Chapter 7 #3
Today, they thought holding us at gunpoint would be enough.
They could not have been more wrong.
* * *
Mara
The fuck did I just see?
I knew something was wrong when I heard voices. I sneaked out, looked through the room. I saw the copper lizard people wearing their long black coats, holding guns that looked like they’d be capable of ending all of us.
And then I saw Freak and his men do the most feral, vicious thing I have ever seen in all my life.
They tore them apart, breaking bone, consuming flesh, rending the internal organs of those who came to attack them.
There are bits of scale and bone and coat all over the bridge.
They’re going to be cleaning up forever.
Someone grabs me by the collar from behind, wrapping a hand around my mouth at the same time. Fear spikes inside me. I try to call out for Freak, but it feels like a big heavy fuzz has descended into my mind. I’ve been rendered helpless in every sense.
“We’ll be going, I think,” he says.
In a flash, I am gone. Well, the ship is gone.
I am still here. But I am looking at a much darker set of structures and I know in my gut this is not a good thing.
Flashes of awful memory still zap through my mind.
I have to assume that I am going to be hurt in return for what was done to these aliens’ leaders.
“Please don’t hurt me. I didn’t eat your friends.”
The lizard lets out a laugh. “Of course you didn’t. You’re not capable of that, or anything for that matter. You’re a hostage.”
“Oh. Are you going to hurt me?”
“Yet to be decided,” he says. “If you give me fewer reasons to, that might help. Or it might not.”
He half-laughs as he speaks, enjoying the control he has over me.
Life and death are as one to me right now.
I am as dead as I am alive, as alive as I am dead.
For a second time, I have been kidnapped by something so much more powerful than me.
This time there is no generosity of spirit, or kindness, or even the basic urge to save me.
I am looking into the vertically slitted eyes of an animal that sees me as nothing more than convenient prey.
“Did we get her?”
“Of course we did. Am I not a rogue?”
“You are,” the voice outside the door says. It is coming closer, traveling with its origin point. I cannot see this one yet. It blocks out the light as it comes toward me.
“I want to see the human the Psyon is obsessed with.”
“Just a human. Fairly standard,” the rogue who caught me says, giving me a quick up and down with his eyes. He sees nothing special about me, because I am nothing more than meat to him. I can feel his disregard like a cold wall pressed briefly against every part of me.
“She can’t be standard. He’s a Master Psyon. Let me see her.”
The creature steps into the light. He is impressive. Another lizard alien. Looks like a leader. He is particularly large and very… gleamy. His scales shine, the edges all gilt with gold. They are very pretty. I don’t think he is trying to be pretty. I think he is trying to be terrible.
He is seven feet tall at least, and his teeth are sharp, in a different way than Freak’s. His eyes are green, and they are set high on his head. He has three thick fingers on each hand with long yellow claws. Any one of them could rend me from nape to navel.
“You have the attention of a Psyon,” he says. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Right place, right time? He was bored? He wanted a pet?” I don’t actually know the answer to the question he is asking. Or maybe I do; maybe he was in a state when he escaped from the torture these things were putting him through where he needed something to save, and I was it.
“Hm,” he says. “She looks familiar. Why does she look familiar?”
“They all look the same to me, your highness,” the rogue says.
The Lizard King is thoughtful. He puts a claw to the end of his protruding chin and taps it for a moment.
“I think we will hear from the Psyon soon.”
“You captured him and tortured him with experiments. What did you think would happen? Did you think he’d just let that go? They don’t let anything go. They wield power over space and time.”
“Some limited power that we are eroding by the day,” the Lizard King says. “The Psyons have their strengths, but nothing that cannot be discovered through science. Soon enough we’ll be able to step into that precious realm world of theirs and then it will all be over.”
“I don’t know why you’d bother. It’s boring there. Feels like being trapped inside an hourglass.”
“You’ve been there!” He laughs. “She’s been there!” he declares to the rogue. “Two minutes of conversation with the little sponge and she’s telling us it is definitely possible for a creature of a human nature to be in their realm…”
“With permission, and not for long,” I say, thinking I am helping.
“We’ve got to ask more questions,” he says. “Are you hungry? I imagine you are. Humans like to eat every four hours or so when they’re awake. Little and often. Like hatchlings even when they’re full grown.”