Mutant Mine (Mutant Mates Book 1), page 15
“Okay,” she says. “Thank you. I just needed to hear you say that.”
I set down my cup and step closer to her. She is stiff, at first, when I lean down to kiss her. But she soon softens into me. And when I lift her up to carry her through to our rooms, she wraps her arms around my neck.
She is in a gloomy mood today, but all will be well. I will give her every comfort and distraction that I can.
Perhaps this is not really about the asteroids or the flight path. Perhaps it is the fear that we will arrive at our destination. Rory must be growing nervous about the uncertain future that is approaching us fast.
I cannot promise her there is nothing to fear. I am afraid, too. But that is my weight to bear.
30
Rory
ROTH’S ARM is as heavy and unyielding as a steel bar where it’s curled around my waist. He holds me firmly against his massive body as his chest rises and falls with slow, rhythmic breaths. I can’t move — I can scarcely breathe, taking tiny sips of air, even though my lungs ache. I don’t want to wake him.
This is rare. Usually, Roth is awake when I go to sleep, and gone altogether by the time I wake up. But tonight, it’s me lying in the dark, staring up at the black ceiling. I’ve been lying here like this for hours, thinking. Panicking.
I feel… scared. Like when I was a little girl in my dark bedroom, hyper-aware of every small sound — certain that something was creeping across the floor towards me. Something bad.
He’s just so big. Recently, I’ve lost sight of that. Roth’s body became this delicious thing… lengths of smooth muscle, hard planes, dips and curves that I want to explore and taste. But right now, all I can feel is the sheer size of him, pinning me down.
Why is this man lying to me?
This vast, powerful man, who could crush me in an instant. This convict. This mutilated freak of nature. This kind, complicated person who has saved my life, fed me, talked to me about flowers and monsters, and made me feel sweetness in my body like I’ve never felt before. Who holds me now, even in his sleep.
Why is he lying?
I can’t quite face up to what passing the pink nebula again could mean. The thought is too huge and scary — like I'm teetering on the edge of a giant pit, trying not to fall in.
I’ve already given him so much of myself. The memories make me burn with shame and remembered pleasure: Roth kissing me, touching me, making me fall apart. How I’ve lain down for him so willingly, and cried out loud. Even tonight, in all my new uncertainty, I couldn’t resist spreading my legs for him.
And it’s not just my body. I’ve told him about my childhood, my dreams — things I’ve always kept so secret and special. I trusted him.
If he turns out to be responsible for what happened on this ship, and the deaths of my colleagues, then what am I?
A traitor. I’m sleeping with the enemy.
Well… not sleeping with. Not technically. Maybe that should have been my first clue. In bed, he’s been holding something back; I’m always reaching for him, and he’s always pulling away.
Roth has never once tried to fuck me. He’s not even taken all his clothes off in front of me since we got together. He didn’t seem to care if I saw him naked when I was just a guard gathering his laundry — but now that I’m in his bed, he’s like a blushing maiden in a chastity belt. He won’t even let me touch his cock through his clothes — always steering my hand away, and distracting me with his fingers or his mouth. The most I’ve ever felt is his naked body sneaking back into bed in the dark, while I’m half asleep. Like now.
Even before I saw the nebula, that was beginning to make me feel neurotic. Roth is the first person I’ve ever been intimate with. I thought I must be doing something wrong. Is he not turned on by me? He gets hard, but… maybe he’d rather jack off than let me touch him. I assume that’s what he’s doing when he dashes off to the bathroom after he makes me come, while I’m still catching my breath.
Maybe the fantasy of me is better than the reality? Or maybe he just likes to hold me down and make me squirm — maybe that’s what he gets a kick out of. My vulnerability. My humiliation.
No. That can’t be true, can it? He makes me feel so… I’m not ready to put a word on it, but I feel something for Roth that I’ve never experienced before. Desire, yes — I want him. So badly. All the time. But there’s also a level of comfort and ease between us. The way we can eat together, curl up to sleep together, talk and laugh... If that all turns out to be a lie, it may break me altogether.
