Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 55551 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55551 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
They’re all wearing black versions of the suit I was wearing when I came here. It makes me ache to see their attire. I miss having a garment that makes me more than I am, more than helpless, caged human flesh waiting for her ravager to return. Those suits hug every curve, emphasize every asset, and turn a woman into a warrior.
As if reading my mind, Raine steps over to Mouse, and opens a pack she’s wearing on her back. From that pack, she pulls out my suit. I don’t know how they found it, but if anybody can trawl through an entire house and find a single thing they’re looking for, it’s my crew. “Here,” she says, throwing it at me. “Put this on and let’s get out of here.”
I catch the suit and scramble into it. It feels like putting my skin back on, like some intrinsic part of me had been flayed away and has now miraculously been returned. I stretch my arms above my head and feel the interior portions of the garment snug into place.
She tosses me my boots too. Putting them on feels even better. There’s something powerful about shoes, I think. Something women have always known and men seem to rarely catch onto. Or maybe they do. Maybe that’s why Thorn has kept me barefoot. Hm. That’s an angle I hadn’t even begun to consider in all of this.
Once clothed, I can think a little straighter. I can ask a simple, maybe even obvious question.
“What do you want, Raine?”
“We came to find you,” she says, giving me a blank, bold response that she knows damn well doesn’t answer the question I am really asking.
“Why?”
“Because after we mutinied and let you go, we found ourselves both pursued by the law and with few suitable targets to attack. You are a terrible captain, but you are an excellent pirate.”
“So you want me back, but not as captain? You want me to return to my ship and watch you run it? Why would you think I’d ever take that offer?”
“Because we just found you naked in a cage, for starters,” she says. “We don’t have time to argue. You need to get out of here. We need to get out of here. Let’s go.”
“You might have found me in a cage, but that’s not why you came. Why are you here?”
“There was a vote,” she admits with a sigh. “Everybody agreed to come and get you after the shuttle registered the crash. We felt sorry for you.”
That answer hits me right in the gut. It’s the worst possible thing she could have said. I’d rather people thought I was a nasty, terrible, psychopathic pirate than consider me to be weak for even a single second.
“I don’t need your pity, Raine.”
“Well, you’ve got it. You’ve always had it, actually. Now come on, before we all get caught and end up in a humiliating cage like you.”
“This cage is probably the least humiliating thing that’s happened so far,” I say, reaching for the door to close it again. Am I being petty? Probably. But I’m feeling particularly petty. Whatever is happening now is not for me. These people rejected me en masse not all that long ago, and I don’t want their mercy rescue.
“Come out, Sullivan!” Raine practically stamps her foot in frustration, and I know she is probably thinking about grabbing me and just bodily dragging me out. But I’m not ready for that. I’m not ready to just go with these people who betrayed me so deeply I got myself into all this shit.
“I think you owe me an apology. I think you should be telling me how much I contributed as captain, and that you came to get me because you need me. Not because you feel sorry for me.”
There’s another reason I’m stalling. They don’t know my brain chip stopped working, and they don’t know that I’m not the woman I was, and they don’t know that I can’t do what I used to do for them. I don’t have the same reckless edge I once did, so if that’s what they’re counting on me for, they’re going to be disappointed.
“Captain, please,” Mouse says, her voice soft and timid. “We need you.”
“Unfortunately, your crew mates decided otherwise, didn’t they,” I say. “And I don’t recall much in the way of support from anyone, come to think of it. I was lucky to get the shuttle. Raine was ready to throw me out the airlock.”
“I am ready to throw you out an airlock now,” she growls, giving me a furious stare. “Only you could be so ungrateful to be rescued.”
I give Raine a steely stare. “Fine words from a traitor who undermined me with my crew, took possession of my ship, and sent me off into the great unknown with a shuttle whose controls failed and flung me into the nearest planet of predators.”