Page 70 of Taken By the Convicts
He shoved her away and slapped his hand against his neck. “Whaaat diiiid yooou—” Akins fell flat on his face. She checked his pulse. The bastard was still breathing. She had mixed feelings about that.
Melina called the rest of the med-techs and guards into the hallway outside of the lab. “No, he’s not dead,” she said before anyone asked any questions. “But he could be if I’d wanted to kill him.”
She stared at the guards. “I know I’ve been gone for a month, but there are a few things you should know. When I confessed to killing Collins, you put me in a hole in the ground during freezing temperatures to punish me. Message received. I get it. If I murder, you retaliate. But here’s the thing. You fucking touch me, and I’ll retaliate. I have a unit now. Maybe you know them, maybe you don’t. The point is, I’m not alone anymore. And I’m not powerless.”
She tapped the toe of her boot against Akins’s leg. “You stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours. I’ll treat the prisoners and keep them healthy so they can mine the serilium. I get where you’re coming from. We all do whatever it takes to keep Thorne happy. But if any of you tries to touch me or I go missing, I guarantee you won’t make it to the next sunrise.”
Shaking inside, Melina spun on her heels and walked back into the chem lab where she slumped against the door as soon as she closed it behind her. She wasn’t cut out for confronting groups of men, or even a single man, and threatening them. She had pictured everything Ivan would say and do in this situation when she’d devised her little speech. But would it be enough?
Someone knocked on the door. “Dr. Archer, you’re needed,” said Davies.
She straightened her back and composed herself the best she could as she opened the door. “Are we good, Davies?” she asked, schooling her features. “Or do you want to end up like Akins at one point?”
“I need to keep Thorne off my back, Archer. If no one ends up dead, I don’t care what you do around here.”
“Keeping me safe inside the med-center enables me to keep the miners alive.” Apparently, her speech hadn’t been clear enough.
He scratched his head. “I guess so. We can do that.”
Progress? She hoped so. She entered the med bay and everything appeared calm. “You said I was needed.”
“Two prisoners are outside, asking for access.”
“What are their injuries?” The guards were the ones who decided who they admitted for treatment. They’d never consulted with her in the past. Perhaps her words had sunk in after all.
“No injuries, so we can’t let them in. The men are from your unit.”
Her unit? Her stomach knotted. They wanted her to return already. She wasn’t ready to return. She had work she needed to do, for Ivan especially. They needed to understand she would no longer be their prisoner.
She followed Davies to the security office and looked at the monitor. Ivan stood outside with Reece at his side. Ivan looked mad, and Reece. . . disappointed.
“I’m here, Ivan,” she said, unable to remove the defensiveness from her voice.
“Melina, we’re here to take you home.”
“I haven’t finished my shift.”
Ivan turned to Reece, as if puzzled, and then faced her again, arms crossed over his chest. He’d tempered himself, but his anger remained beneath the surface.
“You don’t need to finish your shift. We have enough food.”
“This isn’t about food, and you know it.”
“We’ll wait then. Finish your shift.” Ivan didn’t give anything away in his face, but she could hear it in his steady voice, in the curt words he used. He was pissed.
She sank into the chair by the monitor and touched his image on the screen. She missed him, despite how angry he made her sometimes. Ivan would let her finish, only because he couldn’t get in without the guards letting him in. But once she left, he’d never let her return. He needed to understand she would not go back to being under his or anyone else’s control ever again.
“Davies, I think I know what we need to do with Akins.”
* * *
IVAN
“Once we gether back to the bunker, I’m going spank her raw, and then I’m going to kill Jayce.”
Crusher said—signed—nothing as he stood there at the comm panel, staring toward the building. For probably the first time since they’d become a unit, Ivan understood what Crusher was feeling. Knotted up inside at the thought of what could happen to her in there.
Hell, Ivan couldn’t even be that mad at her. She had warned him that she’d find a way out. He should have taken her seriously.