Tears burn in my eyes, and I choke them back. I can’t stand it anymore. Everything is so tangled up in my head! I miss Roth, even though he’s right here. I miss the man I thought he was a few hours ago. I want to wake him up and tell him that I’m scared, so he can comfort me — but the thing that scares me is him.
As slowly as I can, I ease my way out from under Roth’s arm, and get out of bed. He shifts, grumbling, and I freeze. But he soon settles back down to sleep. I can’t decide whether I’m relieved or disappointed that he hasn’t woken up to stop me.
I find my clothes in the dark, pull them on, then tiptoe across the room. I open the door to the flight deck.
For a moment, I stand in the doorway. I look back at Roth, sleeping in our bed, just visible in the dim light flowing through from the flight deck.
When I go, the door shuts behind me without a sound.
* * *
THE FLIGHT DECK is an interesting place. I can see why Roth likes to retreat in here, away from the noise and violence of the prisoners — away even from me.
I’ve only been in here once before. Roth was with me then, so I wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings. The tension between us was so electric that I could barely drag my eyes away from him — and after he kissed me, I wasn’t aware of anything else.
Now, it’s quiet. The viewing window is filled with a sea of distant, twinkling stars — the closest ones blurring as we soar through space, traveling at astonishing speeds in astonishing silence.
The tiny status lights all over the instrument panels shine and wink, too, like a mirror image of the sky. It’s peaceful. Purposeful. Everything in this room knows what it’s meant to do, and is doing it well.
So… what is it doing? What is this machinery up to? What task is it ticking away at, minute by minute, day by day, while all the living beings sleepwalk around the ship?
Well. Most of us are sleepwalking. One of us may be awake.
I don’t understand any of this equipment. I’m not the most technologically capable person at the best of times, and this is top secret, uber technical government stuff. How does anyone remember their way around this many buttons and levers? I don’t want to touch even the smallest switch, not knowing what it will do — dreading that the lights will go off again, or the engines will shudder to a halt.
I waste some time pacing around, peering at incomprehensible displays and hovering my hand over dials without being quite brave enough to touch. Then it occurs to me: this machine can talk. I can just ask it what it’s doing.
“Computer,” I say. “Are you in here?”
“OF COURSE,” comes the genderless, people-pleasing voice. “WHILE YOU ARE ON BOARD THE HADES, I AM EVERYWHERE!”
Okay, cool, not creepy. “Could you please tell me where we’re going?”
“I CAN SHOW YOU.”
A three-dimensional image appears, projected onto the viewing window. It’s a star chart. There are various dots and shapes to represent the stars, planets, and other major bodies around us in space, and one single dot that flashes red. That must be the Hades.
A dotted line emerges from the red dot. It goes forward through space for some distance, then turns back on itself. It loops round in an elongated circular shape, and finally joins back up with the red dot from behind.
It’s what I suspected, but my stomach lurches to see it laid out so undeniably.
“Computer, am I understanding this right — that dotted line is our flight path?”
“CORRECT.”
“So… we’re flying in circles?”
“IT IS NOT A CIRCLE. IT IS AN ELLIPTICAL LOOP.”
Hrghhh. “Okay, fine. And how long have we been on this path?”
I’m hoping against hope that this was an error — that Roth just isn’t as good at piloting as he thinks he is, and he accidentally set our path wrong after he corrected for the asteroid belt.
“WE HAVE ALREADY COMPLETED THE PLANNED ROUTE TWICE. WE ARE IN OUR THIRD LOOP. EACH LOOP TAKES APPROXIMATELY FIVE EARTH DAYS.”
Almost two weeks, then. That’s when I was first dumped at Roth’s feet in the canteen, hissing and scratching. So much has changed in that time — and all along, we’ve just been going in circles? Or fucking elliptical loops?
