“It’s simple,” she said as if she were speaking with a simpleton. “At least two of your men are involved in this. Maybe all of them. I don’t know. But I do know you can’t trust them. But you can trust me. I’ll make sure your food is clean of those black things from now on. You’ll get meals that will make you stronger, not weaker.”
“I don’t need you to make me stronger,” I said. “I’m a Titan—”
“And you recover quickly, I know, I know,” she said with the same tired tone Maisie used.
“Then your deal is useless to me,” I said.
“Except for one thing…” she said, and once again I heard the relish in her voice. “Because you’re a big and powerful Titan thing, they’ve had to poison you for weeks. They think you’ll be weak enough to beat in some sort of Challenge within the next three days. If you don’t want me to help you, fine. But your crew will kill you if you’re not strong enough. I hope you can watch the food that’s prepared for you every minute of every day until then.”
She was a smart one, I had to give her that.
I had wondered why they hadn’t Challenged me already if they knew I was sick. Now I knew.
I wasn’t weak enough yet.
I wet my lips. “What do you want in exchange for your assistance?”
“After you win the Challenge, I want you to take me home,” she said. “Back to Earth. Right away. But not before we pick up my friends.”
“You’re asking for a lot,” I said. “One life in exchange for six. You save my life, and I’ll save yours. And I’ll show you where I last saw your friends.”
“And take us back to Earth,” the girl said.
“Okay. Fine. Well? What do you say?”
“I…” She couldn’t bring herself to accept the offer. “All right. I’ll make you stronger for your Challenge, and you’ll show me where you last saw my friends. Then you’ll take us home.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. “Do we have a deal?”
She loosened her grip on the blade. So did I.
“Yes,” she said. “We have a deal.”
She stood up and stepped back.
I rolled off my bed and peered at her. She was small and was dressed in the clothes we’d stripped off her when we loaded her and her friends into the pods. Despite myself, I admired her curves. I didn’t recognize her until our eyes met.
“You!” we said at the same time.
She was the girl that approached me at the bar back on Earth. I never would have thought that same girl would be capable of holding a Titan hostage until we agreed a deal.
“You’re the asshole who abducted us?” she said. “I can’t believe this!”
I folded my arms. “If I didn’t, this would be one hell of a coincidence. Alice.” I moved to the door. “I suppose I should tell the crew I found you.”
She bristled. “Why?”
“You’ll have to move freely around the ship if you’re going to be my spy. You’re not going to be able to do that while they’re still out there looking for you. And put the blade down. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
She pulled her arm back and tossed the knife at me.
My heart rate spiked as it struck my chest. I stumbled back…
The ‘blade’ clattered to the floor.
I bent down and picked it up. It wasn’t a sharpened blade as I expected but a ruler I used for annotating star maps.
“There you go, Mr. Great and Mighty Titan,” Alice said, folding her arms beneath her breasts. “Or should I say, Nighteko. I’m not sure you’ll measure up.”
I bit back a curse. I was going to have my hands full with this one.
Alice
I was relieved Nighteko agreed with my deal. I put everything on the table to meet and convince him. If he hadn’t agreed… I didn’t know what I would have done.
Actually, yes I did. His crew would have come in and forced me back in the pod. This time with added security. Then I would be sold to the alien master who’d bought me.
The thought of being bought and sold like that made me feel sick to my stomach. It concerned me somebody still might.
It all depended on me helping Nighteko grow strong.
Nighteko.
It was a shock to discover he was none other than the guy I approached that night at the bar. It was no coincidence. He was on the lookout for women to abduct.
And I’d handed us over to him.
It was all my fault.
And now here I was, chopping vegetables on a spaceship hurtling through the galaxy at unimaginable speeds, cooking a meal for my abductors.
You just couldn’t make this up.
I thought about my friends. Where were they now? Were they awake? Were they on some distant planet having adventures? Had any of them managed to find their way home yet? Did any of them blame me for what happened?
If I’d never approached Nighteko, none of this would ever have happened.
And I would never have found myself in a pod in the loading bay of a smuggler’s ship…
I bolted awake and smacked my head against something a few inches above me. I jolted back and raised my arms instinctively to protect myself. When nothing attacked, I opened my eyes.
My vision was blurry. I could only make out what appeared to be a grey cloud above me.
I had no concept of who I was, where I was, and most of all, what I was doing there.
I might have been born right at that moment.
I felt at the ceiling of my world. I was contained inside somewhere, enclosed beneath thick fabric I sensed I could not break. Cold air whispered from a crack forming on one side. I scrabbled at it with my fingers, still barely able to see, as the thick grey clouds floated to one side.
The gap grew wider and
