Page 77 of Seven Oars
The women settled back into their uneasy routine of doing nothing in particular. They were bored but on edge. Tired but not sleepy. Waiting, always waiting for another shoe to drop.This anticipation of the worst yet to come was relentless, because no matter how bad things got, they knew by now that there was always the next level of hell.
They didn’t know what fresh horrors each day would bring, and the unknown itself became a quiet torment.
Only Fawn slept away like a baby, her midriff bared by the shirt that twisted around, smacking her lips and drooling a little.
Gro moved close to Rosamma and whispered in her ear,“You’re going nowhere. Got it?”
Rosamma pursed her lips.
“Don’t pinch your face at me, missy. They catch you snooping—you’ll end up looking worse than Eze. And you aren’t half as strong as she is.”
But that was precisely the point.“They don’t see me as a threat. They don’t even see me as a conscious being. More like a hamster.”
“The more fun they’ll have pulling you by the leg.”
Gro’s warning dulled Rosamma’s nervous need to act, but couldn’t abolish it entirely.
She assured Gro she wasn’t going anywhere and settled down for a bit to make it look convincing. Then she used the bathroom as a decoy to get up and move around, acting normal in front of both Tutti and Gro.Maneuvering closer to the exit, she quietly slipped from the Cargo Hold.
She walked fast down the passageway, but when she turned into the Bridge, she had to stop. Weakness assaulted her. She fisted her braid and gulped in the cold, dry air that always smelled faintly of ozone.
She was growing weaker, and the limits it placed on her functions angered her.
Always a burden.
Pushing away from the wall, Rosamma made her way to the Crew Quarters.
It was silly to hope that she’d be lucky a second time and not run into its inhabitants. But at least this time, she came armed with an excuse.
All was quiet.
There was a small section in the Crew Quarters’front room with a gurney and a row of neat gray boxes she hadn’t noticed before. A med center? It had to be, right across from the weapons rack.
She tested the lid on one of the boxes that surely held medical supplies. Tutti had said Eze’s injuries weren’t life-threatening, but a painkiller would be nice to have.
Cursed pirates.
The box yielded a couple of vials of dark liquid with mold on the cork and nothing else.
I’m sorry, Eze.
She turned to her real destination, the weapons rack.What weapons were these?She knew nothing about the guns common on Meeus, let alone what Rix might use.
She inspected them closely, trying to memorize the details to share with Phex. He’d make sense of them.
The flap covering the nearest sleeping node moved aside, and Rosamma came face-to-face with Massar.
“Hello, creature. You came to me.”
She took a step back.Her heart was already hammering full-throttle, her head was already swimming, and his sudden appearance nearly sent her into a faint.
He approached. The wicked blade hung at his hip, unsheathed.
“Show me your eyes, wisp.”
Slowly, Rosamma raised her head to look at him.
The gauntness made him appear more malevolent, like a living skull, with pointy cheekbones and flat, empty eyes.She’d take any other short-tempered, violent pirate over this alien, even the Striker.
