Drifting through time. Falling right back into the spin node again.
Paying for sex.
Those words roll around in my head as the darkness takes over and then…
CHAPTER SIX - CRUX
I land hard, knocking the breath out of me. And the dumbest thing about this is that all I think about in that moment is… why do I have to breathe if none of this is real?
And then I’m just pissed. I’m pissed at the spin node, and the universe, and whoever the fuck is in charge of this shit show.
Because I could’ve made that work. I had her! I fucking had her in my arms!
Before I even open my eyes my hands come up and grab my hair. I want to scream.
No. I want to give the fuck up.
I’m so done. So fucking tired of this game I’m in.
“I fucking quit! OK? You happy now?” I yell it. “I’m done!”
“Oh.” A small, soft voice. “There you are. We’ve been looking for you.”
I sigh, afraid to even open my eyes and see what the fuck is happening now.
“Are you… OK? Did you fall?”
“Did I fall?” That’s the understatement of the century. Yeah, bitch. I fell through time. Again.
“Here, let me help you up.”
A hand as soft as the voice grabs me by the arm and even though I don’t want to, I open my eyes to see what the hell. A girl stares back at me. Young. Very young. Like… Corla, age sixteen. But this is not Corla.
Of course it isn’t.
We’re star-crossed. Never gonna happen, Crux. Just give up now.
Believe me, if I knew how to give up now, I would. I’m so over it. I’m never going to win. I’m never going to see her again. Hell, I’ll probably never get back to Harem Station to thaw her frozen ass out. I should’ve done that the minute Serpint brought her home. Immediately. So what if the Cygnians came for us? At least it would be over by now. Either we’d have won, or we’d have lost. But it would be over. And I wouldn’t be tripping through time on this crazy, inexplicable ride that seems to have no other purpose than to remind me of all the ways I lost.
She was a whore.
A fucking whore on some sun-fucked shitty station.
And I was… hell if I know. Probably just as messed up as she was. I was paying for sex. And it obviously wasn’t the first time. She knew my name. But I meant nothing to her. I was a… client.
What is the point of all this? Like… just why? Why do I have to see this shit?
Am I supposed to learn something? Do something? What? “What the fuck do you want from me?”
“Oh,” the girl says again. “I’m sorry. I thought it was explained to you.”
I look at the girl. She’s so clearly a princess, it hurts my heart to look at her. Her long, silky hair is bright pink. And her skin glows faintly. Just a shimmer, actually. She’s wearing a long, flowing gown. Nothing heavy. Not a ball gown. A light drape of thin pink and cream fabric that covers her up completely, but at the same time exposes parts of her that make the whole picture even more alluring than if she were naked.
Her throat is bare. One hip is uncovered. The opposite leg from mid-thigh down. Both arms are covered by loose swaths of fabric. She has a silver headband on that sparkles in a stray beam of light that filters through a kaleidoscope of leaves covering the high boughs of tall trees.
She is the perfect royal specimen. Like she drinks tushberry juice every hour, on the hour. The picture of princess health.
She tucks a long strand of pink hair behind her ear and smiles at me, extending her hand so that the fabric covering her arms falls away. “Let me help you up. I’m sorry if things were not explained properly. I can answer any questions you have.”
“Great,” I say, taking her hand, then feeling stupid for letting this slight waif of a girl help me to my feet.
It’s only then that I realize I have no shirt on. Just a pair of loose white pants. No shoes, either. And all of a sudden I feel like some royal male concubine. Some lucky foreign man in one of those fantasy princess scenarios the Pleasure Prison on Harem Station is constantly running so all the outlaws who can’t afford to buy a few hours with a real