with questions. Why did we attack them? How many ships have we lured? What's our goal? How did we acquire the Buoyant Star? Where's the crew? What's in the hold? As the minutes pass and the men get more agitated, I can't help but notice that Adiron—the spanking enthusiast—takes a seat across from us and crosses his arms over his chest. His legs are sprawled out and he looks bored, his tail calm.
I'm choosing to take that as a good sign. The other three are worked up as they ask us more questions we don't answer, but I'm starting to feel comfortable that no one's going to torture information out of us. Whoever these aliens are, I don't think they arrived onto the ship with malicious intent. I don't know how we're going to break free, but right now, I'm taking it one problem at a time. I'll watch and observe, and eventually the right opportunity will present itself.
Adiron might be the key, in fact. I glance through my lashes over at him, and he's watching me. He seems fascinated with me for some reason, and I can use that to my advantage if I have to. I can distract him in some way, or convince him to let us go, or…
As I subversively regard him, Adiron jumps to his feet. "We're not getting anywhere with this," he announces. "I have a better idea."
"Oh, here we go," mutters the black-robed one.
I lift my head and watch, uneasy, as Adiron grabs the three men and pulls them in for a football huddle. They whisper, too low for my translator to pick up, and now my worry spikes again.
They turn to look at us with calculating gazes, and my neck prickles with alarm. "Leave the others alone," I volunteer suddenly. "They can't tell you anything."
"Jade," Alice hisses.
I ignore her. If I have to sacrifice myself to save the others, I'll gladly do so. Those girls are my family. "You don't want them," I boldly claim. "You want me."
"Big words for someone that's said nothing in the past half hour," says the tallest of the group, and then he nods at Adiron. "We'll try your suggestion. Grab one."
The men surge forward and I bite back a scream of terror. Ruth growls, Alice tries to shove her chair backward, and Helen whimpers in distress. This is it now. This is the end of the “nice guys” act. I lift my chin, trying to look far more defiant than I feel as Adiron stalks toward me. Of course he's coming for me. He's been fascinated with me since the moment our eyes met.
Well, if he expects me to go down without a fight, he's going to be in for a surprise.
Except…I'm the one surprised when he moves behind my chair and activates a mechanism. It surges forward and he steers me toward the door. With a worried glance backward at the others, my captor steers my chair into the hall. I hear commotion in the room behind me and a called out “Get her to stop kicking!” rings in the hall.
That'd be Ruth, I wager. I hope she kicks a few of them in the blue gonads.
Meanwhile, Adiron keeps rolling me down the hall. We zoom past a few of the red-skinned guards who look at us with curiosity, and I try to add them to my mental tally. It's hard, though—they all have the same faces. I don't know if these are the same guards as before or different ones. Clones, someone said. Right. Well, shit. How many clones are on this ship with us? My heart sinks, because the more people we run across, the worse our chances are.
A group of four smart, canny, prepared women can absolutely take down a handful of enemies. But fifteen? Twenty? I don't like those odds and my stomach tightens with distress.
Behind me, Adiron whistles as he guides my chair forward. At the far end of the hall, a door opens and reveals an elevator. He steers me onto it, and my anxiety just increases. I twist at my cuffs again, desperate. "If you think you can rape some answers out of me," I warn, "you are sorely mistaken."
"Rape you?" He sounds disgusted and more than a little shocked. "Why would you think that?"
"Because you're separating me from the others? Because you want answers?" I pause for a moment, then add, "Because I've seen the way you keep looking at me?"
He moves to the side of my