Page 233 of Galaxy Games Four-Book Box Set (Galaxy Games)

233

Confession Is…

M aya

“I will not confess anything.” Zedd lifts her chin in rebellion, one side of her beautiful mouth tipped in a sneer. “Do you know who I am? How much power I wield? I can give you anything if you let me go.”

It’s almost as if I can see the wheels turning in her head when she realizes how serious we are, that we’re not going to let her wiggle out of this.

“As if you Earthers aren’t ugly enough, what the fuck have you done? Is ugly catching? Yellow eyes? Fangs? You’re freaks. You’d better keep these desperate males as mates. No one else would have you.”

Is she insane? Outnumbered, outgunned, helpless, and she’s going to insult us to weasel her way out of here?

When she looks at each of us women and sees we’re all unfazed, she thrusts her chin at the males and says, “No wonder the females on your planet all died out. Your females must have thought death was preferable to letting you lay hands on them. Just look at you.”

I had no desire to respond to her snide comments about me, but I can’t ignore her insults to my mate.

“Yes. Just look at them. Hunks of handsome masculinity, aren’t they?”

It strikes me that two days ago their appearance struck fear into my heart and now I find them handsome, especially my A’Dar.

Enough words. Maybe that’s what Zedd is doing, trying to engage us in a verbal sparring match so we don’t get down to the business at hand.

Turning to the males, I say, “We brought guns to a knife fight. Can we borrow your knives?” I hold out my hand to A’Dar, who is only too happy to pull the serrated knife I pegged as having only one purpose—death—from his wrist gauntlet. Two other males oblige my friends and now we three females are armed with weapons that won’t kill in a nanosecond, but will cause long minutes of torture.

As we converge on Zedd, her eyes spark with fear as it finally dawns on her she’s no longer in control.

“Okay. Okay. What do you want me to confess?” Her eyes widen in mock innocence like a silver screen ingenue. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

I make a game show honking, buzzer noise, then say, “Wrong answer. We don’t have all the time in the world. How about you limit yourself to the crimes you’ve committed on all four seasons of this game show of yours?”

She sputters for a moment, gives us an innocent I-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about look, squares her shoulders, and shakes her head. The bitch doesn’t even deign to speak a word of refusal.

“Ladies?” I peer over one shoulder to look at Anna, then look over the other to glance at Emily. “Should we incentivize Ms. Zedd?”

The three of us each take one step closer, as if we choreographed this beforehand. No-longer-quite-so-tiny Anna steps up first, a devilish smile on her face as she puts one hand, the one not holding the knife, on her chin and assumes a thoughtful pose. Then she nods, letting us know she’s decided where to make the first cut.

“Wait.” All eyes snap to A’Dar. He pulls a knife from his other gauntlet. “Let me do this part. I trained in interrogation techniques in my early years, and I promise I won’t kill her.”

Emily and Anna look at me. There’s a flash of relief in their eyes that matches my emotions. As much as I want her to suffer and ultimately die, torture isn’t really a part of the “kill or be killed” concept I’ve been justifying my actions with. Besides, A’Dar is a warrior and the captain of this vessel. He wants and deserves to be a part of this. Zedd fucked with him and all his men, too.

At my nod, Anna steps to Zedd’s right, Emily to her left, and I stand in front, looking at her over her screen.

“Last chance,” I say to Zedd, who’s now a pale red. In spite of the fearful look she gives A’Dar and his knife, she raises her chin and glares at me.

A’Dar steps to her side and rips Zedd’s expensive gown up the side seam so we can see when he places his knife high on the female’s thigh and makes a perfectly straight cut from near the seam of her thigh to just above her knee.

I picture her beautiful smiling face on the screens the past few days as she gleefully destroyed thousands of lives. Seeing Zedd’s look of outraged shock mingled with pain is disturbingly satisfying.

Emily steps aside to give A’Dar room to work as he repeats his handiwork on the other leg. Zedd is shrieking now, as if that will do her any good. Was she oblivious to how all the males and females who have died over the past few days shrieked and begged to no avail? Is she deluded, thinking she’s somehow special?

Zedd is babbling now, blubbering, begging. If anyone had told me two days ago that in a handful of hours, my entire personality would change, I would have called them crazy. But I’m far from the frightened female who was transported to that white tent before we entered this ship.

I know some of my metamorphosis was forged in the fires of the trauma I had to witness and participate in. Some, though, might be from the changes I’ve experienced down to a cellular level from machta.

Although I feel a twinge of remorse, I’m certain this female deserves everything we can give her, and then some.

This is for Lila. This is for all of us, even the bloodthirsty females and the pirates who perished at her direction. Who knows what they would have done if they hadn’t been forced to kill or be killed?

“I’d hate to ruin your closeup,” I goad as I brandish a knife I hope I won’t have to use. “Are you sure you don’t have anything to confess?”