Page 5 of Seven Oars (Rix Universe #3)
After the initial scrutiny, the scarred pirate moved back into the shadows, and another pirate took his place.
“Stand up!”
he intoned in the same mangled Universal.
“If you don’t do what I tell you, you’re going to the chute with the trash.”
This Rix had a placid face, uncommon for his kind. He smiled as he spoke, baring stubby, dark-blue teeth and spotted gums.
The women struggled to their feet, unused to gravity after two weeks without. Fawn’s lack of exercise caught up with her, and she could barely stand.
“Get up,”
Gro hissed at Daphne, who crouched over her mother.
Mara stayed down.
The pirate prodded Mara with his boot.
“Trash,” he said.
Choking back horror at the mental picture of Mara being upchucked into space like waste, Rosamma slid her hands under Mara’s shoulders and strained to pull her up.
“Gro, help me!”
she wheezed.
Gro reached out, but after one tug, let go.
“Come on, Rosamma.”
“Please!”
Rosamma refused to give up.
Gro slung her arm over Rosamma’s shoulders.
“Let’s go. They’re waiting.”
“But Mara…”
Gro shook her head, pulling Rosamma close.
“She’s not getting up again.”
The pirates watched them, a shadowy pack of predators, casually observing easy prey.
The placid-faced pirate turned his attention to Phex and planted his scuffed boot on his body.
“What about this one?”
“He ain’t dead,”
someone said.
The placid-faced pirate furrowed his brow.
“You know who is? Aolis. We lost him.”
A chorus of angry shouts erupted. The crowd in the shadows shifted and stomped.
Then the pirate shrugged.
“He was a cheat anyway. I’m taking over his sleeping node.”
The shouting cut off.
“No, you aren’t.”
“Hell if I’m not.”
“Isn’t yours to take, Galan.”
“Whose is it? He’s dead!”
Without warning, a shorter Rix with a pugnacious, flattened face launched from the shadows and punched Galan.
Just like that, a brutal fight erupted within feet of the women.
They pressed back to the wall in a vain attempt to put distance between themselves and the violent predators. But there was no room, no escape from this sudden and unprovoked violence raging under the impassive watch of the other pirates.
The huge, scar-marked Striker came back to check on Phex, seemingly oblivious to the brawl.
Except, it wasn’t the Striker.
Rosamma blinked.
There were two large scarred pirates.
The real Striker, the one who had greeted them, had scars along the right side of his head and a trisected eyebrow.
This one was just as menacing, with deep gouges carved onto the left side of his skull, warping his eyelid and shrinking the skin around his eye socket.
In a contest of who was the most terrifying, it could go either way.
“He’s in bad shape.”
The not-Striker sucked his teeth.
Another pirate joined him. This one had a shaven head, small, close-set eyes, and large hairy ears that stuck out like radar dishes.
He wasn’t Rix but a Tarai, an odd one out.
“He’ll croak,”
the Tarai agreed.
Rosamma’s heart began to ache.
The rabid fight over the sleeping node ended as suddenly as it had begun, and the former combatants clustered around Phex.
A very tall, very thin pirate shouldered his way forward.
“I will finish him off, Striker.”
Rosamma’s breath made a whistling sound.
The short, pugnacious pirate—shorter only compared to the scarred Rix—whirled around.
“What was that noise?”
The placid-faced Galan screwed up his face.
“Who cares, Nud?”
Daphne opened her mouth and wailed.
“Shut the fuck up,”
Nud barked.
“Do any of you slimy slugs understand when I‘m talking to you?”
Daphne wailed louder.
Alyesha pinched Rosamma from behind.
“Talk. You’re the spokeswoman.”
“Yes,”
Rosamma croaked in Universal.
“We understand.”
Nud only grew more annoyed.
He shoved Rosamma; she fell backward, toppling Daphne, Sassa, and Gro.
Galan laughed, a weirdly genuine sound. He found it hilarious.
“Take them to the Cargo Hold,”
said the gravelly voice with the heavy inflection. The Striker.
“We’ve got to secure their cruiser.”
Rosamma staggered again to her feet.
On the positive note—pretending there was one—the fall snapped Daphne out of her crying.
“But we haven’t checked them,”
Galan whined.
“Later,”
the scarred leader grinned, showing fangs befitting the apex predator he was.
Later, a small, terrified voice repeated in Rosamma’s head.
*****
Once again, the women were herded to their destination by strong, uncompromising Rix aliens. Only this time, it was a thousand times worse than their short hike through the woods to the spaceship depot.
