Trove’s Purpose (Delivery Service #4)

Chapter 1

Trove

The same nightmare again.

Trove knew it was a nightmare. He knew it wasn’t real. He knew it was just the fragmented remains of memories he’d long wanted to bury but never could. However, despite knowing that, despite being aware that it was a dream, he couldn’t stop the same scenes from replaying over and over again.

The licking of flames against his skin. The screams of his mother and aunt, begging him not to kill them.

The ache in his chest as he watched their heads explode – the extremely primitive and brutal weapon he’d fashioned with his own hands taking their lives.

But that ache combined with a sense of joy and relief he couldn’t quite describe.

The combination of feelings was a confusing one, something that didn't make much sense.

How could he be happy and sad at the same time?

But then the fire was consuming him, bubbling his flesh. The pain in his feet as he walked over hot ash. The screams of bystanders as they saw him, covered in blood and laughing maniacally. Their accusations. Their hatred. Their disgust.

Flashes of his old life. Flashes of the choices that led him here.

Then, unfortunately, the dream continued.

It did that when he couldn’t force himself awake.

Showing him all the lowest, worst points of his life.

Drinking foul water and eating rancid food.

Ducking and hiding from peacekeepers. Seeing his own face haunting him on vids and pics, warning people of the deranged murderer in their midst and offering rewards for his capture.

Terror following on his heels. Hunger eating at his belly. Cold biting his fingers and toes. All of it leading him to the worst cesspool of death and horror in the cosmos.

Rik-Vane.

His sanctuary and his prison. A place just for people like him. A place he felt a strange kinship with. Once a thriving and bustling trade hub, now broken down and devolved into a pit of scum and villainy. A place where the worst of the worst went to escape.

A place where Trove found freedom and purpose.

Those days on Rik-Vane weren’t any better than what came before – but he couldn’t honestly say that it wasn’t any worse either.

The things he did to survive, the person he let it make him, seemed right somehow.

Not good. Never good. He was aware of enough morality to know that he was not a good person.

But he wasn’t bound by it to make him feel guilt or shame for what he was or the things that he did.

Unlike in real life, however, there was no escaping Rik-Vane in his dreams. Tanin never appeared before him, never offered to give him a chance to escape, never elevated him out of that pit.

Instead, the flames of his youth blended into the blood of his adulthood. Faces of people he couldn’t name flashed through his mind. People he’d killed. People he’d fucked. People who had taken from him and those he’d taken from in return.

It was a mash up of all his worst memories, crammed into his head, chipping away at what little remained of his sanity. The rot that lived inside him reminded him that he could never escape, no matter how far he ran.

And there, over it all, those two screaming people still remained.

His mother, beautiful and cold. His aunt, lovely and laughing.

Both of them looking at him with expectation.

Then fear. Then pain. Then horror. Screaming until their heads burst. The fragmented shrapnel he shot at them absolutely decimated their skulls.

Then his hands ripping through what remained, tearing apart brain and bone and scattering them.

Making sure they couldn’t be alive. Making absolutely certain that no force in this cosmos could possibly revive them.

He gloried in their deaths and sobbed at their loss. The first lives he’d ever taken. Staining his hands with blood. Burning their souls into his skin.

He couldn’t escape them. He’d never be free of them. He’d always feel their flesh parting in his hands. Wet and sticky and warm. Closing around his fingers. Covering his face. Choking him. Choking him. Choking-

Choke-

Cho-

Finally, with a hard, strangled gasp, Trove came awake. The basic, biological need for air, more than the horror of his past, finally forcing him to wakefulness.

He was staring at the cold metal ceiling of the simple room he inhabited.

The world was quiet and peaceful. He was safe.

He knew that. But just like the morality once taught to him, he couldn’t feel it.

And for a long moment, too long, he struggled just to take in a breath.

Like there was still something smothering his face.

Like there was something caught in his throat.

His hands flailed, smacking at the wall, his bed, himself. He grabbed onto his blanket and his chest, squeezing both. Reminding himself to breathe. He could do it. There was nothing there. He was safe. He could just breathe-

With a hacking choke, whatever mental spell was cast over him broke and he sputtered and gasped on the next breath.

He rolled to the side, heart pounding, sweating, staring at nothing as his chest heaved in and out.

The lack of air made him dizzy, and that lingered for a long time as he slowly, painstakingly, talked himself down from the panic of his past.

His forehead came down, resting on the side of the basic, metal bunk. The thin blanket covering his nude body was too stifling, too heavy. He kicked it away, letting his skin breathe.

He wasn’t back there anymore. Not on Turv where his mother and aunt’s remains were.

Not on Rik-Vane where whatever might have remained of his heart and soul had been consumed.

He was on a planet he didn't know the name of, at an old, abandoned starship recycling facility.

Their starship had been destroyed, and this was the only place he could go.

The planet was completely lifeless. Just rock and sand and hot, barely breathable air.

But here in the facility, deep underground, there was only his crew. Only the people he trusted and knew would never hurt or use him. No predators. No enemies. Nothing but him and his thoughts and the memories he couldn’t keep at bay. Not anymore. Not with his vices denied him.

Usually, he could drown out those screams with the cries of pleasure from whatever female he’d found in his arms. He’d exhaust himself with her – or them, he wasn’t opposed to playing with multiple females at once.

But the only females here now were his crew, and all of them had been claimed by his brothers as their mates.

Well, technically, Goldie wasn’t mated, but he knew that Alred, despite being a computer, right now reduced to nothing but a speaker, his core stuck in a backpack, had laid claim over her. Goldie was the one always carrying that backpack with him in it, so he knew the devotion went both ways.

No, Trove had no one to pleasure, no one to focus on, and that meant the memories, and the dreams, were getting worse.

Giving up the idea of sleep, Trove got to his feet and grabbed the old, ugly orange jumpsuit off the small chair he had shoved in one corner.

The suit was part of the uniform of whatever old crew ran this place.

Theirs now. They had nothing else as all their own belongings had been destroyed when their starship blew up.

He missed his room on that starship. He missed his collection of liquors.

The alcohol didn't do quite as well as drowning himself in feminine pleasure, but it was better than nothing, and right now he would have started brewing his own spirits if he had access to anything that would ferment. Or drugs. He’d take drugs if they were available.

They weren’t typically his thing, but it had to be better than what he was going through now.

But no. He had nothing. And he definitely wasn’t going back to sleep.

Even if he could, he didn't want the dreams to return. At least, not this soon. Maybe he’d ask Goldie if any of the sedatives in the abandoned medbay were still viable when it was a more reasonable time, but he knew from the light overhead that it was still night.

This planet had very long days, so a more reasonable day/night cycle was simulated by the lights overhead.

And right now, it appeared to still be the middle of the artificial night.

No, he wouldn’t disturb Goldie yet. He’d just deal with it, as he had done his whole life.

It was Rok’s turn to stay on watch. Though they knew this planet was lifeless and they were the only ones here, they weren’t going to let that make them complacent.

They all took turns – the males did anyway – to keep watch at night.

It was supposed to be Vytln and Rok tonight, with Vytln taking the first half and Rok taking the second.

But with the way he was feeling, Trove didn't want to just stay here and lie in bed. He needed to get up and move. If he couldn’t make a female scream or get drunk off his ass right now, he at least wanted to stay busy.

Stepping from his room, he went to find Rok so he could take over his watch. At least one of them should get some sleep.