Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“I didn’t do anything to him and he hurt me for no reason.” I start to get annoyed again, but there’s nothing to throw this time. I wish there was. I wish I could break this whole damn ship.
“You need to calm down,” Sharp says to me. “It was not for no reason. We have been searching for you for years. We thought we might never see you again. I know it hurt, but you can’t lash out like that. I thought we trained you out of breaking things.”
“Apparently not,” I say bluntly.
He smiles, just a fraction, and it softens his features and makes him look incredibly handsome for a brief moment.
“Apparently not,” he says. “You say you don’t remember us. Will you tell me what you do remember? Do you remember this room?”
“No. I don’t. This isn’t my room.”
“This is your room. It’s the place you felt the most comfortable. We installed it for you. And, to be honest, a lot of what you just broke are things you bought either for us, or you bought for yourself, or we bought for you. You smashed a lot of sentimental things.”
“Am I supposed to feel guilty about that?” I say, instantly feeling pretty guilty about the whole thing. I’ve been wanting my memories, but I’m apparently destroying them as fast as I can.
“I don’t want you to feel guilty. I’m trying to save you from feeling worse later than you do now,” he says. “Please, pet. Tell me what you do remember.”
“This is a change,” I say bitterly. “Weren’t you the one telling me I was going to pay and you weren’t going to let me get away with it? And then I chose him because I thought he’d be nice, and…” I let out a little sob.
“You really don’t remember much,” Sharp says with just a hint of something like amused pity.
“I don’t remember anything. I woke up three years ago in a hospital in Zeal’s New New York, and I didn’t know anything about myself. That’s it. Since then I’ve just been getting by. Doing work. Selling pills. Then you guys showed up and hit me.”
He frowns at me. “You really don’t recall anything prior to the hospital?”
“No. Somebody melted my mind. They can do that now. They have all kinds of toys. They can fuck with your brain. It’s known. I was trying to get my memories back, but it’s really expensive and I couldn’t sell enough pills.”
“Okay,” he says, running his hand through my hair and scratching my scalp lightly. “It’s okay. We’ve come for you now, and you’re safe again.”
“Am I? I don’t feel safe. He hit me! Really hard! Does he do that often?”
“You used to take a lot more than that,” Sharp says. “We’re used to you needing to be corrected roughly and thoroughly.”
I peer at him from the blankets, scowling quite furiously. “You used to do that to me all the time? No wonder I ran away and blanked my mind.”
“You think you did this to yourself?”
“I don’t know. That’s the thing about not being able to remember. You can’t remember.”
There’s salt in my tone, and it makes his scaled brow rise a fraction in a warning I somehow feel very low in my stomach.
“I don’t know,” I repeat in another, less aggressive tone. “I don’t know me, and I definitely don’t know you.”
“Alright. Get some rest. We’ll talk and decide what to do with you.”
The arrogance is extreme. How dare they decide what to do with me, as if I am some possession to be managed and handled. I’m going to make them regret coming for me, I decide. If I ran away from them once, I can do it again. And this time, I’ll make damn fucking sure they don’t come after me.
“Who the fuck are you people? What are your names?”
“I’m Sharp,” he says. “The one who spanked your ass is Kronos and the one with the horns is Boss.”
“Is Boss in charge?”
“Not really,” he says. “We have a flat management structure. There is no true captain.”
“So I am also in charge, as much as any of you?”
“Oh, no,” he says with a sexy, indulgent smile. “You’re our pet. We look after you, and in return, you occasionally do what you’re told.”
The door opens and Kronos, the alien who just beat my ass comes in.
I have an animal urge to hiss at him and retreat into my blanket burrow, so I do both those things. I don’t know how I ever stood being handled that way by them. I hope I made his life hell before I ran away. Stupid sexy beautiful mean alien.
“Pet? I’m sorry that hurt you so much,” Kronos says. “I didn’t want to frighten you.”
“I wasn’t frightened. It hurt. Idiot,” I answer from inside my blankets, treating them like an invincible alien force field.