Chapter 12

We stopped, and once again I was flung over a shoulder and carried out of the strato glider. It was hard making things out, hanging upside down, facing the Pandraxian’s back, but at least my mind had time to work through my abduction and come to grips with it as best as I could under the circumstances.

Whoever was behind abducting me, whatever was about to happen to me, I realized I was on my own. I needed to stay as clearheaded as possible if I wanted to find a chance to escape or figure out why this was happening to me.

Part of that was trying to figure out where I was.

The cobbled street underneath my abductor’s feet didn’t give me any clues though, neither did the canal we crossed. The smell of sewage and garbage assaulted my nose, made me gag again. It took a hard effort to keep the bile at bay as I hung upside down. The image of bile coming out of my nose because my mouth was gagged and me suffocating on it was incentive enough for me to work hard on keeping it in my stomach, but I worried I was fighting a losing battle.

I lifted my head to stare around. It was still night. I had no idea if it was eleven o’clock or three in the morning. It was dark, that was all I knew.

Decrepit buildings stood on both sides of the road, looking ominous in the shadows. Some appeared to be businesses of some sort, some were open even at this hour. I made out a few shady restaurants but most buildings housed bars and… the braying laughter of a woman caused a shudder to run through my body as I realized that some of these establishments were brothels or bordellos, or whatever the Pandraxians called them—my abductors had taken me to the red-light district of Pandrax.

My imagination went wild at the realization that some of these Pandraxians might pay a hefty sum to fuck a human woman since we were still a relatively unknown species.

Oh God, no, I prayed. No.

But if those were their intentions they could have easily found a less high-profile victim than me. Not that I wished this kind of fate on anybody, but logic dictated that abducting me was a lot riskier than some of the other women just coming from Earth.

One of the college classes I took had been about terrorism, kidnappings, and torture, and the knowledge I gained during the course now came back to haunt me.

Panic tried to seize me once again, but I fought it just like I fought the constant bile—down, down, down. The course had been informative as well as frightening. The premise had been that every time someone was abducted it was because the captors wanted something. From simple money to freeing political prisoners or making a statement. If I could puzzle out why I was taken, I might be able to figure out a way to get out of this.

Money would be the easiest if that was what they wanted. I was sure Daryus would pay handsomely for my release.

Daryus!

How I wished I had never left his suite. I should have stayed the night like he had offered, or at least allowed him to take me home like he wanted to. No, that wouldn’t have helped either, these people had taken me right out of my bed.

The woman laughed shrilly again, sending more shivers down my spine. A male voice yelled something unintelligible and she brayed some more.

We walked down a narrow alleyway, so narrow the man carrying me had to turn sideways, and still the back of my head scraped along the rough wall.

We stopped, and he knocked on a door. He stood and we waited until the door was opened with a screech. No sliding doors here, I noticed.

“What do you want?”

“Someone is calling in a favor,” one of the other men said.

“Oh yeah?”

I heard some rustling like one of the men digging for something in his pant pockets. Whatever he produced must have convinced the other man to allow us into a stinking, filthy kitchen.

“She is not to be harmed or touched. Otherwise, you can do with her as you please.” The man who had spoken before informed the other, while the one carrying me deposited me on one of the battered-looking chairs.

“What is that?” the renter or owner of the house asked, eyeing me up and down.

I tried to ignore his stare, because now that I was right side up again and sat down, I could look around. The men who took me were indeed wearing uniforms, with blasters strapped to their thighs. The uniforms were a dark gray, and I didn’t recognize them.

The alien who had allowed us in was shorter, not a Pandraxian, but I had no clue what species he belonged to. Three eyes looked like black beads as they sat over two holes in his face, assumably his nose. A fish-shaped mouth looked out of place on his narrow face.

His upper grayish body was naked and dotted with blisters, differentiating in size, some oozing a greenish puss, reawakening the bile still churning in my stomach. He waved his six-fingered hands in front of the green Pandraxian saying something I didn’t catch. I was too busy checking the room we had entered. It reminded me of an old-fashioned kitchen, complete with a wooden oven with multiple doors of different sizes. It must have been white at some point but was black and brown now.

