Page 96 of Under His Heel

“Yeah. Sure. I’ll clean up a bit.”

Would Tracht see the two of them walking into the washroom together and think it was weird? Alex hoped Tracht wouldn’t get the wrong idea.

Inside the washroom, Parsons peeked into all the stalls and changing cabinets, making sure the room was empty, and that was even more ominous. Alex’s skin started prickling.

“What are you doing?”

Parsons sighed loudly. “I just wanted to have an actually private conversation. The washrooms are the only places on the ship not monitored in some way.”

Alex looked around uneasily. “You sure? ‘Cus I wouldn’t put it above Tracht to monitor anyway.”

“Yeah. Schultz in engineering, she said so. She had to repair a bunch of the cameras once. That’s why if anybody on the crew wants to hook up in secret, they find an empty washroom. But let’s hurry, before Tracht thinks that’s what we’re doing.” Parsons started getting changed out of his gym clothes. “When you were talking about what you and your brother did, you said that didn’t bother you.”

“Uh…. No? Was it supposed to?” Alex started wiping himself off. He didn’t like the way Parsons said it, like it was a bad thing, and he tensed up.

“Yes? But okay. I wasn’t going to ask you. I was trying to find a way around it. But after what Tracht did to you…” Parsons pulled something out of his gym bag and held it out towards Alex. “I need you to put this in Tracht’s cabin. Preferably under the nightstand or near wherever it is that Tracht usually sleeps.”

“What?” Alex took the device. For some reason, his hand was shaking. “What is it?”

Parsons shrugged. “I got an offer to make a lot of money all at once. All they wanted me to do was get this in close to Tracht.”

There had to be more to it than that. “What does it do?”

“Does it matter? It’s easy, and it’ll hurt Tracht. Don’t you want that? Get some revenge against him for everything he’s done to you? Doesn’t he deserve it?” Parsons started looking angry. “Are you in or out? We can’t stay in here forever.”

Alex looked at the device. He wished Nick were here, because even if Nick didn’t know what the thing did he’d be able to either weasel it out of Parsons or make some sort of accurate assumption.

“Yeah. Okay.” Alex wrapped his palm around the device. “Whatever. I can do it. But,” he looked Parsons in the eye, “are you sure?”

Parsons shook his head. “No. The captain’s an asshole, but then he started teaching you stuff, and I thought maybe he wasn’t completely bad.” His expression hardened. “But then that thing with the breasts. I don’t care what you did; giving you a body mod violated the contract. And he did all of that to humiliate you. He’s a monster.”

Oh. Yeah. That was true. Tracht was an asshole. A dick. A monster.

It made sense to want to screw Tracht over.

“Y-yeah. I guess so.” Alex’s voice shook.

“Alex, I could keep Meilin in school for another three years with this payout,” Parsons said. “I’ve tried to find another way, but…”

“Guess that’s good.” Alex put the small device, which was about the size of his smallest fingernail, into his dirty sock. He’d be able to take it off later without Tracht noticing there was anything inside.

But he felt weird about the whole thing.

“Hey, Alex. Thank you. You’re really helping me out here,” Parsons said. He extended his hand for a fist bump.

“Sure.” Alex lightly tapped his fist against Parsons’ and then left.

===

Alex’s gut churned the entire evening. He threw his socks with the device into the laundry hamper. He was in charge of doing their laundry, and Tracht wouldn’t ever search it.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t good at hiding his discomfort. He missed several cues to take food from Tracht’s hand, and Tracht lightly slapped Alex’s jaw to get him to pay more attention.

Even resting his head against Tracht’s thigh wasn’t doing much to relax Alex.

Finally, Tracht pushed away from the table, dislodging Alex from his spot. “What’s the problem now?”

“Nothing,” Alex muttered. He got up, ignoring the slight jiggle in his chest, and crossed his arms. “I’m fine.”

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