Chapter Nine #3
“Blake,” he said, pretending to be shocked.
“Why so much hostility? Those savage bastards brainwashed you. I tried to help you, but you were so resistant to my efforts. I guess I never got completely through to you because you fought me every step of the way. The drugs I was giving you should have worked, along with the hypnotism. I think they did partially, along with the other treatments I gave you. But now that you’re going back home, you’ll be surrounded by familiar things.
Familiar faces. Don’t worry. You’ll be just fine in no time. ”
“How can you even say that to me with a straight face? I had to leave my child behind.”
“A little Tygerian bastard. The product of rape. I did you a favor, as you’d know if you were thinking straight. Don’t worry. You’ll forget all about that nightmare soon.”
“Don’t fool yourself, I’ll never forget Davos and my child! I love them. Davos is my husband, and we made that baby out of love.”
“You’re mistaken, I’m afraid. You’ve been brainwashed. I tried to help you, but I can see his doctors undid my work. I’m upsetting you, so I won’t argue with you. For now. But remember as you recover that I’ve tried to be a friend to you, Blake.”
I laughed in his face. Maybe I was a little hysterical, but who could blame me?
“Get out!”
“Look, I’m really glad to see you, and I’m sorry you’re still so upset. I’ll tell them to increase your dosage,” he said. “I know you’re feeling confused, but things will get better for you now. You’ll see. You’re going back home. To Earth.”
I just stared at him. It was amazing to think that I’d once admired this man. He had been Werros’s advisor and a religious leader, or so I’d thought. I’d even thought once that Evoq was handsome in a way. Now all I could see when I looked at him was ugliness.
“You must have figured out by now that I’m an officer in the Alliance Marine Corps.
There may still be a place for you back in the Army, Blake, once you recover fully.
We need able bodied men. And you will be, once your recover from all this.
You’re a hero, you know, for sacrificing yourself to save the other men on your captured ship.
None of them have forgotten your sacrifice.
Many of them came forward to urge the government to make some kind of deal with those savages to rescue you.
Your information will be invaluable to the war effort since you’ve actually lived there among them.
And with the king. Just think what you can do for our government. ”
“I’m done with this war. All I want is to be left alone. Take me back home to Davos.”
He shook his head, pityingly. “It’s even worse than I thought, I’m afraid.
Look, we went right onto one of the king’s ships and rescued our comrade from the enemy.
The news sources at home are already going wild over this.
We’ve liberated the famous Lieutenant Blake Cameron.
The consort-captive of the king of Tygeria. ”
“Liberated me?”
“Yes, Blake, of course. You’ve been listed as a prisoner of war.
Be careful what you say. We’re making allowances for you now, but we’d hate to change our minds and think that you willingly defected to our enemy.
That would be a capital crime and punishable by death.
You can’t still think this war will keep going on forever.
The Axis forces want to subjugate all of us, especially humans.
We’re fighting for our lives, and sentiment is running high on Earth.
You, better than anyone, must know what those asshole Tygerians think of us.
They want to enslave us. Kill us all. But we’re more resilient than they gave us credit for. We’ll win this in the end.”
“Were you the one responsible for kidnapping me?” I asked him softly, ignoring all his fine words. “Were you the one who engineered all this? You are, aren’t you? You took me away from my family.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Blake… Did you actually just call those alien animals your family?” His face flushed an ugly red and his eyes got small and mean. “What happened to you on that planet? Perhaps you really are one of them now. Did you just bend over and spread for him whenever he asked?”
I felt hatred spreading over my whole body like an itchy rash, and I flushed at the crude comment and allowed all the animosity and disgust I was feeling for the man show on my face. “Why? Are you jealous, Colonel? Because he’s more of a man than you’ll ever be?”
Morris lunged toward me, his face still suffused with rage, but the man with him caught his arm and hauled him back. “Don’t be a fool, Colonel. Can’t you see he’s baiting you?”
I had to allow some of my rage to spew out or it would choke me.
“You want to fight, asshole? Bring it. I was captured by the Tygerians, and I was as frightened as anyone else when they put me in those Games. But I did my best and bowed to them when I wanted to spit in their faces just to save those other men. But I wasn’t saved.
You want to know what happened to me on that planet?
Instead of the bad treatment I expected, Davos was kind to me.
He was good to me, and he gave me options, and he listened.
Totally unlike my own people, my own command who never once checked on me to see if I were alive or dead or tried to negotiate a deal for my return.
He treated me with respect and love and hell yes, I called him my husband.
He was my husband! I love him and I’m not ashamed to say it to you or anybody else!
You want to talk about animals, you son of a bitch?
It was your army who almost killed Davos and who did kill the king.
Which was fair, I guess, because okay, it was war, after all.
But then your people dug bodies up and hacked them to pieces and burned the corpses.
You desecrated their graves. What kind of animal does that?
And you! You pretended to be a priest and preached to the people and listened to their confessions, all while you were trading on their secrets.
How dare you try to pretend like you’re some kind of saint? ”
I knew my voice had gotten louder and louder, but I didn’t care. What could they possibly do to me now?
“Calm down,” Morris barked at me. “Look, I can see you’re upset…”
“Upset? Are you fucking kidding me? You people kidnapped me! No one ever asked me what I wanted to do. You just took me away from my new baby. You destroyed my life. Don’t you get that?”
He came toward me, and I flinched violently backward. “Don’t touch me.”
He dropped his hands and sighed. “Blake, don’t you see they’ve brainwashed you? Those aren’t your people—Davos isn’t your life. And that little ape you carried inside you is a product of rape.”
I shoved him away from me then, so hard that he bounced off the wall, literally. “Who the fuck are you calling an ape? Say that to me again, and I’ll knock your teeth down your throat,”
He straightened up, pulling down his uniform jacket and narrowed his eyes at me. “I’ll come back when you’re not so confused. We’ll be home soon, and…”
“Home? You ripped me out of my home. You took my home away, damn it; do you still not get that?”
“I’ll call a doctor to give you a sedative—something to calm you down until we can get you back to a real hospital. But remember what I said. If the powers that be think you defected, it won’t go well for you.”
“Fuck them and fuck you!” I backed away, shaking my head. I felt like ripping my clothes and tearing out my hair in frustration and grief, and I might have done it if he thought it would do any good. “Keep your filthy drugs away from me. I don’t need them, and I won’t take them.”
“Blake, calm down. I know you don’t mean half the things you’re saying.”
“I mean every fucking word. You had no right to take me like that! Do you have any idea what King Davos will do to you when he catches up to you? Have you thought about that at all? You’re a dead man, Colonel, if you’re the one who planned this.
If Davos doesn’t kill you, then I will. I’ll find a way to do it—I promise you that. ”
He gave me a sorrowful look. “We’ll come back when you’re feeling calmer. In the meantime, get hold of yourself. We did you a favor, and you’ll be grateful for it when you get back home.”
They left and I heard the door locks click after them, locking me in again.
I had never before been able to understand how someone killed another person in cold blood.
Battle was one thing—in the heat of battle, it was kill or be killed, and as a former soldier, I totally understood that.
But to stand in front of another being outside of battle and just…
put an end to them? In cold blood? I hadn’t been able to wrap my mind around that concept before.
But now… it was all too easy to understand.
This fury I felt was going to consume me if I wasn’t careful.
I sank back down in the chair by the porthole, gazing back out at the stars again, clenching my hands into fists and knowing the need to kill that man was never going to go away. It was only going to grow more violent. More extreme.