“Don’t let her leave. She is not to be seen by anybody or talk to anybody,” the orange Pandraxian continued his orders when I tuned them back in again.

“For how long?” the oozing alien demanded, and I perked my ears because I wanted to know too.

“For as long as it pleases your benefactor,” green Pandraxian said with a sneer.

“Are you staying? How am I supposed to control… her? Is it a her?”

“Vra, it’s a her. And here.” The green Pandraxian turned to me. “Alright, calleio—bitch—here’s the deal.” He pulled a black collar from his pants and fastened it around my neck. Next, he produced a small disc and pushed on it.

An electronic jolt moved through me, convulsing my muscles, and I toppled out of the chair, hitting the floor painfully. I thought my eyes would bulge out of their sockets, but that was the least of my worries as my entire body seemed to be on fire. Muscles and nerves did what they wanted and I finally lost the battle with the bile and began throwing up. Only the bile had nowhere to go because of the gag in my mouth and tears pooled in my eyes when it came out of my nose and I realized I couldn’t breathe.

“Ah, frygg. Stupid calleio!” The green Pandraxian stepped around me. With two fingers and a disgusted expression, he took the gag off and I threw up in earnest, coughing and choking.

My throat burned, my body hurt, and tears blurred my vision. It took a big effort to work myself into a kneeling position before I managed to sit up to keep the rest of the bile down.

I wiped my mouth on the material of my nightgown by my shoulder, trying to get the acidic taste out of my mouth.

“That’s how you control her.” He thrust the disc at the other alien. “If she gives you any gruff, push that button. And you”—he turned to me—“this collar is also programmed to give you enough room to move about in a radius of five hundred paces. If you set one foot outside that circle—” He moved his fingers to indicate I would be zapped again. “The farther you go, the stronger the current. Nod if you understand me.”

Glaring, I did.

“Good.”

“Here, for your troubles.” He handed the smaller alien a purse of credits, then waved at the other two men to follow him out. “We’ll be in contact.”

“A fine mess you got me into, merrily,” the oozing alien said, pulling out a knife from his long boot. He held up the disc warningly in one hand, and the knife in the other. “I will cut you loose, but if you do anything, I’ll push this button, understood?”

“Yes,” I managed between clenched teeth and watched him cut my bindings off.

My arms were stiff and hurt when I brought them up and forward to shake the worst of the pain out as blood recirculated through my veins.

“I am Master Gitgo,” he introduced himself. “Now make yourself useful and clean this place up. I’m going back to bed.” By the door he turned. “And just so you don’t get any stupid ideas of screaming, nobody will come running if they hear you. And if they do, trust me, you don’t want them anywhere near you.” He cackled menacingly. “Also, I sleep with one eye open, so you can’t creep up on me, got it?”

“Got it,” I whispered, fighting against the acidic taste still lingering in my mouth.

“Cleaning supplies are under the sink. Get to work. If I come back and this place is not spotless…” He held up the disc.

“You’ll zap me,” I concluded.

“You’re smart.” He tapped at his head and was about to leave the kitchen.

“Hold on,” I called out, desperately.

“What do you want?” he demanded, crossing his short arms over his oozing chest. “I need to get some sleep.”

Desperate to get out of here, I said, “Listen, you don’t know who I am. I—”

He waved his arm. “Spare me. I don’t care who you are, even if you were the new empress, I won’t let you go.”

His three eyes blinked at me emotionlessly. “You’re only wasting your and my time. Get to cleaning.”

“I can give you credits, more than—”

He huffed impatiently. “I appreciate the offer, but you pissed off the wrong people. People you shouldn’t have messed with and people I don’t like messing with. They tell me to keep you here, I’ll keep you here. So I don’t end up like you, or worse.”

“One million credits,” I pushed out, hoping Daryus would come through for me.

He didn’t even blink.

“Not even for ten.” He shook his head. “Quit wasting my time.”

There was a finality to his words that leeched the last of my hope from my bones. He hadn’t looked tempted at all, more put out. He looked like someone—just as he said—whose time was being wasted.