They were poked and prodded like cattle down a narrow corridor with a metal mesh floor that wobbled with each step.
The Cargo Hold was a windowless room with the same unsteady mesh floor. The walls were padded with thick material that was streaked with something oily and sloughing off in places.
The room smelled gross, although not as rank as where the pirates congregated.
The robot, with its blinking purple light and a wavy, long-haired wig, rolled in with the women. It circled the room as if inspecting it.
“The Cargo Hold is secure,”
it informed everyone cheerfully and whirred out.
The pirates, leering and guffawing, followed the robot out in an uneven line.
Two returned right away, dragging in the unconscious Phex and throwing him inside like a bag of garbage. His body landed in an awkward sprawl, setting off a new bout of demented mirth from their captors on their way out.
Then the women were alone.
Fawn’s legs buckled, and she dropped to the floor. The rest followed, all of them shaking uncontrollably.
Rosamma and Gro eased Daphne down. She was crying again, a mindless, keening sound.
No one dared to acknowledge that Mara wasn’t among them.
Alyesha scanned the room.
“I can’t believe they left the door open.”
“There’s nowhere to go,” Gro said.
“Where are we, anyway?”
Fawn asked.
“Looks like a space station,”
Eze muttered.
Fawn’s eyes widened.
“Oh, wow. A space station! Never thought I’d see one.”
“Aren’t you a lucky winner?”
“Well, no,”
Fawn shuddered.
“This place gives me bad vibes.”
“The sooner we escape, the better.”
Alyesha rose and went to peek out the open door.
Gro’s expression was somber.
“Not saying you’re wrong, but where are you going to escape to? Open space?”
Anske’s chin lifted.
“We’ll find a way to get away from them.”
“What are they?”
Sassa asked, her voice so thin and warbling that everyone turned to her.
Eze frowned.
“Hey, are you okay?”
Sassa made a sound that might’ve been a bitter laugh if her teeth weren’t chattering so loudly.
“What kind of question is that? Am I okay? Are you?”
“I’m still alive and grateful for that.”
“For how long? And what are they going to do to us before they kill us?”
A hysterical note crept into Sassa’s voice.
No one seemed to know what to say, what to think.
Shock. That’s what it was. They were all feeling it.
Alyesha sat back down and pulled her legs up, wrapping her arms around them.
“By god, it’s cold in here.”
Her normally smooth hair was a tangled mess.
“They’re Rix, aren’t they?”
Fawn was frowning, rubbing her thighs.
“They look like our Rix, except for the one with the ears.”
“He’s a Tarai alien,”
Rosamma said absently.
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Our Rix?”
Anske exclaimed.
“Let’s not split hairs. They’re the same.”
Rosamma turned to Phex. The Cargo Hold had barely any illumination. The couple of lights that worked were dim and pulsing. Even so, the sheen of fresh blood on his fancy uniform was unmistakable.
“These are pirates,”
she said quietly.
“Ours were defenders.”
Aris, Riel, or Silo hadn’t made it into the pirate’s station, and that could only mean they were all dead, even if Rosamma hadn’t seen them fall.
“I’m hungry!”
Daphne cried.
“Hungry, hungry!”
She got stuck on the word, repeating it in a monotone chant.
“How long will she go on?”
Alyesha asked irritably.
“I can’t think.”
Eze moved over to the girl, pulling her close.
“She’s frightened and hungry. And she probably needs her meds and a restroom.”
“Don’t we all?”
Alyesha cursed softly.
“What are we supposed to do with her in this place?”
It was one of a thousand questions without an answer.
They huddled together in a bedraggled, limp group, listening to the unfamiliar whoosh-and-grate of some invisible but powerful machine that made this place livable.
Their clothes were torn from the capture. Their bodies, sweaty from earlier exertion, were turning to ice under the overzealous vents. Anske kept rubbing her stomach in obvious discomfort.
Rosamma’s head rang from low energy.
Ren.
Her thoughts turned to her brother. Word of their capture wouldn’t have reached him yet. He hadn’t yet learned about his death sentence. Oh, Ren.
I’m so sorry.
A low, throaty moan cut through her thoughts.
There was a slight movement as Phex flexed his hands like he was fighting an invisible enemy.
Rosamma crawled toward him.
“How bad is he hurt?”
Gro called out.
Rosamma’s hands trembled as she palpated him gently. Her powerful, handsome alien. Her sun.
“He has a head wound that’s still bleeding. I need something to bandage it with.”
