Page 54 of Fighting Gravity
Everywhere I went, his voice followed until I felt like he was the entire ship. But things were getting unbearably hot in the vents and I needed to get out and face the music. There was one more vent I hadn’t gone to and it was because I didn’t want Norm following me to my top-secret project and destroying it. But at the moment, I was out of options. I crawled to the cargo bay and nudged the vent cover off the wall, sliding out into the cool, open space.
Jumping to the ground, I gave the room a listen, waiting for a sign that Norm had tracked me there. If he turned up the temperature, that meant he couldn’t find me with heat signatures alone. That made me wonder how he’d been following me around the whole vessel.
When I didn’t hear anything, I started toward the transport, walking carefully at first and then accelerating into a jog, my boots quiet on the metal floors. About halfway there, I saw light flood the chamber from the sliding doors up the stairs from the shuttle. I slid to a stop and ducked behind some empty crates, holding my breath in the darkness.
“Very predictable,” Norm said, his voice carrying through the entire, hollow bay. “Hide all you want, but the heat has made your scent so much more potent.”
Shit.
When Norm began heading down the steps, my muscles went rigid with suspense. My options were run or fight. Or run and then fight. Or fight, hope I could win, then run.
I was screwed.
His words rang in my head.I’m not letting you escape.He was making good on that promise now.
When I saw his shadow stretch over the floor beside me, I looked at my transport. I had stored some heavy tools in there. Most of which could be used as weapons. Maybe not the most effective weapons, but they were certainly better than my bare fists.
I was fucked anyways, so what was the harm in trying, right?
I stood and sprinted toward the shuttle, seeing Norm’s tall silhouette in my peripheral. That got my heart going again. Heat flooded through me at the prospect of him actually getting his hands on me and showing me what “punishment” was to him.
His chuckle touched my ears and made my spine rigid. I reached my transport and ducked inside, grabbing the first thing I could find. It was something like a wrench, but it wasn’t a wrench. It was an alien wrench, heavy and thick and probably capable of breaking a bone. A human bone, anyways.
Stepping back from the transport, weapon in hand, I pivoted on my heels and found Norm right there at arm’s length.
This feels familiar.
I swung the wrench at his head to see him duck out of its path, which threw me off balance. I stumbled to the side and used that momentum to run to the other side of the shuttle, but like the mutant he was, he leaped up and landed on the roof. I paused, watching him bound over my head and land right in front of me. I swung at him with my wrench again only for him to grab my wrist and shove me back into the side of the shuttle. He slammed my arm against the metal so hard I felt the shock of it all the way to my shoulder and for a split second, it made my hand go numb. I dropped the wrench and gasped through the pain. Norm’s other hand collared my throat as he pressed his body up against me, growling. No, vibrating.
That damn sound fed into me like threads of fire and went straight to my core. The disturbing realization made me squirm and I fought against Norm’s superior strength as hard as I could, bucking and flailing and doing my best to loosen his hold. The tone in his voice grew more intense, stealing my breath away.
“There you are, little peveri,” he said, his chest heaving like he’d been running all through the ship.
Hell, mine was heaving, too. Sweat slicked my skin and heat rose off us both like we were open flames.
“Here I am,” I said through my teeth.
I clawed at his face with my free hand, raking my nails down the side of his head. He snapped his head to the side with irritation, hissing through his teeth. That sound sunk through me again, making my nipples pucker under my shirt. I melted for a split second.
And I hated it.
I looked up into Norm’s dark eyes. Like a black hole, they were ripping me apart and pulling me in at the same time.
“I hope you enjoyed your vacation,” he said.
“I’d starve on a desert island and still enjoy it over being around you,” I wheezed through the pressure on my throat.
“Maybe it was a mistake coming back for you on Tao. You’re insufferable. This fight would have been sucked right out of you after a few days with Ket and his curiosities.”
“Why did you come back? You had a ship. You could have just left.”
“I don’t like people taking things that belong to me.”
“I don’t belong to you,” I roared, shoving against his chest.
“Why’d you jump on the noc’ran?”
“We’ve been over this. I needed you to get me off Tao. A lot of good that did.”
