Hailey shoved her body as hard as she could toward the metal.
Her thumb made contact, near to her wrist, and a stabbing pain shot up her arm and seemed to sear into her brain. It took her seconds to recover enough to choke down her sob. She moved the thumb gingerly.
It hadn’t broken.
Shit. Again. She took a deep breath—then slammed her hand against the metal even harder.
Three more tries and she finally felt it break.
Hailey collapsed onto her ass, the pain excruciating. Wetness dripped down her palm, and she knew she was bleeding. She tried to move the thumb but all she got was pain for the attempt. Then she pulled on her left hand. It hurt, but she was desperate.
Her injured hand slipped out of the cuff and she slowly brought it to her front, almost afraid to see the damage.
Her thumb had indeed broken and blood covered the area she’d been slamming, where the metal had cut it open.
She got to her feet, the handcuffs dangling from her right wrist. Her shoulders hurt from being yanked back for so long, but she didn’t have time to cry or baby her injuries.
Those men would come to do really bad things to her body. They planned to kill her afterward. There was nothing to lose by at least trying to escape. She removed the pillowcase off the pillow on the bed and quickly wrapped it around her hand and upper arm.
She returned to the door and studied the panel. It was an updated lock. That wasn’t good, but at least she was on the inside of the room. Most cabins were designed to keep people from breaking in, not out. She spun and hurried back to a shelf she’d spotted, over the bed. A trophy with a stone base sat on the shelf. She glanced at the small writing on the base.
The name she read shocked her. Ivan Redmore.
Ivan was the son of Goldoff Redmore. Everyone knew him. He lived in the mansion at the top of the hill that overlooked her colony town.
He was also the owner of the Morgan.
“I’m on the Morgan,” she muttered. She knew a lot about that particular luxury shuttle. Her father had gotten to take a tour of it the year before. He’d gushed about how nice it was for weeks afterward.
She flipped the trophy over and hit the electrical lock pad with a corner edge of the base. It took a few tries, but she finally cracked the glass and metal. She smashed it a few more times to completely break the fasteners. Dropping the trophy, she pulled the front panel off, noting there were six wires attached. She yanked them all off the back of the control panel, touched each one to the six connectors, in turn.
Wire four, on the second connector, worked. The door opened.
Moving cautiously, she stepped into the hallway. She saw a plaque on the wall with the shuttle’s name. It was the Morgan, alright. Below it was a convenient map, with a simple layout of the shuttle. The cargo hold was to her left.
She listened carefully but didn’t hear anything. Cradling her arm against her chest, she inched down the hallway until she reached a door with an oval window. She peeked through and saw three men securing crates by tying them to each other, then behind safety nets attached to the walls. The ramp to the cargo hold had been closed.
There was no way she could fight off three men to reach the ramp access panel. It was all the way on the other side of the cargo hold, meaning she’d have to get through them first. Hailey spun, deciding to try the other exit. All shuttles had one near the cockpit.
The sound of someone whistling a tune reached her ears, and she bolted for the nearest door, pushing the access button. It slid open to reveal a nice cabin, larger than the one she’d been dumped in. She darted inside. It had an interior lock, which she pressed before backing away, praying the person wouldn’t try to enter.
The room had an exterior portal, and she rushed toward it. Maybe she could draw someone’s attention. There were usually a lot of people at the landing port. She pushed the button that would raise the covering—and gasped when she got a glimpse outside.
“Shit.”
That wasn’t the landing port she was staring at. Black space and the sight of a distant moon was enough