Page 143 of Seven Oars
“My mission is to drain pus from ailing spirits like yours, not leave people alone. The Commandments are designed to open up your mind…”
Rosamma didn’t hear the rest, slipping out of the Cargo Hold and heading for the Dome.
She sympathized with Anske’s convictions, but the woman was a zealot. She adhered to abstract principles she couldn’t even articulate. And her hymns were uninspiring.
Feeling like a heretic, Rosamma reached for the folding door.
“Wisp.”
The sibilant word froze all blood in her veins.
She stared into Massar’s feverish, brilliant black orbs. A vivid image of Daphne as she had seen her last rose in her mind in every gruesome detail. Slick intestines had glistened in the uneven light with a delicate, rainbow-like sheen.
He crushed her to him and began dragging her away.
Rosamma thrashed in his iron grip. Her heartbeat shot up until it hurt. She broke out in a cold sweat as wild, animal terror seized her.
“Feisty! I like it.”
He readjusted his grip on her waist, circling it tighter. His hot breath hit her face.
In no time, they made it to the Crew Quarters.It was empty now, as he had known it would be. Had probably counted on it.
No interruptions.
He dragged her inside a sleeping node where a messy cot with dirty, tangled covers waited like a morgue gurney.
No, worse. A sacrificial pedestal waiting to receive her, a victim to his sick mind.
Massar’s teeth scraped her neck as he nuzzled there. His long, thin blade emerged, the tip pressing against her rib cage, under the lowest rib.
Spatchcock chicken.
She screamed.
He hit her.
Then stuffed a rag into her mouth.
But he’d had to use one hand to do it.
Rosamma twisted hard, contorted like an eel, and burst out of the sleeping node.
Her vision and hearing went offline. She operated purely on autopilot, guided not by her brain but by the relentless instinct to live.
She dodged his grasping hand, flew across the Crew Quarters’open area, blindly groped for something underfoot—a broken wall mount?—and slammed it against the weapons rack. She hit it with all her might, praying, willing the locks to break.
So what if she’d never fired a weapon? She had read about it.
She banged mindlessly on the rack.
Massar caught her from behind.
She hit him with the mount.
He bore her down to the floor, laughing as he wrangled it from her without any effort whatsoever.
She fought him, weak, doomed, but rebellious.
