Swallow it Down - Addison Cain Page 0,31

of foreplay, and she was the queen of surviving bullshit. “How many of the kids are yours?”

“None.” He shook his head. “I don’t go to Level 9.”

“Why? Can’t look them in the eye when you can’t even fuck Level 15 slaves face-to-face?”

“Work out the statistics, work your math, and admit to yourself that I’m trying to save the world.” He had not been that harsh with her since the day his fingers tore her hymen. But he was sharp as a razor as he condemned, “I know you don’t want to face the truth, because you’re too damn bitter over what you lost. Everyone lost, Eugenia! And everyone had a part in it. And now everyone pays.”

Not on this boat. “Except you, in your fancy room with your music and rotating harem of pretty girls of a certain age. You’re a monster, Aaron.” Slinking out from his touch, she skittered back. “I don’t ever want to talk to you again. I don’t even want to look at you.”

Standing tall, he sighed. As if he was the one hurting and she was the one causing it. “You’ll come to accept it. They all do.”

He walked away, leaving her as she was—because they both knew she wasn’t going to throw herself over that railing—Eugenia screaming at his back, “When I get off this boat, I won’t ever come back!”

***

Ironically forced to dress in the same outfit from that first, awful night—the naughty schoolgirl—Eugenia prepared Table #2. Stacking the pile of linen to the side for the men to shoot their load into. Grasping why they never complained about not finishing in the girls.

Because it would break their fancy toy if that human got pregnant. After all, everyone went to Level 9, and they’d have their shot later.

And they all knew it when they teased, kissed, adored, fucked, and offered for Level 15 girls.

They weren’t straight evil. The captain was. And she could see how some of them had hinted. But who could doubt for a minute that outright spilling the beans about Level 9 led to instant execution?

Couldn’t upset this well-oiled machine of mind games and carnival tickets, now could they?

Fuck up the party if the party girls realized the ride never ended.

So, what was down there? Women chained to beds? Is that why he liked to tie the other girls up? Get them accustomed to it.

What did the men trade for the opportunity to breed an entire cycle?

Five-thousand tickets? Five-hundred thousand?

Whatever Brooke had just survived might make that woman go mad if a man tried to touch her. Maybe the captain’s version of acceptance was just a bunch of broken shells with functioning wombs and severe psychological trauma.

Brooke was in bad shape.

She limped like the dying limped.

But stranded on Level 15, Eugenia couldn’t help her. Spending her hour analyzing a gait she’d seen only once from hundreds of feet away.

Remembering that scream for help.

Knowing she was being mocked all the time by the captain. The only person on that whole fucking ship who had been her “friend.”

God, she was an idiot.

The things she had told Aaron in their daily banter.

The ways he would have to suffer before he died.

Did the men all laugh at her below deck? The fallen virgin who thought she was so damn smart? Who they all knew would end up as some kind of breeder on Level 9 no matter how long she held out.

Who they indulged.

Men she knew. Who she’d conversed with for months. Men who sat at her table that very night as she brushed lint from the white tablecloth. Men who presented their cookie sheets for her to sit on. Who bantered and dined on ribeye, just like that first night.

There hadn’t been ribeye since…

Not that it mattered. Twenty-million-plus tickets she owed. Ten fucks a night, she might get off the ship in two years. Walk south and never stop walking. Never stop.

Ever.

The man with his hand splayed on her belly, who served as her chair, said, “You’re awfully quiet tonight. Are you okay?”

On no level was she okay. “I’m just doing some math… a bit stuck on the numbers.”

How many plates had she broken? How many extra fucks had she added to her tally?

If she could convince ten of them to fuck her a night, how many nights would that be? There were only five men at her table, so she’d have to draw the other men, get competitive over tickets. Would ten men even want to fuck her every day, or would