bone, because he threw back his head and guffawed.
“Dangerous, right—so it is, girly!” he gasped, holding his stomach as he laughed. “All right then—scared of a little blade, are you? Well, then I’ll set it down as long as you behave.”
And he finally put the cleaver down on the table. Regrettably, he put it on the far end, where Penny couldn’t reach it, but at least the bloody blade was out of his hand.
“All right now…” He beckoned her with one clawed finger. “Come on out, just like you promised.”
“All right—don’t rush me.” Penny stood slowly, still gripping her handfuls of flour. She was waiting…waiting for the right moment…
It came when Skrug leaned over to shove his face into hers.
“Hurry up, girly!” he growled. “A Public Breeding don’t last all fuckin’ d—”
Penny raised her arms and flung both fistfuls of the dark blue flour in his face. She was aiming for his yellow, slitted eyes and judging from the howl he let out and the way he clawed at them, she had succeeded.
“Ow, you little bitch!” Skrug screamed as Penny scrambled out of the huge mixing bowl and started to run.
But a big, clawed hand caught the back of her toga and twisted in the fabric, stopping her forward momentum and yanking her up short.
“Oh no you don’t, you little cunt,” Skrug growled hoarsely. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere until I breed you!”
Penny tried to yank free, but to no avail. Using her toga, Skrug was pulling her in like she was a fish and he was an angler determined to have his prize. Looking over her shoulder, she saw he still had one meaty fist rubbing his reddened eyes, but the flour clearly hadn’t slowed him down much.
Desperately, she looked for a weapon. There was the cleaver but it was out of reach, on the other end of the table. There were sacks of flour, but they were too big and heavy to be used.
Then her eyes lit on the wooden mixing paddle that went with the bowl—the one as big as a boat oar. It was just within her reach.
Acting on instinct, Penny grabbed it with both hands and turned to swing it at Skrug’s head.
The big scaly hand tightened on her toga but for once Skrug’s strength worked against him. Penny leaned hard against the straining fabric and used the momentum of her whole body as she swung the wooden mixing paddle as