Roth isn’t rescuing us after all. He isn’t taking us anywhere. He’s waiting.
What the fuck is he waiting for? What is this?
I’m hyperventilating. I drop slowly to my knees, then lean against the nearest metal panel, my back scored by the familiar grid pattern of a maintenance hatch. I curl myself up as small as I can. I want to seal up all the vulnerable parts of me that I’ve left him touch. Scrunch my body up into a ball of nothingness.
I’ve been such an idiot. Just for a moment there, I let myself believe in… everything. Everything I’ve wanted since I was a lost little girl whose parents traded her away.
I should have known better. No one rescues girls like me. I knew that, once. I knew it so hard, in every inch of me. It drove me onwards. It got me up and out. Am I going to have to learn that lesson again, the hard way? It felt hard enough the first time.
I used to be so proud of myself for knowing better than all the other girls. Girls like me, slaves in all but name, who had been bent over lighting the fire or scrubbing the floor when some rich guest stumbled across them and liked what he saw. There was always someone boasting about how her man was different; he was really going to whisk her away in a pumpkin carriage and change her life forever.
Used. Lied to. Taken for all they could give, then dumped like dead weight — or worse.
Stupid, stupid.
Fuck.
My memories of the past couple of weeks are reshaping, shuffling themselves around like a rigged deck of cards. Roth has done a great impression of just playing the hand he’s been dealt, as surprised as the rest of us — but it’s starting to seem like he knows exactly what’s going on. Whatever that is, it’s something that he doesn’t want the rest of us to know about. And try as I might, I can’t think of a good explanation for why that might be.
I swing my head backwards and bang it against the metal panel behind me, hard enough to jar — once, twice. The pain is grounding. Amidst the escalating panic, that calm voice in me is finally able to speak. And that voice says:
No. I don’t believe it.
Of course you don’t. The other girls never believed it. They always shut their ears to our warnings, never saw the inevitable coming, until it was too late.
Even so. I don’t believe it.
It’s true. I don’t believe it. Not yet.
I am really, really afraid that it could be true. But in my heart of heart of hearts — the smallest babushka doll in the set; that quietest, most secret place, where my loneliness used to live — there’s still just… Roth. Just him.
I need to talk to him, give him a chance to explain. He must have a good reason for doing this.
And if he doesn’t, then I need to know that too.
31
Rory
IT DOESN’T surprise me to find that Roth’s awake too. He’s fully dressed and sat on the side of the bed. The lights are on, mercilessly bright.
He stands up when I come in.
“Little bird. You could not sleep,” Roth says, walking towards me. “You have been worried?”
“You could say that,” I say.
“Talk to me about your worries. Perhaps I can help you.”
“Okay,” I say, taking a deep breath.
I know that if I ask this, I’ll be breaking the fragile thing between us irrevocably. Can’t I just live forever in this moment? The moment before I ruin it all — where Roth is still staring at me with so much affection, and reaching out to comfort me?
“I went to the flight deck,” I say.
He nods, encouragingly. He knew that already.
“I asked the computer to show me our flight path.”
The first flicker of uncertainty crosses Roth’s face.
“Would you like to tell me why we’re flying in fucking circles?”
It comes out way more accusatory than I want it to. I want to show that I trust him, and am open to his answer. Instead, the question lashes out of my mouth like a whip.
Roth — for the first time in all the difficult days that I’ve known him — stumbles on his words.
“Rory, I… It is not—”
God, it hurts me to see him faltering, not knowing what he can and can’t say. He’s tripping over his own secrets, tangled up in some web of lies. It’s agonizing to watch.
“Please don’t fumble around trying to think of a lie to tell me,” I interrupt. “Just tell me the truth.”
Beneath his horns, his terrible brows draw down into a frown.
“I cannot tell you the truth, otherwise I would have done so already. You are asking questions about things you do not understand.”