Sassa hiccuped.
“He’s just another alien. He doesn’t even like us.”
Rosamma looked up.
“He’s hurt. He needs help.”
The women didn’t move from their positions.
It dawned on Rosamma then: when it came to Phex, she was on her own. In their fear and desperation, the others had made him a target, someone to blame for their collective misfortune.
The Cargo Hold was strewn with trash and empty containers. A hulking metal tank containing who knew what hung in one corner. Shelving units and empty storage nets clung to the walls, torn and unraveling.
If the Cargo Hold had ever stored any cargo, the pirates had laid waste to it a long time ago.
There was no first aid kit in sight.
Phex moaned again and shifted his head. His black eyes opened, revealing the third eyelid that was slow to retract. It covered half the surface with a blueish membrane. The sight taunted Rosamma with its alienness.
He doesn’t even like us.
Phex spoke, a low, growling sound, foreign to Rosamma’s ears.
“I’m sorry,”
she whispered.
“I can’t understand you. Are you in too much pain?”
The third lid finally slid aside, but she wasn’t sure he saw her—or anything. His eyes were flat and dull.
“Where are we?”
he growled, this time in Universal.
“We think it’s a space station.”
“What about them?”
“The pirates? I’m not sure. They talked about securing our cruiser, whatever that means. How are you feeling?”
He ignored her question.
“Who survived?”
Rosamma opened her mouth to respond, but remembered he had never bothered to learn the women’s names.
“All but one of my companions. And… you.”
He didn’t even blink.
Rosamma felt on the verge of tears.
“Hang in there. I’ll find something for your wounds.”
“Leave me be.”
He turned away, already sinking back into unconsciousness.
“We need to find bandages,”
Rosamma whispered to herself.
A rapidly approaching sound of footsteps was as unwelcome as it was frightening.
A pirate Rosamma hadn’t seen before appeared in the doorway. He paused there, studying the women as they pressed together, forming a live, quivering ball.
Not as huge as the scarred ones, he was solidly built, with a thick length of hair piled into an elaborate, incongruous ‘do. His face was unscarred, and his angular features sharp and inquisitive.
“Follow me,”
he commanded.
The women were slow to rise, but the pirate waited patiently, watching them.
He took them down a short, darkened passageway with the same springy mesh floor and peeling walls.
“The aliens are here,”
he announced as they passed through another unhinged doorway.
This area was larger and better lit than the Cargo Hold.
The stronger lighting gave Rosamma her first clear look at the men who had captured them, and who would, in all probability, put them to creative deaths some day soon.
She stepped inside the room.
Hell must be empty, flickered through her mind. All the demons are here.
The big scarred pirate that wasn’t the Striker stood over a pile of goods looted from their cruiser.
Another one, a stranger, reclined against a wall, smoking a pipe whose shape and complexity rivaled a French horn. Its intense, cloying exhaust made the women gag and sneeze.
Their sneezes triggered guffaws from two pirates who couldn’t stay still. They jabbed at each other and stomped around like hyperactive, uncouth children. One of them was the short, pugnacious Nud, and he called his homely, disheveled friend Xorris.
The tall, gaunt pirate who’d offered to kill Phex was sorting through the women’s clothes, stretching garments, and sniffing them. If he knew what a bra was, it was not readily obvious from his actions.
Galan, the one with the placid face, sat cross-legged on the floor, methodically inspecting each food item he pulled from the pile. The bewigged robot, parked beside him, scanned the labels with its eyes and translated the contents in its modulated voice.
Galan stacked up what he wanted to keep and threw the rest over his shoulder. Nud and Xorris gleefully stomped on some discarded items and watched the contents spray out.
The room looked and smelled repulsive, and every creature in it was loathsome.
Like a cherry on top of this degenerate sundae, the Striker reclined in a wide swivel chair perched on a crudely welded metal platform, a dais erected to elevate a narrow-minded tsar with an ego problem.
“Welcome to Seven Oars, alien females,”
he said in his distinctive low voice.
“What you seek, may you receive.”
It was a mockery of the traditional Universal greeting.
Nud sneered. Xorris roared with laughter, displaying missing teeth.
The guy with the pipe took a drag.
Next to Rosamma, Sassa shook like a leaf in the wind. Rosamma wrapped her arm around Sassa’s shoulders, offering comfort as much as seeking it. It was just so cold in here.
“Where’s your polite response? Where’s your gratitude for staying alive?”
