Captive - Cheryl Brooks Page 0,11
cause me any harm.”
“Maybe I would do it because I don’t particularly like you,” she said, throwing his own words back at him.
“Not good enough. I never did anything to you, and if you’d left me alone, you wouldn’t know if you liked me or not. I know how many credits I had on me, and you couldn’t possibly need any more money than that, unless you’re the greediest bitch— No, wait. My mistake. We’ve already established exactly how greedy you are. If there’s so much money to be made on gladiator slaves, I’m surprised you don’t keep me as your own fighter.”
The lengthy silence that followed suggested she hadn’t considered that option. “If I sell you, I get my money whether you win or lose. If I own you and you don’t win, we both lose.”
Okay, so her logic was pretty good on that score. “But what if I don’t lose? We’d both be rich.”
“I doubt you would win every battle.” Her tone was changing, ever so slightly, with every argument he proposed. If he kept going, she might capitulate.
“Maybe not, but if I could win at least three, would that be worth the price you would get for me?”
“It might be.”
“And wouldn’t you rather live somewhere—anywhere—else?”
“Of course I would, but I had the misfortune to have been born on this world.”
“If you don’t start listening to me, you’ll die here—and sooner than you might think.” Moe grimaced as he finally realized what those heaps of refuse had been: Haedusian bodies, piled up and left to rot. “What happened around here, anyway? Some sort of plague?”
“More like a gang war,” she replied. “There doesn’t seem to have been a clear winner, and anyone left standing didn’t stick around. This neighborhood was abandoned a long time ago.”
“Not much here to spark any plans for urban renewal, either.” He shook his head as best he could, considering he was lying on his side with his feet shackled to a bolt in the wall and his hands tied behind his back. “I still don’t get why you’ve stayed here. Hell, you could’ve stowed away on a ship if you couldn’t afford to buy passage.”
“I have friends here,” she said simply. “I can’t leave them behind.”
“Three Racks, a Sympaticon, and a Norludian? They don’t belong here any more than you do. You really should’ve taken me up on the offer of a ride to Terra Minor. Too late for that now.”
“Why? Was the offer only available for a limited time?”
“As it turns out, yes. My not-so-trusty sidekick appears to have absconded with my ship.”
“So you’re stuck here too.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Moe argued. “You’re the one keeping me here, sweetheart. If you’d leave me alone, I wouldn’t be stuck.”
“With no credits and no ship? How?”
“That’s my business,” he snapped. “I would’ve figured out something. You keep screwing up my plans.”
She snorted. “Poor baby.”
Moe blew out a breath. “I am neither poor, nor am I a baby. You could get more for me by holding me for ransom. By the way, just so I understand your motivation, how much do you think you can get for me?”
A few moments passed before she finally named a sizeable figure.
Moe laughed. “I had more than that invested in the cargo I delivered here. Seriously, you should reconsider throwing your lot in with me. And purely out of polite consideration, what the devil is your name? I’m guessing you aren’t using Vladatonsk.”
“Since he never married my mother, I see no reason to take his name.”
“Fine,” Moe snarled. “I don’t blame you. But you still haven’t answered my question.”
“You’re the one trussed up on the floor. Why should I answer you?”
“Because in about thirty seconds, I won’t be the one trussed up on the floor. You will, which is what I should’ve done the last time, and then we would’ve been spared this conversation.” A few seconds of thought brought him to the next step in that scenario. “And if I had, those Nedwuts would’ve found you all neatly tied up for them. They would still be alive, I would be long gone, and your dead body would probably be well on its way to being redeemed for the bounty. But, no, I just had to be considerate enough to warn you they were coming. I guess it’s true that no good deed goes unpunished.”
“It sounded more like you were warning them, not me.”
“Well, sweetheart, since they’re dead and you’re alive, you obviously heard me.”
“Stop calling me sweetheart,” she