What worried me more though was him saying that I must have pissed off the wrong people. I didn’t know who that might be, but him being more scared of them than even considering how many credits I would offer, was more than telling.

Who could have that much clout, to have me taken like this and to scare this alien so much that he wouldn’t even listen to what I had to offer? Not Lady Natoi whom I had first suspected to be behind this.

Without another word, Gitgo made his way up the rickety stairs.

I couldn’t believe he would just leave me here like this. I waited a few minutes, heard the distant creak of stairs, footsteps above me, and then the protesting sound of what I assumed was his bed when he lay down.

On tiptoes, I made my way into the other room. It was dark, but some light came in from outside through slits in metallic sheets nailed to the windows. Enough to make out a sort of living room overflowing with trash. I squealed when the alien equivalent of a cockroach scurried out from underneath a dirty plate.

Fuck, I cursed. I hated roaches. Leave it to me to find one on an alien planet. And one that was triple the size of the largest roach I had seen on Earth. With antennas as long as my forearm. Just imagining those things touching me made me shudder some more.

I moved to the front door and found it barricaded with an assortment of locks and safety bars. But even if they hadn’t been there or if I had had the key, I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk through it. Or at least I wouldn’t get very far before I would get zapped. I had no intention of finding out if the green Pandraxian had lied to me. Having been zapped once was more than enough for me.

No, if I wanted to get out of here, I needed to come up with another plan and that plan would include getting my hands on the little oval device. That would have to be step one. Hopefully it had a setting to deactivate the claustrophobic collar around my neck.

It was already chafing my skin and I looked around to find a rag or something to put in between the rough metal and my throat. I couldn’t see anything other than the material of my nightgown. Ripping a piece of it off would have to do.

Despondent, I sat back down on the kitchen chair and stared at the mess in front of me without really seeing it. Tears burned my eyes when I thought about how my life had gone to shit in the span of an hour.

An hour ago I had been happy. Happier than I had ever been before in my life. Daryus had been such an attentive lover, patient and giving, but there had been more than just sex between us. I had felt it in his touch, seen it in his eyes, and felt it myself. For some reason, there was a magnetism between us that defied logic. Even though we had only met a few days ago, I felt as if I knew him. As if we had already spent years together.

I put my elbows on the table and my face into my palms as I let my tears fall. My body still hurt from the electroshocks earlier. My muscles cramped as if sore after strenuous exercise, but that was nothing compared to the pain in my heart. The thought of maybe never seeing Daryus again was just as debilitating as the fear for my life.

For just a moment I had allowed myself to think I could escape Lady Natoi’s clutches, just to find myself in an even more intolerable situation.

I just wanted to break down and have the cry I deserved, but I was afraid that if I did, I wouldn’t get back up from this stupid table.

Besides that, the memory of the electroshocks was still fresh enough that I never wanted to experience that again, and I wasn’t sure what that despicable creature would do to me if I didn’t do as he bade me.

Resolutely, I wiped my eyes. I would not give up, but I would give in for now and clean this mess of a kitchen, if for no other reason than not wanting to spend any more time in this filth. I vowed that I wouldn’t do anything that would cause him to push the button on the stupid remote, but I would keep my eyes open on how to get my hands on it.

With a sigh, I got up and walked to the sink where I stared miserably at the filth inside. Whatever it was, it gave the name dirty dishes a whole new meaning. Some looked as if mud had been served on them and allowed it to cake.

I lowered myself to the ground to open the door to the cabinet underneath where the alien told me I would find cleaning supplies.

He hadn’t lied. I found an old, rusted bucket filled with what appeared to be sponges and different kinds of bottles which I guessed to be alien cleaning solutions. I hoped they wouldn’t burn the skin off my hands and tried the first bottle. A small red button on the outside encouraged me to press it, while I held it as far from me as possible, aiming the spout at the sink.

A yellow foam sprayed out onto the dishes and began to bubble on contact with the dirt, turning the foam brown and the dishes, if not sparkling, at least whitish. Encouraged, I sprayed everything inside the sink, including the basin itself. A pungent odor rose, but it wasn’t too vile. With a sigh, I surrendered to my fate for now and began attacking the filth surrounding me.