Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Briar
“ C ut! You can’t made demands like that,” Mr. Smith growls at Sorin. “That isn’t how LOVE GALAXY works.
“Are there rules?” I ask, highly skeptical.
“Yes. You must get to know all the Females before picking your Mate on the last day of filming,” Mr. Smith concludes.
“Was kidnapping three innocent women and hauling them to a new planet against their wills part of your so-called ‘rules’?”
“What?” Killan stands, and his chair topples over. As the tallest one in the room, he cuts an impressive figure. “What have you done?” he demands of Mr. Smith.
Welp, I guess I let that cat out of the bag.
Harlee flinches. Lydia is glancing between everyone, as if she’s trying to gauge reactions.
Roan’s mouth is open. Mr. Smith crosses his arms. Chloe takes a half step to the left, making sure her boss is between her and Killan. She doesn’t look scared, though, more like she doesn’t want to risk messing up her perfectly curled and styled hair.
Yesterday, I’d asked Sorin to keep our abduction a secret because I’d been in shock. Because I’d needed time to think. I’ve done nothing but think for a night and day now, and all that thinking has confirmed one fact: I’m furious.
I’d also wanted to speak with Harlee and Lydia in private to discover their feelings about our predicament, but Mr. Smith hasn’t allowed us that privilege, so I’m going to throw my shit to the wind in public instead.
Sorin is the only one who doesn’t react. Rather, he remains standing by the other end of the table, so still he might have been a statue, except I can see the slow rise and fall of his chest with each breath.
I choose Briar , he’d said, looking straight down the lens of the camera.
He can’t have meant romantically, could he?
No. Of course not. We only just met yesterday, and he knows I’m not here of my own free will. I brush the uncomfortable thought away, resolutely ignoring how wonderful it had felt to be cared and carried by Sorin when I’d been on the verge of collapsing.
He probably picked me because we’re allies against Mr. Smith. I choose Briar must have been Sorin’s way of showing his support for me and my cause. Bless him.
I watch Sorin out of the corner of my eyes, trying to channel some of his stillness. I can aim my insults with better accuracy if I keep a cool head through my fury.
“That’s right,” I tell Killan. “We didn’t even know aliens existed until yesterday. We certainly didn’t know it was possible to fly between galaxies. Yet all of a sudden we’ve got translator chips in the back of our necks.”
Killan clenches his fists. I hadn’t noticed at first, but he’s missing half of one lower arm. Judging by the scars, it’s an old injury.
Roan stands too.
For a second I think the two brothers are going to start throwing punches at Mr. Smith. As much as I’d love to see that fucker with two black eyes, fist fighting isn’t going to solve anything.
“How about,” I interrupt, speaking loudly to catch everyone’s attention, “Mr. Smith explain why he thought abducting three women was a good idea?”
“I would like to know that too,” Lydia says, speaking for the first time since my entrance into the kitchen. She has a clear voice, and she’s glaring at Mr. Smith with such intensity it’s like she’s trying to read his mind. “Why’d we have to sign a contract if you were just going to kidnap us anyway?”
“Proof,” Chloe says from her position behind Mr. Smith. “Proof you agreed to come on the show and that we didn’t kidnap you.”
“There was nothing in my contract about aliens,” Lydia argues. She must be getting over the shock of waking up on an entirely different planet. Her personality is beginning to suit the vibrancy of her pink hair.
“Wasn’t there?” Chloe raises her eyebrows. “You’ve always got to read the small print. Or didn’t your mom teach you that, Lydia?”
Lydia slams her hands onto the tabletop, causing Harlee to jump. Evidently, the topic of her mother is a sore one.
Chloe, the manipulative bitch, is already opening her mouth to say something else, so I cut across her before she’s got a chance to twist the metaphorical knife she’s already stabbed Lydia with.
“Why go to so much trouble?’ I ask. “You’ve got the whole universe at your fingertips, and yet you picked us three? The three you had to drug and abduct.” Because I don’t care what any contract says. There’s no way Mr. Smith and Chloe got our permission. That ‘proof’ Chloe’s claiming must be for someone else’s benefit.
The police maybe? Or whatever force upholds the law in outer space.
“Why Humans?” I demand. “Wasn’t there anyone else—” I snap my mouth shut. I’d been about to ask if they’d run out of willing women, implying that Mr. Smith’s show is such crap that nobody wants to participate, but that would be more insulting to Sorin and his brothers than to Mr. Smith. And Sorin doesn’t deserve that. “Are we some sort of novelty, here to entertain your audience?” I ask instead.
“Let us get one thing straight.” Mr. Smith digs his chin into the boney collar around his neck, making him look a bit like an armadillo. “I’m the director. I’m in charge.”
I roll my eyes. He isn’t half as impressive as he thinks he is. “I bet you get a perverse pleasure from trying to play God with our lives.”
“If you want to continue on with LOVE GALAXY, you’ll do what I say,” he finishes triumphantly, with a pointed glare at me. I think he thinks he’s actually doing us a favor. I think he thinks he’s the good guy in this scenario.
“What if we don’t want to continue?” I ask the obvious question. “What if we want to go home?” I resolutely ignore the fact that, for me, returning home means once again facing unemployment and homelessness. But I can’t stop my glance toward Sorin. I’ll be sad to say goodbye after everything he’s done to help me.
