Swallow it Down - Addison Cain Page 0,55

don’t know how to describe. Not just because she was hard on me, but because she was great.”

And Eugenia had meant great in the way that artists were great. The way countries were great. Her mom had been a juggernaut that had changed the world for the better. All that surgical knowledge gone forever, thanks to Aaron’s father.

The phantom took a cautious step closer. “Eugenia, what did Joan say to you?”

“She only told me the truth. You can’t have me and keep peace on the ship. And you know it too.” Since this was final confessions and all, she tacked on, “And though I do hate you, I couldn’t see your work fail just because the pair of us were…”

“In love?”

“Call it whatever you want. It doesn’t matter.”

Breathless, he looked torn apart. “It matters to me.”

How many times did she have to tell him? “You don’t get to be happy!”

“Why?”

A sob caught in her throat. “Because I am afraid of Level 9. What it means for the world. What it would do to me to allow it.”

“I know,” he said with such feeling, with so much love in those hazel eyes. “Which is why I am removing your ability to choose. There won’t be guilt because I’m stealing you from the world. Because from this moment forward, I own you. And I’ll remind you of it every day.”

Was he crying? Phantoms didn’t cry. This… this couldn’t be real. “Aaron?”

Gesturing to the dead wood at his back, he waved forward. “Boys, tie her up.”

Chapter Eighteen

How different it was from the first time she’d seen those welcoming lights, their enticing sparkle suckering in wayward strangers. With her head cradled on Aaron’s lap, the vantage was not a tempting glint of civilization from a crumbling stone bridge. She didn’t need to squint to see what was hidden behind the trees.

Eugenia saw the ship clear as day, growing larger as the dinghy that carried her home was oared by strong men.

There was no John running to the shore, abandoning his pack and diving into murky waters.

There was only Aaron, stroking her hair all the hours it took the men to row upstream. There was only fever and raw wrists from fighting rope that bound her weak limbs.

But the ship looked the way she remembered from that first awful encounter.

Pretty, jovial, a beckoning finger in a world of rotting corpses.

A bad place.

Or was it a good place where bad things happened?

It was more than the men on the gangplank. The decks were full. Cheering abounded.

She heard her name shouted in homecoming. As if she belonged. As if she’d been missed.

“Hush now.” Taking her chin, the captain turned her head so she might meet his eyes. So she would see his intention, his smirk… his victory. “You don’t have a choice, remember?”

She didn’t have a choice... so it was okay if she allowed a tiny pang of relief to bang against her heart.

That so long as she fought the ropes binding her wrists and ankles—so long as Aaron carried her over the threshold—boarding the ship might be okay.

Met with cheers, with triumphant waves, one would think the captain was bringing home his bride. Not some vagrant in a crusty dress that reeked of body odor and sickness. Cradled to his chest, marching them straight up that red carpet as if returning victorious from war, he brought home a woman they all knew.

One he wasn’t going to share. To a crew and the Level 15 ladies that cheered anyway.

Dictators didn’t ask if they could have what they wanted; they took it. And the regime didn’t question.

Not when they were fed. Not when they had tickets to earn and ladies to entertain them.

Not when they could buy a cycle and potentially father a child.

Was it really so different than how it had been before society fell apart?

Powerful men’s wives had been chosen from a myriad of pretty contestants backstage at the Miss America pageant. Now they were plucked from rancid lakes, trotted about in naughty catholic schoolgirl outfits, and made to stand still as men dumped their uneaten food on their heads. So really, pretty much the exact same thing.

The captain had put a ring on her finger once his men had tied her up, slipping it on after she’d quickly grown tired from struggling and ultimately lost.

And as her hands were bound before her, she could see the setting sun glinting off the gold.

It couldn’t have been Joan’s; it was too plain. Joan would have owned a