Page 62 of Rebel Fates

“I agree.” I nervously check the monitors for her signal. “Then we should, at the very least, not let her be sold off as a sex slave, especially if she’s turning into an omega. After we rescue her, what happens next is up to her.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Zeek checks the signal again.

I’m not the only one who is nervous.

28

LOST

GEMMA

Igrip the strange, confounding object that Rok gave me. It feels like a lifeline in my palm. As though if I hold onto the damned thing, I might survive whatever is going to happen to me. It’s a stupid hope, wish,whatever.

I no longer have anything that is mine. I have no home. No clothes. No career. No possessions. No promising future. No family. No partner.

I have no more freedom. And now, I’m holding onto a molecule of hope.

Rok gave me this little cube. He must have wanted me to survive, at the very least. Although, I feel like I’m failing him by not knowing what it does and how to use it.

Maybe it was a simple token? I don’t know. I roll it around in my hand and wonder.

I remember how kind Rok looked right before the Tirbs landed. Something has softened within him. Maybe it had something to do with how I attacked him sexually.

Is it so wrong that I want them to come after me? I know it’s likely impossible for them to find me, let alone if they’d want to. They had their lives before I crashed it and something was going on that they couldn’t ignore.

I’m so entrenched in my musings that I don’t hear the Tirbs coming into the room. I snap my hand shut, but I’m too late.

He studies me suspiciously. “What do you have?”

“Just some crumbs.”

“Let me see.”

I open my other hand and attempt the art of misdirection. But I don’t quite have it.

“No, in the other hand,” he demands.

Before he can see what it is, I toss it into my mouth and swallow. “See, just some crumbs.” I show both hands as proof.

I sure as hell hope it isn’t an explosive device and it doesn’t detonate when it comes in contact with my stomach acid. But if it is, I’d be happy to blow up the Tirbs and take them down with me.

Furball yells for his friend to bring something. “We are going to see what you had.”

Wow. He won’t drop this. What is he going to do?

His buddy walks in with a canister. “Open your mouth!”

I don’t comply. He grabs my face, wrenching my jaw open, and pours some horrible fluid down into my throat.

My stomach instantly turns, and I vomit. Great. Is that my signature move now? Tossing up inedible stuff on spaceships?

Furball snatches up the device without a care for my bile covering it. Yuck.

“What is this?” he asks.

But I really don’t have an answer, although even if I did, I wouldn’t give him one.

“What is it?” he asks. He pulls back his hand as if to hit me, but then before he lets loose, he stops. Probably doesn’t want to damage his product before the sale.

---