The Striker’s ruined eyebrow curved in disdain.
“I know you understand me. Come talk to me.”
It was an order.
Because he was Rix, and Rix's eyes had no whites, it wasn’t clear who he was addressing.
When none of the women moved, the pirate who had brought them in gave a shove from behind.
Before she knew what was happening, Rosamma flew across the room and crashed into the platform. Her cheekbone struck the Striker’s rough boot, and she cried out, sliding into a heap at his feet.
He grunted in displeasure, a soulless sound.
Propping herself up on trembling arms, she looked up.
Her heart raced. Her face throbbed. Her head swam. In this concerto of pain and fear, the Striker’s image was crystal-clear—not perverted or crass, just sharp planes and scars with no expression. A cold, black gaze of death.
His smooth forehead furrowed in confusion.
“Why are you looking like that? Did you piss off a witch doctor?”
Ah, the joys of her mixed heritage. Even a disfigured pirate was bothered by her looks.
“I am half-human and half-Tana-Tana,”
she whispered.
He leaned back in his strange chair, making it creak.
“What’s your name, hybrid?”
“Rosamma.”
“A strange name for a strange life form.”
Someone laughed extra hard behind her. Two someones. Nud and Xorris.
“Where are you from?”
the Striker asked.
“We’re from Meeus.”
“Where were you headed?”
Were. Past tense. The trip she hadn’t wanted to take was officially over.
Ironically, she wasn’t feeling too grateful at the moment. She’d much rather be flying to Priss.
She swallowed.
“We were going to Priss.”
“The asteroid?”
The second scarred beast stepped forward.
“Where’s your cargo?”
“We were the cargo. We were moving to Priss.”
“Dumb alien.”
That was Nud.
He kicked Rosamma. She bit her tongue to keep from whimpering and kept her watering eyes fixed on the Striker, whose scarred face wavered in front of her.
“More to the point,”
the Striker said evenly, disregarding Nud’s aggression or Rosamma’s pain, “why were you, human women and a Sakka from Meeus, flying in a decommissioned spacecraft with no defense system, escorted by members of the Rix defender force?”
Rosamma’s face hurt. Her side hurt. And it was hard to speak with a bitten tongue and a throat that kept closing on a sob.
But not speaking would mean more pain.
“Another pilot was supposed to take us to Priss. His name was Lyle. But he got sick. And the defenders… they came unexpectedly. I don’t know who arranged it.”
It might have been Cricket, Lyle’s mate. Or Paloma, Ren’s girlfriend. Or Lyle himself.
“Who is Lyle?”
the Striker asked, punctuating his question with a nudge of his boot. It didn’t hurt, but it warned her that the next time she gave an unclear answer, it would. Worse than Nud’s.
She wanted to curl into herself and cry, and say she gave up; they could kill her now. Yet stubbornly, she kept her eyes on the Striker’s ugly alien face.
“Lyle is Rix. Like you. Rayanor Lyrem. That was his full name.”
The guy smoking the pipe coughed.
Others fell quiet.
The Striker sat forward in the chair, revealing odd, washed-out designs etched into the seat that gave Rosamma a vague sense of dread.
“The Shadow Flyer?”
She’d forgotten Lyle went by that handle in his previous life.
“Yes. I believe that was what he was also called.”
“Describe him to me.”
She blinked once, eyes steady on his. How to describe a Rix to a… Rix?
“He had black eyes and fine sandy hair.”
That applied to every Rix in the room.
The Striker’s eyebrows edged upward.
A memory stirred.
“Lyle has a scar on his upper lip and a missing tooth.”
She touched her mouth to show the exact spot.
Loud cursing erupted in the room.
“You… know him?”
Rosamma couldn’t believe it.
“Hell, yeah, we know him,”
said the other scarred Rix.
“The Shadow Flyer! I flew a mission with him once.”
“You’re full of shit, Esseh. And that fuck was suicidal.”
“Don’t I know it?”
Esseh laughed.
“So he survived the bombing…”
Seemingly forgetting about Rosamma and the frightened gaggle of women at the end of the room, the pirates swapped anecdotes about Lyle, reminiscing about a past where they killed and plundered without remorse. The details were gory, and they took great pride in what they had done.
All Rosamma could do was despair.
Yes, Lyle had been infamous, but it was before. In another life. The life he left behind after escaping the destruction of his planet. He had believed himself the only long-term survivor.
The chair creaked as the Striker leaned back, drawing her attention.
Unfortunately, Lyle had been wrong. He wasn’t the only survivor.
