the door as if it were a viper. The heavy booted footfalls were achingly familiar, considering she’d been used as their personal kickball not that long ago.
Talis was coming.
Nova looked around frantically. Spotting another door in the dim space, she moved as quickly as she could despite the pain in her body. Crossing her fingers that it gave her a place to hide, she slipped inside just as Talis walked into the room.
“What did he say?” he asked whoever it was he was speaking to as they got closer to where she was hiding. His physical presence was so repellant that she found herself pushing as hard into the wall behind her as possible as if she could sink through it. She could practically feel him standing on the other side, his evil energy reaching out for her where she was hiding.
Please don’t open the door. Please don’t open the door.
“The master said to meet him there and bring the female.”
Nova almost stopped breathing at the order Talis was being given just inches away. Curling her shoulders, she hugged herself to stop the shaking that had overtaken her body. They were talking about her. She knew it.
“Have we worked with this buyer before?” Talis questioned, his voice moving away with the heavy clunk of his boots.
Despite her aversion to her tormentor, Nova leaned forward. She didn’t want to miss one word. If she ever ended up getting out of here, she was going to make every one of the scumbags involved pay. Cruum, Talis, the buyers, the marshal…every single fucker who had even a pinkie dipped into what had happened to her needed to go down. She didn’t know how she was going to do it, but she was determined to make it happen.
“It is the same buyer that Master sold the others to.”
Nova covered her mouth to stop a gasp that had been on the verge of escaping. She had absolutely no doubt who the others were.
“Why another?” Talis asked, the question followed by the sound of a door opening. “Did he already dispose of the other two?”
Nova strained to hear the answer the slave gave him as they left the room, but it was no use. They were either too far away or he was speaking too low for her to hear them clearly.
“Fuck!” she hissed quietly once she was sure they’d left the room. Leaning against the closet wall, she tried to pull herself together. Her legs had begun shaking the moment she’d practically run into Talis in the hallway and they hadn’t stopped yet. Nova only gave herself a second to compose herself before she was sneaking out of the closet and back into the hallway. The clock was ticking and she didn’t have any time to waste. Keeping her steps quick and light, she didn’t waste any time in hustling herself down the now clear corridor in search of an exit.
If Talis had been ordered to bring her to Cruum, that meant he was most likely headed straight to her little closet now. Once he found her gone, all hell would break loose. That much she knew for sure.
Each step she took became faster than the last, her pace jostling her wrist where she cradled it close to her heart. Scurrying down steps and through winding walkways, Nova didn’t stop for anything. She didn’t duck into rooms and hide or slow her pace one iota like she had before. Instead, she sped up as she searched for anything that looked like it could lead to the outside. It didn’t matter if it was a window or a door, as long as she could get through it.
She hurried past house slaves, some of them paying her absolutely no attention, while others watched her hasten by with their mouths open. Some of them saw her run by them more than once, considering she had no clue where she was going and had to turn around a few times. She was like a rat in a maze, turning and trying new paths the moment she realized she’d hit a dead end. She had no idea where to turn or how to get out of the labyrinth, but she knew that if she stopped, it was over.
Dodging aliens left and right, Nova pushed through a set of double doors so quickly she wasn’t prepared for a set of steps on the other side. Reaching out blindly with her good arm, she steadied herself in the nick of time, grasping