“There isn’t,” he bit out. “Now, get in and stay there.” He gave me a shove, pushing me through the door backwards.
“How did all of you get here?” I rushed out, holding onto the door frame. “How long have you been here?”
“All of my life.” He closed the door in my face, leaving me alone.
Trapped.
“Wait!” I tried to slide the door open, pushing at it with my hands. It wouldn’t budge.
I leaned my forehead against the cool material of the door. The horror of my situation descending on me.
“That’s impossible.”
Wyck’s words echoed in my mind.
I had no reason to trust anything he said, but could I prove him wrong? Even if I managed to somehow fix the cut-out in the escape capsule door that Nocc had made, I had no idea what to do about the system malfunction.
“Not enough power to take off.”
I distinctly remembered the warning message on the control panel, but I didn’t know what had caused it or how to fix it.
Our team had been carefully selected. The distinct skill set of each individual was meant to add to the combined knowledge base we had as a group. My expertise, sadly, appeared to be the least useful for the current situation.
As a movie producer, my sole purpose on the team was to obtain appealing footage to create a documentary that would showcase the achievements of our expedition in the best light and make our sponsors look good. The cameras I had installed around the common areas of the ship would’ve recorded the carnage upon our arrival and the demise of my entire crew—nothing for the sponsors to brag about.
I had no idea how to fix any of the complicated space travel technology that had gotten me here. I’d spent nearly a year in training, learning how to use it. It would take years more of studying to learn how to repair any of it.
The people who could do something about it were now dead. My chest tightened as the image of the motionless bodies of my teammates rose in my mind’s eye again. The horror of their murders churned painfully in my soul.
A little flicker of hope burnt through the darkness of my despair. Val wasn’t among the corpses on the floor when Wyck had taken me off our ship. I hadn’t witnessed her being killed. Could she have survived and made it out of there undetected? And if she had, how long would she be able to survive in this place?
According to Wyck, being anywhere on the Anomaly on your own meant risking being raped or eaten. After everything I’d experienced here in the short time since our landing, I was inclined to believe him on that one.
The horror of it all crept up my throat, making it hard to breathe and bringing tears to my eyes. I pressed my eyes shut quickly, refusing to let the tears flow. As long as I was still alive, I had to keep going.
First, I needed to talk to Wyck—or anyone who would speak to me—to find out more about this place and those who occupied it.
Letting go of the door, I finally turned around. My breath caught in my throat at the sight of the room Wyck had put me in.
It’d been made entirely out of transparent material. Attached to the pewter-colored wall with the entrance doors, the glass bubble extended out into the open space beyond. The bottom of it was flat, serving as the floor, the rest arched around me, surrounded by the rolling waves of multi-colored light. It ebbed and pulsed in an endless cosmic dance, impairing my sense of reality.
The space beyond the glass room was both beautiful and terrifying in its vastness. Staggering back, I pressed my hands into the door behind me, letting the sensation of cool solid metal ground me.
One didn’t need to be an expert to realize this light show was not a normal occurrence. For all the wonders of space I’d witnessed on my journey here, I’d never seen anything like this before. The mesmerising beauty would’ve beguiled and excited me had Wyck not made it clear—this was now my prison.
Beautiful and terrifying.
Chapter 4
WYCK
He punched the code into the newly mounted panel to engage the lock, then leaned against the closed doors, grateful to have the female and her scent finally concealed behind them. The urgent throbbing in his cocks subdued somewhat, resuming the