“You can’t,” is Mr. Smith’s ‘comprehensive’ answer.
“Why can’t we?” Lydia wraps an arm around Harlee’s shoulders, and Harlee shuffles her chair closer to Lydia, visibly leaning on her. Of all of us, she’s the scarcest. And I hate that she’s being put through this crap.
“Do you have a ship? Do you have coordinates?” Mr. Smith makes a show of looking around the kitchen. “No.”
“Sorin—” I begin.
“The brothers don’t have a ship either.” Mr. Smith is looking smug now, the bastard. “So, if you want to return home, you’ll do what I say. And I say that you have to complete LOVE GALAXY. This newest season is going to be the best yet.”
He’s delusional, I decide. That’s the only way to describe what’s happening.
“You really don’t have a spaceship?” I ask Sorin, and he shakes his head. No.
Fuck. Well, that’s one escape plan down the drain. I’ll just have to think of another one. I’ll… I’ll… I’ll steal Mr. Smith’s spaceship instead.
“Absolutely not.” Mr. Smith’s pitchfork tail flicks. “Nobody can fly my ship but me. It has a biogenetic lock.”
I cross my arms. Had it really been so obvious what I’d been thinking? Then again, maybe everyone but Chloe had been planning the same thing. Stealing Mr. Smith’s spaceship was the next logical step.
“There are ways to break a biogenetic lock,” Killan says.
“Not this one.” Mr. Smith sets his jaw, stubbornly.
It’s strange seeing them talk. Mr. Smith can obviously speak English; he’d been speaking English back on Earth when I’d first met him, and I think he’s still speaking it, because the sounds I can hear match with how his mouth is moving. Sorin, Killan and Roan, on the other hand, mustn’t be speaking English, even though I can hear English. The movement of their mouths doesn’t match what I hear. It’s strange, let me tell you. Like trying to watch a film when the sound isn’t synced. I keep looking at Sorin’s mouth when he talks, trying to lip read, but it’s an impossible task.
Killan and Mr. Smith are still glaring at each other. If it were a no-blinking contest, I’d put my money on Sorin’s brother.
Mr. Smith must decide similarly because he suddenly looks away. “Are you willing to risk trying to break the lock? You could jam the door permanently closed. Then none of us will be getting off this planet.”
We’re arguing six against two, so why does it feel like my side’s losing?
“I’m confused about that,” Lydia says, brushing a strand of pink hair out of her face. “Do no other spaceships exist? I get that you three brothers are this planet’s only inhabitants, but surely you’ve got contact with other people on other planets.”
“We do,” Roan says, eagerly answering. “Freighters come often to collect our farm produce.”
I don’t need to be told he’s younger than Sorin. He’s got a boy band youthfulness about him. An innocence.
Killan is probably the eldest. Grumpy, brooding. Like he’s got something to prove.
Sorin is… Well, Sorin is a bit like that story with the three bears and the porridge. Goldilocks tastes the Big Bear’s porridge but it’s too hot for her. She tastes the Little Bear’s porridge and it’s too cold. But the Middle Bear’s porridge is just right.
“So why don’t we get one of those Freighter ships to give us a lift?” Lydia suggests.
“The next one is not due for another sixty days,” Killan says.
“Oh, shit.” She winces. “And we can’t get something earlier? Is there no Uber in space?”
The brothers all frown. I’m guessing Uber doesn’t translate.
“A taxi service?” I try to clarify. “Couldn’t we pay—” With what money? Fuck. We’d be asking the brothers to foot the bill for our return when they’re as innocent in this colossal mess as Harlee, Lydia and I are.
I don’t even know if they could afford it.
Lydia squeezes Harlee’s shoulder tighter, glancing at me. I mightn’t know her very well, but I can read the silent question in her expression. Now what?
I rise slowly to my feet to give myself more thinking time. Now what, indeed.
There’s a chance Mr. Smith is lying, and it is possible to steal his ship, but I don’t want to risk pushing this point.
If he gets too suspicious, he might increase his ship’s security, and that would get us no closer to finding a way home. Because he’s right about one thing: we need him more than he needs us. He’s the director of a reality TV show. The worst that can happen to him if we decide not to play nice is crappy footage and no new season to air. Maybe he’ll lose this job. Boo hoo. Been there, done that.
Whereas, the worst that can happen to Lydia, Harlee and me is that Mr. Smith will bail on us, leaving us stuck on this planet for the next sixty days. Sixty! Two months.
What we need is time to regroup. Harlee, Lydia and I need to plan our next steps together, so we’re all in agreement. Harlee still hasn’t said what she wants, and I don’t think she will until I can speak with her privately, away from Mr. Smith and Chloe.
And I want to speak with Sorin again. This is his world; maybe he can suggest something I haven’t thought of.
“ If ”—and I emphasize the word—“we three Humans decide to cooperate in LOVE GALAXY, do you promise you’ll take us home at the end of the twenty days?” Yes, I feel stupid making our kidnapper promise his cooperation, but I don’t see what else we can do right now.
“Yes,” Mr. Smith says simply. “I promise. Assuming, of course, that you still want to return.”
“LOVE GALAXY has a 95 percent success rate matching couples,” Chloe announces, making it crystal clear where her loyalties lie. And they’re not with her fellow Humans.