Page 47 of Ruby
I don’t even know if I did the right thing by leaving him unconscious and alone in the middle of a forest. What if he dies from blood loss or an infection from his gunshot wound? Or his wing stumps getting infected?
A passing predator could use him for its next meal, or another hunter passing by could finish him off. There are too many ways, known and unknown, that this could go very wrong and honestly, I don’t know if I’ll be able to live with myself if he ends up dead because of me.
The memory of his mangled wings resurfaces in my mind and I look back at the alien with all the hatred I can muster. It was his kind that did that to Szhe’ka. Aliens that are capable of cruel things, more wicked than I can imagine. Aliens that see everything as inferior. It’s infuriating.
The walk is long and while I do not recognize most of the forest, since it’s all purples, greens, and browns, I am almost certain that this is not the same path that Szhe’ka and I took. Honestly, it’s really more terrifying to realize how close to their camp we were all this time. Almost like we’ve been running for our lives and they’ve been tailing us closely.
Going back would mean hell to pay for escaping. All my instincts are screaming at me to run but my self-preservation is vividlyaware of the weapon that can take my life at any moment. I have never wished, more than ever, for this to be a dream. A vivid imagination of some sort and not my reality.
When faced with extreme stress, my body usually responds with panic. My throat is closing and I’m doing all I can to keep myself awake, pinching my own arms to stay active. When my feet slows, he pushes roughly, throwing me ahead so I don’t slow him down. unlike what I’d like to imagine, there are no saviours hiding in the trees or ambushes ready to save me.
I’m truly alone, left with a fate worse than death.
“Slow down and I will make you regret it.”
There’s really no wiggle room here. A part of me wants to study his gross form some more for places I can hurt him.
He is close enough to me that if I do any of those cool movie type kicks, maybe I could knock off his head. Except he doesn’t really have a head or a neck. He is a blob of a thing, gray and gross, with pink goo endlessly oozing out of unseen pores and he has three short, stumpy, trunk-like legs coming out of the bottom of his misshapen body.
I can’t keep my eyes on him for too long or I’ll throw up, so I whip my head forward. There is no fighting this thing. What’s to say he can’t just regenerate or split himself? Two of these things? I don’t stand a chance against it. It’s even more unlikely to pull off a stunt that would involve claiming his weapon.
As much as I am incapable, he’s capable of much more. His gaze sweeps my body at intervals, lingering on my behind.
“Such a waste that you are cargo,” he says with a leer in his voice.
“I guess I am worth more than you can touch. That is the bigger shame,” I say, the Bitch once again settled like a comforting presence.
“Soon, you will beg for death, and it will not come.”
“Funny. I know you will experience the same. I may not be a strong believer in getting what you give but I know you will not be able to run your little operation for much longer.”
He lets out a wet snort. “Nothing can save you.”
“I am not the only one that escaped, am I? There are some who have evaded you. There will be more to rise against you.”
“You speak of what you know nothing about.”
This time, I have the freedom to laugh.
“Empires fall, idiot. You should at least know that. You won’t always have the power to abduct people. When you become the weak ones, you will realize what I mean.”
I really want to be the one to put a bullet through his head, so I hope he doesn’t have time for that realization.
He shoves me forward, tripping me to the ground. From here, I can see his body towering over me, beady eyes lingering on the thin material that separates me from complete nudity. He leans down, pulling me close by my hair, close enough for me to smell his putrid breath.
“Do you want to know the wonders of technology? I am sure you cannot comprehend the kind of technology we need to make you more than just human. You are expensive cargo but I will make it so nobody knows you have been defiled. I will take my time to make you submit.”
I don’t know if it’s my body’s defensive mechanism or the technology they used but heat begins to pool in my groin. I can recognize this feeling, having experienced it several times with Szhe’ka. This irrational attraction to anything moving, whether I want it or not.
“You can’t do anything to me,” the Bitch tells him, the more rational part of my brain retreating.
He licks one side of my face, pressing a gun to my head with his free flipper hand.
“You have no knowledge of what I am capable of, and now that you have been touched, there might as well be pleasure.”
I’m not scared. I’m terrified. I’m completely at his mercy and he can hurt me.
Their disgusting shape is misleading, I realize now that I feel the strength of his grip. He can break me, worse than any other man has. He’s not the first to will my body to submit to him but he might well be the last.
