Page 19 of Crash Landing
“You’re quite right.” He took a slow step toward me and suddenly my skin went cold. “We should be able to remain professional in any circumstance.” He took another step, crushing a cluster of flowers under his boot. “Which means you should know that going places in a competitive field like this is hard. So many discoveries and everyone wants to be the one who made them.” Another step. “The reality is, I’m going to bring those seeds to the Nexus. I’m going to process them. I’m going to make the discovery and put my name on it and your name will fade into the background.” He was barely an arm’s length from me. “Or, I could put both our names on it and you could go down in history.” His eyes glimpsed my suit pocket where my sketch of the arlakh plant was stuffed. “I saw your picture. I know what you’re looking for and why. Do you think I didn’t read every bit of your file? You want to make interplanetary travel safe for humans who might have adverse reactions to alien environments. That’s huge, Sam. That could change everything.”
“I know,” I muttered, my voice less decisive than I intended it to be.
“So. Let me help you.” He reached out, placing his hand on my shoulder and sliding it down my arm.
“Help me how?”
Every bone in my body was telling me to turn around and walk away. I was sure if I called out, someone would hear me and I could follow their voices back to camp. But then what would they think? I’d been gone with Mr. Hemburg for a while and two people definitely saw us going off alone.
“Well, you do something for me and I do something in return,” he laughed lightly like I should have already known what that was. “You know how this works.”
“I really don’t.”
The woods were getting darker. Or maybe that was my imagination. Maybe that was my nerves telling me things were taking a bad turn and I should leave.
“You are brilliant. I meant that. Brilliant enough to know what I can doforyou and what I could dotoyou.”
“Are you seriously doing this right now?”
“My work is funded by NexCom, just like your education. But I have a lot more friends. So, use your brilliant little mind,” he said, tapping his finger to the side of my head condescendingly. “And tell me. Do you want your name on this big discovery of yours?”
I took a deep breath and quickly went through the way things would go. He was asking for something I didn’t want to give and in exchange, I could be someone I always wanted to be. In a sense, anyways. I could be important. But I’d have to sell out for the opportunity.
You’ve sold out for less,a wicked voice said.
But I wasn’t that pathetic woman anymore. I wanted to accomplish things with my mind. My discipline and my determination. If I left Mr. Hemburg there, high and dry, hecould tear me apart. I knew people like him and I knew the power they had.
He stepped closer to me like he was trying to coax the slut out of me and I felt my disgust rolling in my stomach. A year ago, I was the girl to trade sex for anything, but I was also high or desperate most of the time. I was in my right mind now and I wanted so badly to be better.
I stepped away, a lump forming in my throat because I knew that if I walked away, I was saying goodbye to my future in the field (and maybe other fields, too). I was flushing a year of work down the drain. No matter what, he would win. And if I chose to fight him or try to expose him, I’d still lose something. People always did in those situations.
It came down to how important I was to myself and though I wanted to topple over and cry over it, I was too important to let this guy get his way.
“I don’t—” I shook my head.
“Come on. It’s only simulated.”
He was right. Sex was always simulated unless you wanted a baby out of it. But it was still intimate. It was still personal. It was still degrading in a lot of ways because I’d never done it with someone I liked or even cared about.
I took a deep breath and stepped away from him. “No.”
“No?”
His brows shot up like he hadn’t even considered the possibility that I’d refuse him.
“Do you realize what I can do to you?”
“Yes, and I said no.” My voice cracked. My words were much more certain than my tone conveyed.
I turned to walk away before I broke down and started crying like a little child. Moments later, I felt a hard tug on my backpack. I stumbled back and spun to look at him.
“You’re making a big mistake, Worthington.”
“No, you’re making a mistake. I’ll tell everyone what you did.”
Somehow, I knew that wasn’t a threat. Everyone thought I was a privileged slut anyways. My word meant nothing and he knew it.
“Your name was in the news because you spent time on Sylos. Your name will be on the news now because you went insane, Ms. Worthington. Not a bright future after all.”