“Do you know how to fly a space cruiser?”
the Striker asked.
“Me? No, I don’t know.”
“Do they?”
He motioned at the women.
“No, they don’t, either.”
“Then you can’t go to Priss.”
His regret was insincere.
“And your defender escorts are… indisposed.”
The Striker grinned like a shark.
“Lucky for you, alien life forms, you get to stay with us on Seven Oars. Indefinitely.”
He rose and stepped over Rosamma.
She slumped at the foot of the platform.
The pirates shouted and cheered wildly. They were going to celebrate—whether it was the capture of the women, the victory over the defenders, or Lyle being alive, Rosamma wasn’t sure.
They brought in more foul-smelling narcotics and another pipe.
A short fight broke out over the choice of music. Clearly, any issue, no matter how trivial, was settled by brute force.
Rosamma glanced at her companions, still there, still afraid to move or speak. She longed to join their ranks but, like them, was afraid to move from her slump. She stared at the chair in total confusion while unfamiliar sounds, smells, and sensations crushed over her like waves until she was drowning.
The chair held her focus. It was something simple she could relate to. A chair. A known object whose purpose and function she understood.
It was a big, ugly piece, stamped with washed-out, off-center designs that resembled tattoos.
A fresh blast of cold air from the vents hit Rosamma. If she had a crumb of food left in her stomach, she would have spewed it all out.
The designs were tattoos.
A screeching sound, underscored by a deep, throbbing bass, jerked her head around. She looked around wildly, certain the space station was breaking apart.
But nothing seemed amiss, just the same cold room, the smoke, the pirates.
The tall, gaunt one grabbed Anske and pushed her toward the center of the room.
“Show us your dance moves, human rejects. We will judge who’s the best,”
he shouted over the ear-splitting, disjointed sounds that screeched like a broken alarm, refusing to shut up.
Anske clamped her hands over her ears.
“Get her, Massar!”
someone yelled in encouragement.
“You know how to get them moving.”
Massar demonstrated, slapping Anske across the face amid a howl of collective approval.
The drug smoke was getting so thick it was hard to see.
Anske moved, all right. Feet working, she stumbled around and fell on top of the stolen goods pile.
That was the entertainment the pirates could appreciate. They gave a savage roar and stomped in delight. Everybody was having so much fun.
“Dumb aliens have no sense of rhythm,”
Nud said with disappointment.
He kicked the pile of stuff, sending things flying, catching Xorris in the shin and dislodging Anske from the top.
The room descended into a mayhem of roaring laughter, fighting, smoking, and throwing things at each other for sport.
As the uncoordinated cacophony throbbed on, Rosamma realized, gradually, they considered this noise music.
This is what hell must be like, she thought with detachment. Scary, painful, and dumb.
“Next!”
Nud bellowed, turning to the women.
Fawn pitched forward, as if expelled by an invisible force. Behind her, Alyesha’s pale face flashed briefly amid the cluster of bodies.
Nud grabbed Fawn by her flaxen hair and dragged her out.
“Stand up. Stand the fuck up!”
Fawn tried to rise on trembling legs, using Nud’s forearm for support.
He slugged her.
The room blurred in front of Rosamma’s eyes. Too much, too much…
Then the robot was there, rolling to the center. The clever-looking pirate who’d brought them in instructed it to help Fawn dance.
“Of course, Ucai,”
the robot said.
Extracting a flex-arm, it zapped Fawn.
Fawn howled and hopped in place to the utter delight of their captors.
Amid this bedlam, Phex appeared in the open door like a god of vengeance. Blood masked his face, but his black eyes burned with purpose. A sun, shining upon the filth.
It was difficult to believe that Phex belonged to the same species as the rest of them.
The “music”
kept raging. Nud was shaking Fawn, screaming, “Again! Do it again!”
Phex lunged at Nud and took him down, catching him by surprise. It helped that he came armed with a dented bucket from the Cargo Hold. He crammed that bucket on Nud’s head and punched, ringing it like a bell with Nud’s brain for a clapper.
The pirates surrounded Phex and Nud. The mood in the room had shifted from reckless revelry to watchful aggression. Even the stoner put the pipe down.
Nud, predictably, didn’t like having his head stuffed in a bell. Despite being blinded by the bucket, most of Nud’s swings connected, and he quickly knocked Phex off his dominant position.
Phex was nowhere near his full strength. It was not going to end well for him.
It was never going to.
