Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 144433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
But I also do not know what to do. I pound on the door again after sitting on her porch for what feels like hours. She ignores me, and the small hovel is silent inside. The sun looks as if it will be going down soon, and I slap at a bug that lands on my arm. I have nothing but my towel. I have no funds because I cannot get in touch with Uba. If Meev is to be believed, Kazex—and my connection to Zebah—is weeks away from returning to this planet.
I am tempted to find the nearest river and drown myself, but that would give my brother too much satisfaction.
No, I must stay alive, even though it is torture.
Something wet plops down upon my head, running along my scalp. I look up, only for another fat droplet of water to fall from the sky, and then it's as if the clouds overhead open up. A downpour starts, with me on Meev's porch in nothing but a towel. Kef me. I hammer on the door again as my mane grows soaked, because I know it's going to tangle up. "Meev! Let me in! This isn't funny!"
No answer. All the lights go off inside.
I bang on the door again. She is not retiring for the night, is she? I keep hammering on the door, but it's no use. She does not answer. Thunder crackles overhead, making me jump, and I look around. I cannot spend the night on her doorstep. With a growl of frustration, I head for the nearest object—her air-sled. The doors are locked, and I hammer on them for a moment, too, before giving up and racing for the hated barn.
It stinks inside, even if it's warm and dry. The moment I step in, the smells assail me, the stink of hay, wet livestock, and their excrement. Fresh excrement, as if the terrible creatures are pooping even now. I move to the door and fumble at the wall, looking for a way to turn on the lighting so I can see the hellscape that awaits me. There's a panel, and I tap on the “lights” command. When they flicker on, I turn around and find myself faced with dozens of meat-stock. They look at me with big, stupid eyes, and I swear one is excreting even now.
Damn Meev.
I'm tempted to go and break her door down, to force myself inside.
Except I worry that the next thing she will do is contact the Port custodians, and then they'll deport me. Send me home to Praxii Minor and right into the clutches of my third sibling and his coup. I can't have her let anyone know I'm here.
Do I put one of the barn creatures in danger and try to flush Meev out? No, she'll simply call the authorities on me. Every single solution I can think of ends with Meev turning me over to the Port authorities, and I can't have that.
Credits are the only leverage I have. I need to find a way to access them. I need clothes. My trunks. A place to live.
The enormity of what I'm facing staggers me. I thought it was going to be difficult when I had thirty trunks and (I assumed) access to my bank accounts. Now I have nothing but a towel and my good looks, and the latter is fading by the hour with rough living.
Like it or not, I need Meev's assistance. Either that, or I need a way to get leverage over her, to get secrets about her that are as dangerous as mine, and then I can threaten her with them like she threatens me. I just don't know what that would be. That she's been helping me hide out? She can turn me over and they would believe her over me. It's a puzzle I've got to figure out and I'm no good at puzzles. I'm good at being in charge.
Apparently not as good as I thought, or Meev would want to serve me even with only the promise of funds.
I need to think of something.
Tired and frustrated, I look around for something to sit on that seems reasonably clean. There's nothing. This is, after all, a barn full of animals. My towel is as sodden as my mane.
As sodden as my spirits.
I sink down against the door and stare at the animals. Meev will have to come out to feed them in the morning, surely. I will have to think of something to say to her to get her to help me out. Something that will bring her to my side and win her loyalty.
In the past, people have always come to me for my assistance, because the weight of my name and my position paved roads for them. I'm starting to realize that without that, I'm powerless. That I need Meev far more than she needs me, and the thought is humbling.