Page 69 of Taken By the Convicts
“Is that how things work around here? A person disappears, and no one cares to even look for her?”
“As long as the prisoners keep producing serilium, we don’t care who fucks who. Killing someone though causes a shortage of manpower. That’s when we get involved.”
“My unit saved me,” she explained, not sure why she was telling him that, though in the back of her mind she heard Ivan telling her to be strategic. He’d want the men around her to know she had a unit, people who would fight for her. And they would fight for her.
But she had to fight for herself first.
“You’re a fool to come back here instead of staying wherever Ivan stashed you. Or did you escape him?”
“I have work to do here,” she said, ignoring the unspoken accusation that she belonged to Ivan, like property, and yet there were times she felt like he owned her.
She headed toward the inventory room and took a sharp left turn to the chem lab. This was the one place in the med-center Akins and the other tech Yost never entered. Their skills were rudimentary at best. They didn’t know how to use any of the lab equipment, even to cook their own drugs, which she was sure they’d do if they could, given how many drugs went missing when they were on shift.
She could gain real power on Veenith if she started cooking Flight and Crash for the prisoners. Helping the prisoners lose themselves in drugs wouldn’t make their lives better though, and she’d still be stuck on Veenith.
Stuck with Jayce, Ivan, Reece, and Zev. Her unit. Except it wasn’t her unit. It was a unit of four men and their female prisoner. She should have stayed confined to the med-center, as Thorne had warned her to do. The guards brought her meals. She had all her needs provided for here, except true safety. She was vulnerable here. Not as vulnerable as outside the med-center perhaps, but the look on Akins’ face alone told her he’d become as much of a problem as Collins had. Perhaps he wouldn’t try to rape her, but he could hurt her.
She wasn’t sure the guards would stop Akins from hurting her. They weren’t here for her safety, but that of the equipment. The Company attributed more value to the facility than to her or any other prisoner on Veenith.
She needed to choose between the med-center and the bunker. The bunker had her men.
Her men? No, they weren’t hers. She stroked the leather band on her thumb. Reece was hers. Her thighs clenched as she thought of Zev and even Jayce. She’d let them claim her. They were hers, too, weren’t they? No, that had been sex, nothing more.
And yet it felt like more than sex, even with Jayce being so cold to her. She was starting to think he didn’t know how to treat her more than an object, not that he didn’t want to. There were times when he looked at her, touched her, that melted her heart. A part of Jayce was trying so hard to be what she needed but truly didn’t know how.
Her men. The term seemed to fit more than it ever had with Namir, Tristen, and Patel. Maybe these men were hers. Everyone but Ivan. She’d left him in crippling pain for the past two years. He’d flirted with her and watched over her, but could there be more between them after what she’d done? She honestly didn’t know.
She’d be proud to wear Ivan’s ring one day if he could ever think of her that way. The chance of him finding her worthy, though. . .
Melina swallowed and placed her coat over a chair. Enough was enough. Fantasizing about Ivan and worrying about Jayce would have to wait. She had work to do.
With a steady hand, Melina measured nine grams of narkosine and mixed it with 15.3 grams of halynol. As she heated them over an open flame, the magenta and yellow powders turned to a bright crimson.
Three drops of distilled water. Set the flame to a precise 136 degrees Fahrenheit. . . Yes!The liquid lost its color and cloudiness. She didn’t need a unit to survive. The fear controlling her, making her second-guess every move she made was Namir. She hadn’t buried him in her memories deep enough, apparently.
The ties to her leather band on her thumb lightly grazed the side of her hand, much as Reece had while holding her after making love. She missed her gentle giant.
Melina put the compound down before she risked crying and ruining the drug. She had more of a life here with Reece and the rest of her unit, even Jayce, than she’d had with Namir.
“What am I going to do?” she asked aloud. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—go back to that bunker just to remain a prisoner.
Reece would understand what she was doing here. At least she hoped he would. She removed the leather band he’d placed on her thumb and got to work.
* * *
“What are you doing in here?”Akins asked from the doorway of the chem lab hours later. “I told you to organize the inventory room, and it hasn’t been touched.”
Melina finished retying the leather band to her thumb. “I had an urgent project to complete,” she said as she sidled past him, ignoring him when he told her to stop.
He swung her around and shoved her against a wall. “You’ll listen to me, or I’ll sell you to the highest bidder.”
Given the look on his face, she didn’t doubt him for one moment.
Melina reached up and sifted her fingers through his hair, trying to keep from gagging as she touched this man so intimately. She’d been through a lot worse, though.
“We could come to an understanding,” he said, letting her cozy up to him.
Her hand slid to the base of his neck. “I’ll let you finalize the details with my unit,” she said as she pressed her thumb against his neck.”
