13 Thilar #4
“Armies for hire,” Sunhai corrected. “And ever since they colonize their moon, they engineer billions from the thousands they were. They are great warriors. It brings shame to have been captured and collared like animal,” she laughed.
Penny’s eyes drifted toward me as if to ask whether Sunhai was telling the truth or not. I said nothing to argue it. It was all true, despite the sarcastic and nonchalant way she delivered her words.
“So, you crossbreed the best genetic bloodlines and then just sell your services? For what? What’s the endgame?”
“Survival,” I muttered.
“But there are billions of you now,” she shrugged. “What are you surviving?”
The corner of my lips curled up ever so slightly. “You are new to this world. There is much more to the galaxy than humans can even fathom. Perhaps when your planet is long gone, your people will understand how small it was.”
Her eyelids fluttered like the thought had glitched. Then she shook her head with a long, heavy sigh.
“I think my head might explode. Maybe humans weren’t ready for space.”
“No one is ready for it,” Sunhai said. “That is why everyone always be fighting.”
I watched Penny process everything quietly. Calmly. Her gaze settled on a section of the floor outside her cell and lingered. That word whispered across my mind again. Depression. When I finally found the definition in the back of my thoughts, my shoulders sagged a little for her.
Humans, from everything I had gathered from her little device, were a deeply emotional species. They allowed their feelings to dictate nearly every aspect of their lives, a trait the monrians had spent thousands of cycles trying to breed out of ourselves.
Even so, a small percentage of monrians had always proven defective in that regard.
I feared my time on Mekah was placing me among them.
I found myself struggling to think with the cold logic that had once come so naturally.
I harbored hatred for Pek-Tol and his men.
For the games and the audiences who sponsored them.
I felt protective of Penny. And beyond that, there lingered an undeniable, shameful spark of desire that I could not seem to extinguish.
Vengeance. Desire. Hatred. Anger.
Emotions clouded the mind, yet I allowed them to fester.
I was monrian by blood, but little else. The disciplines I had spent my life perfecting were slipping away, eroded by every passing day on Mekah.
If I returned to monrian society, I would likely be rejected.
The thought should have concerned me.
It didn't.
None of it mattered anymore.
This had to end.
“Thilar?” Penny’s soft, fatigued voice chased me from my thoughts.
There was a shudder in her voice like she was deeply uncomfortable.
“I’m not stupid. I understand how this works now.
” I heard her swallow just as her voice cracked.
“If we don’t make it all look good, they’ll just find a way to kill us off.
You’ll look for me in the next game, right? ”
Gods, she was so tired. I wanted to know why she wasn’t sleeping. Perhaps it was the depression she noted. Either way, her body needed rest and she wasn’t getting it. There was fear in her withering tone as if she’d been up thinking about the grim possibilities.
I did not intend for us to be on Mekah long enough to get thrown into another game, but Penny seemed in desperate need of reassurance. Despite Pek-Tol’s instructions to target Sunhai, I could not give Penny any other answer than the one she wanted.
“Yes, Penny,” I said softly. “I will seek you out in the next game.”
She let out another breath as if her muscles had finally relaxed. Her tired eyes fell closed and that weak smile graced her lips one last time.
Two more rotations passed without even the whisper of another game, which wasn’t always a good thing.
Pek-Tol took long breaks between shows usually to negotiate with sponsors and noble houses willing to support his particular breed of entertainment in various ways.
He made shady deals left and right and after the last two games, plenty of houses were well aware that he had a human in his possession.
Powerful supporters would flock to see her and likely start setting up private viewings.
My jaw clenched at the mere thought of her naked, frail body being put on display for credits she would never see, before noblemen who never had a good intention in their lives. I glanced toward her cell, but she’d been quiet for some time, tucked somewhere where I could not see her.
Waiting for a sign that my khof karr had been detected gave me plenty of time to plan our escape.
I mapped it out a thousand times in my head, tracing every step from beginning to end.
Then I planned alternatives for every route in case something went wrong.
If one path failed, there would be another. And another after that.
All I had to do was stay focused and not let that place, or the chaos it thrived on, distract me.
At the end of a long, uneventful day, while food was being distributed, two guards stopped outside Penny's cell and peered inside. They spoke quietly among themselves, their voices too low for me to make out.
I watched them over the rim of my cup as I sipped my water, a heavy feeling settling in my chest.
When they opened her cell and stepped inside, my spine stiffened.
They hauled her to her feet, her movements sluggish and unsteady as though she were only half awake. Her head hung low, and a curtain of hair fell across her face, hiding it from view.
Without a word, they led her away.
I watched until they disappeared down the hall. The weight in my chest only grew heavier.