“You’re right, I don’t understand. That’s why I was hoping you could explain. Because it looks to me like we’re just looping around in empty space, using up our resources, and waiting to die.”
“No!” Roth says sharply. “Rory, no. I would never do anything to endanger your life. Never.”
Caught up in the passion of speaking, he has risen to his feet — rearing up to his full height, and towering over me. Instinctively, I take a step backwards, away from him. Roth notices, and looks anguished. He sinks back down onto the bed.
“Can you not just trust me?” he asks.
“Trust what?”
Roth breathes in and out. He closes his eyes, and I can see him choosing his words carefully.
“There are things I cannot tell you, for your own safety. But trust me when I tell you… that I am waiting. Yes. You are right about that, Rory. I am waiting for something in this specific area. Either the thing that I am waiting for will happen, or it won’t. But either way, we will be safe. You will be safe.”
“Would you listen to yourself, Roth?” I plead. “You’re talking in riddles! How am I supposed to trust you if you won’t really talk to me?”
“You do not trust me because you have never learned to trust,” he snaps. “Perhaps you are too used to people failing you, so now you have come to expect it.”
Wow. That hurts.
“So my shitty childhood defines who I am forever?”
He immediately looks contrite.
“Little bird — no. I apologize. That is not what I meant at all.”
But it’s too late. Both of us are stung. And neither of us can take it back.
For a moment, we just stare at each other, absorbing everything that we’ve said.
Suddenly, I want nothing more than to be away from him. I march towards the door — then stop, and lean my head against it with a soft curse.
I can’t leave. Beyond this door, there’s danger around every corner. Men whom society has banished for their crimes, who want to fuck, kill, and eat me, not necessarily in that order.
Fear and regret wash over me as I realize just how trapped I have been with Roth. It had begun to feel like it was my choice to be here, in these rooms, but I’m just… penned in. Like an animal. And he knows it.
I turn around, and look up at Roth hopelessly. I’m still completely at his mercy, even now.
“I will leave,” he says at last. “You can stay here, where you are safe.”
He walks towards me, all emotion squashed back down inside. Not a flicker of feeling shows on the harsh, striking angles of his face. I back away from the door to give him space. After he’s opened the door, he turns to give me one long, burning look — and then he’s gone.
32
Roth
THE MEN avoid me as I walk down the corridors, taking twists and turns at random. They must sense the turbulent emotions within me — although I do not know how, because I keep my pace perfectly steady.
Why did it have to be tonight? This is the final day of my allotted waiting time. If Rory had investigated our flight path tomorrow evening, the computer would have shown her a direct line from the Hades to Caster-391.
Just for a moment, I wish the time away. I wish fervently that the deadline had passed, we were a million miles away from anywhere the authorities might search for us, and I could tell Rory the truth about myself.
I cannot tell her now. I cannot. How could that be right: to endanger her with the truth, now, at the last hurdle? Would it not be selfish, putting her in harm’s way just because I want her to forgive me?
I gave my brothers a generous margin of time to make their appearance. It looks most likely that they are not coming for me. If so, I am glad that I made Rory no false promises of imminent rescue. It is now far more probable that we will have to brave an inhabited solar system first, as conspicuous as we are — in which case, the less she knows about me, the safer she will be.
I wanted to tell her everything. Yes, I was tempted, when I saw her anger and her hurt. But then I had a vision of her, twisting in pain on an interrogation table… Needles in her arms, her veins full of torturous chemicals. If the authorities ever caught up to us, their physiological testing would reveal that she knew something — and they would not stop until they had squeezed the last drop of information out of her, like they would squeeze the sweat, blood, and bile from her body.
I cannot tell her.
Of course, not telling her is selfish, too. I cannot seem to escape my own greed. By not telling her any classified information, I can avoid revealing those elements of myself that I know she will find repulsive.
The thought makes me plunge my fist into a nearby locker.
