3
CAIMBRIE
“Don’t come any closer.” I tried to make my voice as menacing as I could, despite the fact that my knees were shaking visibly.
“It is time to go,” the man said again.
He was tall, and the tight bunches of muscles in his arms and shoulders made him look like he was carved out of stone, even through the material of his suit. He lowered his gun and held out a hand to me, but I scampered back further.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I insisted.
“Don’t be a fool,” he growled, growing impatient. “If you stay here, you will die a slave aboard this ship.”
“And if I go with you? What will I be then?”
He paused, considering me, and then shrugged.
“Whatever you want.”
Then he turned abruptly and made for the door, leaving me behind with only the bloody corpse of General Lackey for company. A second later, I was hurrying after the strange man.
“Wait, don’t leave me alone,” I whined in a voice that sounded foreign even to me. He shot me an exasperated look over his shoulder.
“Go back and wait with the other women. Help will arrive shortly.”
“No.”
I put my foot down and glared at him.
“Fine. Then stand here in this hallway pouting for all I care, but you are not coming with me.”
The man started marching away again, this time with his shoulders hunched and his head swiveling side to side as he searched for something, gun at the ready. I remained planted, watching him move away, and wondering if I should just go wait at my desk like he said. But that was ridiculous. If one of General Lackey’s men came in and found me unshackled, all they would do was clamp those rings back over my wrist. No, I was not going to sit back there and wait for someone to capture me again. I was going to stick with this pissed-off knight in shining armor.
I jogged to catch up to him, and when he heard me behind him, he exhaled in frustration.
“I thought I told you to stay away from me.”
“You did, but I’m not going back there alone.”
He grunted and picked up his pace again, forcing me to jog just to keep up. Every time we came to a door, I got a momentary break while he cleared the room on the other side. He worked like a machine, efficient and unstoppable. Most of the time, the rooms were empty, and there was nothing to see or hear inside, but once in a while, he entered a room and I clamped my hands over my ears to drown out the screams as he opened fire. He did not speak to me again until we reached the end of the hall.
“What now?” I ventured in a whisper.
The man stopped and checked the device on his wrist, then turned to face me.
“It’s time to go back.”
“Back? Back where?”
“To the workroom, where you belong.”
He marched right past me, not even stopping to see if I would follow.
“I don’t belong-“
He came to a halt and rotated slowly around to face me, his expression a deep frown and his eyes full of anger. And then I saw it. I knew that face. He was the man from the wanted posters. A smuggler who might have been linked to General Chemkov’s demise. I wracked my brain, trying to remember the man’s name.
“I do not care.” He stated flatly. “You will come with me now, or I will carry you out of here over my shoulder.”