5. Noelle

I didn't normallywork overtime. And I definitely didn't clock in this early. But my sleep had been a mess the night before, some disjointed nightmare where I called out for someone who never came.

No, not someone.

Ryklin.

Ugh. As if I needed my freaky robotic stalker invading my dreams.

And he was a stalker, even if he hadn't been stalking me last night. I'd seen him watching me in the halls, and he'd just happened to run into me more than once ever since Darian had tried to kill me. If it were Drex, I might understand. He was my best friend's boyfriend; he wanted to make sure both of us were okay.

Ryklin, though? I had no connection to the guy, and he had no reason to help.

I'd tried talking about it with Pippa once, but her face had gone stormy, and she'd said he was off-limits. She wouldn't tell me what her problem was with the guy. Apparently, it was personal between him and Drex. So, I'd stay away from the guy on friendship grounds, if nothing else.

But he wasn't staying away from me.

I had a sinking suspicion that I needed to apologize to him the next time I saw him, though. He hadn't earned the yelling last night. And I normally didn't yell.

Perversely, I kind of hoped I caught him stalking me again, just to make my yelling retroactively okay. If he stalked me today, I wouldn't need to apologize.

With that possibly insane resolution in mind, I opened the door to the utility closet in Sector J and let out a string of curses that would have made my mother blush and then send me back to etiquette classes.

The drug paraphernalia hadn't been cleared out. In fact, I was pretty sure there was more.

The closet was either low priority or someone in station security knew about it and didn't want it cleaned out. I doubted it was a sting operation to catch the culprit. And I was frustrated enough that I didn't care.

I set my bag down next to the access panel and pulled a garbage bag off the shelf beside it, carefully shoveling as much of the drug laden mess into the bag as I could, careful not to touch anything that looked especially hazardous.

Solar Flare wasn't dangerous if you touched it, though there were stupid rumors that went around saying that brushing your fingers against the stuff could send you into heart failure. I still didn't want flakes of it on my hands.

There was a trash chute at the end of the hallway and around a corner. I dragged the garbage bag behind me, wishing I had a lev-bot to make the journey easier. Sweat beaded on my brow, and I was breathing hard by the time I heaved the bag down the chute with a satisfied grunt.

Sometimes a woman had to do things for herself.

"Some asshole trashed our stuff!" A reedy voice echoed down the hallway and stopped me in my tracks just as I was about to turn the corner.

I crouched down low and slunk back, hoping no one spotted me. The door to the closet was open, and my utility bag was right there. I had my comm, and I doubted there was anything in the bag that would give away my identity. But I was only a few meters away, and they'd see me if they looked.

The hallway ended in the trash chute; there was no way out without walking past them. And I really didn't want to fight someone cooking Solar Flare.

"Do you think it was security?" The second voice was lower.

"I paid them off. I'm not an idiot," said the first.

No wonder my report hadn't gone anywhere.

If these guys saw me, they wouldn't let me go without a fight. And I had a tiny bit of self defense training, but that was all theoretical.

Fingers tight around my neck.

A blaster digging into my temple.

Bile rose in my throat. I hadn't been able to break out of Darian's hold. If I couldn't outrun these guys, they'd do whatever they wanted to me. And this deep into Sector J, this early in the morning, no one would hear me scream.

I could fit in the trash chute. Probably. Each of the chutes fed into an incinerator that ran nightly. I probably wouldn't be fried to a crisp if I ended up inside.

But I wasn't willing to risk it. Some fates were worse than being at the mercy of two drug dealers.

My gaze scrambled over everything in the hall, not quite taking in anything. Was there any weapon I could use? Anyone I could call for help?

If station security was paid off, I couldn't trust them to get here, and no one would find me before the lowlifes in the closet.

Then my eyes snagged on the escape pod on the wall opposite me.

I could hide there.

I'd have to dart across the hallway, and if they looked, they'd see me. But the voices were still arguing inside the closet, and it would only take me a second to slide inside.

It was better than sitting in the hallway and waiting to be found.

I sprang up from where I was crouched and pressed the sensor to open the door to the escape hatch. It slid open silently, and I darted inside, holding my breath as the door closed behind me.

Relief washed over me for a second, quickly followed by a sense of foreboding. Now I was trapped. If either of those guys glanced into this escape pod, they'd see me sitting inside.

This was one of the smaller pods, designed for only ten people or so to safely evacuate the ship. In the housing areas and the larger recreation areas, there were pods that could accommodate dozens and sometimes hundreds of people.

The exterior hallways were dotted with hundreds of these smaller pods so that anyone caught in a failing sector could escape without needing to run far. There were many ways the station could fail, and few of them would give us time for an orderly evacuation.

I crouched down right next to the door. There was only a small porthole that someone could look through, and I hoped they wouldn't see me. I made sure the lights stayed off and remained as still and quiet as I could, straining to hear anything.

The door was designed to withstand the vacuum of space, and I couldn't hear a single thing, cut off completely from the rest of the ship. My comm was in my pocket, and I could try and call someone now. Pippa could round up a band of engineers and clear this place out of troublemakers in an hour. But I was frozen in indecision.

By coming in early, no one knew where I was. I hadn't even bothered to check in with my supervisor before heading out to work. I hadn't wanted to deal with anyone. And now look where I was, hiding in an escape pod and hoping no one noticed me.

I was embarrassed. And I felt helpless. And I hated it.

I didn't reach for my comm.

I was just going to wait this out. The escape pods were basically part of the scenery to everyone on the ship. We passed by them every day and didn't pay any attention to them. There was no reason to think these guys might be any different. They'd walk down the hallway, see no one was there between them and the trash chute, and they'd give up.

I hoped.

Something slammed into the door.

Instinct almost had me jumping up, and I ended up clattering to the floor, falling out of my crouch when I realized exactly how stupid that would be.

Were they fighting? Did they know I was in the escape pod?

Hiding in there was a terrible idea.

I wanted to look out the porthole and figure out what was going on. If those guys figured out I was here, all they'd have to do was press a button to open the door and I'd be at their mercy.

I wasn't going to let that happen. I faced the door, ready to charge out as soon as it opened. They wouldn't expect it and maybe the element of surprise would be enough to get me past them.

I should have just run for it when I had the chance.

I could see shadows moving through the porthole and thought there may have been three figures rather than two. Did they have another friend I couldn't see?

Judging by the thumps against the door, it was no friend.

What if I opened the door from the inside and ran out while they were distracted? It might be my best chance. Or maybe panic was making me think like a fool.

I risked a glance through the porthole but only saw a tall figure with dark hair. If there was anyone else out there, they weren't in my field of vision.

I hated being trapped. Hiding there was a terrible idea. I had to get out.

But before I could press the button to open the door, warning lights flashed, and my ears popped.

I heard a hissing sound and then lost my footing, falling backwards until suddenly I wasn't falling anymore. I was floating.

And my escape pod was hurtling away from Nebula Outpost, hurtling toward the empty planet below.