The bucket crashed on the floor as Nud delivered a breathtaking knee strike to Phex’s midriff.
The cheers erupted.
After that, they simply tossed Phex around like a volleyball, smacking him, punching him, kicking and slugging before passing him on to the next teammate.
The “music”
assaulted the senses.
*****
Eventually, the pirates got tired of their game and allowed the women to shuffle back to the Cargo Hold.
Phex arrived moments later, dragged by the leg by the clever-looking Ucai.
“Don’t leave,”
he smirked at the women and chuckled at his own wit on the way out.
If before they had been in shock, now everyone was simply numb.
“I can’t take it,”
Sassa whispered in a broken voice.
“This is a nightmare.”
“Stop complaining. You weren’t even hurt,”
Gro snapped.
Eze was checking on Daphne, who appeared dazed.
“What can I feed her? And she wet her pants.”
Alyesha cursed but doggedly dug through the pile of garbage in the corner, locating some rags.
“Here, make a diaper out of it or something.”
Rosamma went to Fawn, who waved her help away.
“I’m okay. Really. His arrival was super timely.”
She nodded toward Phex.
Phex.
His face was swollen and discolored, completely unrecognizable. He was unconscious once again, and Rosamma prayed it wasn’t a coma.
They had worked him over but good for that bucket trick. Silly man, what was he trying to achieve, one against so many?
After making sure the women were more or less situated and didn’t need her help, she went to Phex and cleaned the blood from his face as best she could with the hem of her shirt. There was nothing more she could do for him.
Except…
But no, she was too weak.
And if he never woke up again?
Hesitantly, she reached for his hand. She wanted to take it into hers and thread their fingers together to better control the flow, but that would be too intimate.
She settled for wrapping her fingers around his wrist. It was thick, with a healthy layer of muscle over bone, resilient, and a little cool to the touch.
Concentrating, Rosamma let a small trickle of energy leave her fingers and enter him through their skin-to-skin contact.
It was her special brand of healing, the result of her imperfect half-breed nature. A twin with a torn circle of energy she couldn’t retain, yet she could give it to others.
In this, she was more special than Ren, with a quirk so rare there were no records of it anywhere.
Her trick didn’t work on everyone, but it worked on Rix, she knew. She’d boosted Lyle with her energy before.
Now, the knowledge that Ren, Paloma, Lyle, and Cricket were safe aboard another spaceship comforted Rosamma, even if that ship was carrying them farther and farther away from her.
I’m so sorry, Ren.
She sent another small, controlled pulse into Phex.
The problem was, her energy reserves were so low she couldn’t give Phex what she’d given Lyle. Not that it had cured Lyle in the end, but his problem had run deeper than Phex’s battle wounds.
She sent a third burst of energy and withdrew her hand. Her fingers tingled from the transfer and the feel of his bare skin.
Phex’s eyes were still closed, but Rosamma imagined he rested more easily now.
She rejoined the women who were sitting together, hugging each other and crying.
“What are we going to do?”
Sassa asked, despondent.
“First, we’re going to rest,”
Alyesha said. Her voice had regained a hint of its old decisiveness despite the tears that glistened on her pale cheeks.
“We can’t function if we wear ourselves down.”
Sassa cried harder.
“How can we sleep here? Not in this terrible place. There’s no door! We aren’t safe.”
“I think we can forget about safety for now,”
Fawn said with newfound wisdom.
“Concentrate on staying alive.”
The women nodded, drying their eyes. Only Sassa crumbled, weeping into her hands.
Rosamma put her arms around Sassa and held on. She had never been more afraid—not just for herself, but for all of them.
“What’s the point of resting if we have nothing to eat or drink?”
Anske mumbled.
“It’s a death sentence.”
Sassa cried harder.
Gro, however, grinned.
“Don’t be in a hurry to meet your maker.”
She dug into her pocket and pulled out two cans of pasta.
Anske blanched.
“You took those from that room?”
“Yep.”
“What if they notice the cans missing?”
“In that mess over there? They won’t,”
Gro said flatly.
“And if you want to lecture me about stolen goods, go sit in the corner. First of all, the food’s ours. Secondly, you don’t have to eat it if you don’t like me.”
Anske didn’t argue.
After a pause, Eze produced two more cans.
Gro laughed, and they high-fived.
The women divided the food evenly.
Then they lay down together like a pack of exhausted puppies to rest.
Before turning in, Rosamma checked on Phex and listened to him breathe. She wasn’t looking forward to a new day, but if he was there with her, she’d take it.