Page 8 of Rescued By the Convicts
“Elgin?” Zev asked with a curious grin as soon as the guard walked away. “On a first-name basis with the guards now, Mel? What would Ivan say? Or better yet, Reece?”
“You didn’t include Jayce in that list,” she said as she peeled back his shirt and started cleaning the blood from his wound. Oh, how she wanted to smooth her hands over his skin and touch him in a way that would show him how much she’d missed him. Three weeks. . . three long weeks since he’d disappeared. She didn’t know if and when he’d reappear or if they’d find him when the snow melted in two months.
“Jayce doesn’t care about sharing. Ivan tolerates it, as does Reece. They want you for themselves, but they’d do anything to have you, Melina, including share you.”
“It’s a shame you don’t feel the same,” she said as she sprayed the Ex-23T into his knife wound. He winced from the sting. Normally, she’d have more compassion, knowing firsthand how much Ex-23T stung on an open wound, but she was upset with him.
Guilt swept through her. She wasn’t being fair to him. He hadn’t made a commitment to her like Reece, Jayce, and Ivan. Zev was the only one who had refused to ring her. She glanced at her hand. Two leather rings graced her thumb and forefinger. Reece and Jayce’s rings. Two fingers over, Ivan’s tattered blue cloth ring adorned her finger. The middle finger remained bare, and she feared it would stay that way, that Zev would never truly be hers.
The spray foamed into white goo and spilled out of the wound, carrying trace amounts of dirt she could see and likely microbes she couldn’t.
His breath washed over the back of her neck as she bent over to close his wound with the skin-gen. Her hands stilled for a moment, not wanting to complete the task for then she’d have to pull away from him.
“Mel. . .” he whispered, his breath warm and so familiar. She felt the rise of goosebumps along her neck.
“Don’t lecture me on the dangers of fighting, Doctor,” Zev suddenly snapped, his voice loud and stern, especially for Zev who had always been patient with everyone.
As she pulled away from him, she noticed him glaring over her shoulder. Elgin hovered nearby. He’d already chained patient Three, the one whose artery she’d sealed, in the bed behind her. No privacy screen either. Did Elgin suspect something?
She had to pretend there was no relationship between her and Zev, for Zev’s protection as well as her own.
She let her hand sit against his skin a moment longer, a mere five seconds after the skin-gen had finished sealing the wound. He inhaled sharply, as if in pain. Except she knew he wasn’t. She’d infused the Ex-23T with a numbing agent. She hated not being able to touch Zev, except in this clinical manner.
“And don’t tell me how to treat my patients, prisoner Five,” she snapped back at him nearly as loud as he’d been.
“I have a name,” Zev said, every word a searing bite.
“Not in here, not while I’m working on you. You’re just another prisoner stupid enough to get himself knifed in a fight over something equally stupid, like who has the top bunk in housing.”
“That proves you know nothing. I was trying to teach a man his place in the hierarchy here.”
She stood up straighter, knowing he was trying to tell her what had happened in a way that wouldn’t raise suspicion. “Hierarchy?” she questioned innocently enough.
She’d been on Veenith for three months, but hadn’t been allowed any real freedom to move among the prisoners, not that she wanted to. Twice she’d been taken by Hawke and his men and would have been gang-raped had it not been for Ivan, Jayce, Reece, and Zev. She didn’t go anywhere, except to the med-center and back to the safety of the bunker, always escorted by one or two of her men. The only prisoners she met were the ones who came in for treatment. She couldn’t even go to the commissary for meals, given the risk. Being the only woman on a prison planet held immense danger, and yet she felt safer here, more than in her three years with Namir on Baccula.
“My unit head, Hawke, controls this planet,” Zev replied. “Some prisoners, the stupid ones and the newbies, need to learn that the hard way sometimes.”
Her hand trembled as she stood there, frozen. Zev had aligned himself with Hawke.
“Oh,” she said, barely able to think straight. Memories of Hawke and his men tearing her clothing off clouded her brain as she reached for a tool and didn’t remember what she’d intended to do with it. She stared at Zev’s stab wound, trying to focus. Whatever he was sent to Veenith to do now involved the one man who terrified her more than most.
“Problem, Doc?” Elgin asked.
“No problem,” she said, placing the regen stick against Zev’s wound. Three months in the med-center and she’d become an expert at treating knife wounds. Except for the angry red line remaining below his right ribcage, the wound sealed beautifully.
Out of Elgin’s view, one of Zev’s fingers caressed the side of her arm. He was telling her it would be okay. But how could it be? Whatever Zev was up to, he was now working for Hawke.
“I think this Hawke guy has a skewed view here,” she said, hoping to keep Zev talking. She didn’t care about Thorne, the guards, or Hawke, but she was worried about Zev. “Manager Thorne and his guards are in control.”
Zev narrowed his eyes. He didn’t like her prying for more information. He probably thought he’d given her enough and that more might risk her safety. But he was the one at risk. He was the one who had inserted himself into Hawke’s unit without backup. She still had Ivan, Jayce, and Reece.
“Learn to keep your mouth shut and your eyes to the ground, bitch.”
His words hurt, as they were designed for the benefit of the guard and any prisoners listening or watching. She shouldn’t take his words or tone to heart. After all that Namir had done to her, she shouldn’t let a few words hurt, but they did because they were from someone she cared about deeply.
“I’m glad Reece got rid of you. You were a bad influence on him,” she said, holding her head high and trying to brush off the slight, even if Zev hadn’t meant it. . . as she hadn’t meant her words. Reece missed Zev as much as she did. They’d been so good for each other, though she wasn’t sure Zev realized it. He’d done more than interpret Reece’s signs for those six months before they’d formed a unit with Ivan and Jayce, he’d returned much of the man’s dignity. And Reece supported Zev in everything he did. Unquestioned fealty. Zev didn’t have that now. He had no one.
“He served a purpose,” Zev said, his voice cold. “I needed someone to watch my back when I arrived here until I learned the ins and outs. I don’t need the brainless giant anymore. I finally found the right man, the one with the real power here. It certainly wasn’t Ivan, that weak bastard.”
