Page 54 of Challenged

The scene shifts before us to Baxter in his office, fiddling with some desk toy. He looks up at me, exasperated. Almost pitying.

“Can’t you do anything by yourself?”

The patronising tone in his voice makes me seethe all over again.

Rardek’s eyes flash. “You had been doing his work by yourself all that time. He was happy to take your rewards, but not to provide you assistance?”

The quiet anger he feels on my behalf buoys me.

“Yeah. Everything I did for him and he still treated me like a brainless idiot. So I went back to the work I was doing, and I changed it. Did it like I was a brainless idiot. He signed it off without looking. The worst piece of work ever produced by our department, and it had his name on the front of it.”

I grin at Rardek, expecting to see my expression returned. Instead, he looks troubled, his hand coming up to touch my face.

“He might be a lazy, stupid individual, but I believe what he said about making you pay.”

There’s a tension in him, a tightness in his shoulders and expression, as though he’s afraid of what I might say next.

“I thought he’d hit me,” I say. “Was prepared for that. But instead…”

I rub at the faded bruise on my neck, the scene around us changing once more to the street. Baxter’s ambush. We watch it play out - another version of me trying to run in her stupid heels, Baxter catching her, slamming the needle in and the plunger down. It fades away as she slips into unconsciousness. Then we’re back in the office.

“Woke up nineteen years later,” I say, trying to hide the tremor in my hands. The tremble in my voice.

“My Angie.” Rardek’s voice is rough with sorrow, and he reaches for me, but stops short of touching me. I’m grateful for it. Rub at my neck again.

I really don’t want to be touched right now.

“You know what the worst part about it is, though?” I say, my voice twisting and cracking. “I found a ‘specimens’ list on Farrow’s computer. My name was on it. My full name.”

Angelita Ramirez. I didn’t know Baxter even knew that was my name.

“Them knowing your full name is the worst part?” Rardek’s eyebrows twitch upwards, as if he’s trying to contain his disbelief.

“The thing is - it shouldn’t have been possible. He shouldn’t have been able to just attack me in the street. Drug me and hand me over to be part of this experiment without consequence.” My voice goes higher, louder. “You can’t just remove a person from their life. Not a person like me, anyway.” I wince as I say it. “I figured Baxter must have handed me over to someone, given them a false name. Made out like I was someone else. Someone more… disposable.”

Rardek reaches for me again, and this time he does touch me, his big hands closing round mine, warm and slightly rough. Working hands. So much sexier than the soft, pampered hands I’ve spent my life shaking.

“I know when you say these things, you mean only how Mercenia thinks, not that you also think in those ways.”

His gaze is soft, sincere. Unflinching. I find myself drawn into those yellow eyes, as if I could fall into them. Drown in their depths.

“You give me more credit than I deserve.”

“You would not be so uncomfortable to say it if you believed it to be true.”

His tone is firm. Certain. And it’s nice. Really nice. Having someone believe I’m better than I am for a change.

“I thought he must have lied,” I say, my voice hoarse now. “But there was my name, in full, on the specimens list. He didn’t lie because he didn’t have to. He wasn’t afraid of his actions having any negative consequences. He treated me like I was nothing with impunity. That’s how worthless I was to Mercenia all along.”

Rardek shakes his head. “Be glad, then, that you are stuck here. Because you could never be worthless to me.”

My blood warms at his words, but I pull my hand back, trying to massage out the echo of his touch.

“Because I’m the only person who can bear you children?”

His brows furrow. “Liv and the others have spoken to you about the fullness of how mates work?”

“It came up in our conversation about how half-human, half-raskarran babies are possible.”

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