Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
I don’t know how long I am going to be left here, but I do know I am fucked. Whatever happens next is going to be bad.
Eventually, I work out a way to sort of lie down in a way that allows me to be somewhat comfortable. I prop myself up sideways on the bed and I close my eyes and I imagine that I am back at home in the house my father built. This is the only place that home will ever exist again.
I wonder if they’ve already started bulldozing the remnants. I wonder how mad Freya and Mila will be when they realize I wasn’t actually supposed to be on this ship. I remember the smell of my room, the feeling of the hand-woven rug my mother made underneath my feet as I got into bed. I remember how it was quiet in the earlier days, and how later on a near constant hum of traffic was just barely muted by the walls.
The ship makes a similar hum down here, I realize. There’s not as much padding in the walls or whatever. Insulation. I squeeze my eyes a little tighter, and I go back to when I was small and safe in bed, when I could hear the family moving around the house. My father’s deep voice, my mother’s laugh. Freya and Mila fighting over a doll as quietly as they could because the baby was trying to sleep. I am not a literal baby anymore, but they still treat me like one.
I conjure the feeling of being loved and safe and secure as much as I can as an antidote to the harsh punishment and the unexpected betrayal. I suppose Thor did still save Freya and her baby. I owe him something. Just not as much as I did before.
A hero will do the right thing, I realize. Doing the right thing isn’t always going to work for me, because I am so often doing the wrong thing. I don’t want a hero anymore. I need a man who will burn the world for me.
At some point, I fall asleep for a bit. That speaks to my exhaustion, I think. The tension I’ve been keeping in my body from the fear of being found out is all gone. The worst has happened, and now I can relax.
I wake up what could be minutes later, or hours later. The door is squeaking. I sit up and try to look presentable, but that’s hard to do when I have almost no clothes.
The door opens and two people walk into my cell.
The first of them is a woman with a blonde braid and the sort of demeanor that I would find intimidating if Freya was not my older sister. She’s accompanied by a tall, dark, and handsome man. I get the impression she is an officer, and he is a guard.
“Selene Weltheim,” she says. “Same name as the city?”
“The city was named after my family,” I reply.
She smiles, but not in a pleasant way. She thinks I am egotistical about it. I’m not. It just happens to be the truth.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions,” she says. “I’m Mara Greenthorn. I’m the head of personnel on this vessel.”
“If this is going to be an official interview, I should probably have pants,” I say.
She nods.
“Sven, please get our guest an unmarked uniform and a blanket and a pillow, along with a decent dinner ration.”
The male guard nods and goes to attend to her wishes. I get internally excited by the prospect of being both fed and clothed. It is a very intimate and vulnerable thing to be held prisoner.
Getting on the ship was a mistake in that regard. I really limited my options and put myself at the mercy of a mad hierarchy.
In a few minutes I have pants and a blanket, as well as a fried pastry. Things are going kind of well right now.
I sit on the pillow they brought so I can be comfortable enough to answer the fun interrogation questions Officer Greenthorn has for me.
“How did you get on board?”
“I walked on board. I just didn’t get off. It’s not my fault you didn’t have people counting to ensure everyone who went in came out.”
“We did not assume someone would try to hitch a ride.”
“Well, now you know what happens when you assume. You make a lot of mistakes.”
My interrogator smirks slightly. “You are in trouble,” she says. “You may not have any nefarious intent. It might have seemed like a fun prank, but this mission has a great many critical roles to play.”
“You opened the whole thing up to the public. You let anybody show up. There was less security for this ship than there is in a candy store. Again, not on me. You should be thanking me for showing that someone much worse could be on board, maybe sabotaging things. All I ever did was mop the floors sometimes. At this point, I’m basically doing you all a favor.”