His eyes never left hers.
Garnet stared right back. Doing her best to look hard and unafraid. But not so unfuckable that he’d try to hurt Goldie instead. Who was almost certainly a much more tempting target. She was so sweet and soft and nice – everything Garnet wasn’t. They wouldn’t be the first ones to take advantage of that to Goldie’s detriment.
It was a strange line to walk, but if they were determined to claim some human pussy, Garnet would rather they take it from her and spare her delicate sister. She could handle it for herself, but she couldn’t watch her sister suffer like that.
“Excuse me,” yellow guy started speaking to her again. “If I may, what are your names?”
Garnet glared at him. Should she lie? Would it matter? Did knowing their names give them some kind of advantage? This wasn’t like a fae thing where their names had power, right? She didn’t know anything about aliens, and she wasn’t sure what was a risk and what wasn’t.
“So distrustful,” Yellow chuckled. “Here, why don’t I start? My name is Alred van Hamass Recall-12. It is a pleasure to meet the both of you. And you are…?”
Garnet glared, but finally figured that him knowing couldn’t hurt. “Garnet Sweetwater.”
“Wonderful. And your charming sister?”
Garnet pushed Goldie back. Trying to hide her from his… lack of eyes.
“Her name is Goldie, but you don’t have to worry about her. You’re dealing with me now.”
Goldie’s hands tightened against Garnet’s back. She could practically hear her sister silently begging her not to sacrifice herself. But Garnet remained unmoved.
She would not back down. She’d promised to always protect Goldie going forward. No matter what threat came their way. Just how Goldie had once protected her.
“Garnet. Goldie.” Alred inclined his featureless head to both of them, “I would like to welcome you to our ship, the Humility. We are a humble delivery company.”
Garnet scoffed. “Funny way to translate human traffickers!”
“No, I assure you. We deliver goods only. Maybe the occasional slightly illegal delight or so, but nothing harmful. Certainly not people. Not the unwilling ones anyway. We were as surprised to find you in that chest as you were to be in there. Well, maybe you were a bit more surprised considering…”
Garnet’s eyes narrowed on him. Not sure she liked this nice, buddy-buddy, relatable shtick he was trying to put on. It felt like he was trying to set her at ease or something. Which, admittedly, could just be an attempt to calm her down.
But it could also be a trap!
Though, did they really need to trap them further? They were already stuck here on this ship, between two guys that made her skin crawl just looking at them.
And there was that calm guy in the gray jumpsuit, eyes all bright and red. And calm. In control. This was a guy who wasn’t bothered by things getting a little crazy. He didn’t care. He was going to meet each situation with the same untouchable, unflappable aplomb.
Soothing, and scary.
“This is our captain,” Alred gestured to him with one hand. “Tanin A’Faar. He is the owner of our delivery company, and he was just doing his normal inventory of a shipment of gemstones for a shinuk king when he found you. We certainly weren’t expecting you to be in there. Anymore, I imagine, thenyouexpected to be in there.”
Garnet stared at the gray guy – Tanin. For surely those were his words translated through the yellow ghost thing. Person. Whatever the hell he was. She didn’t think that he was a real person. That had to be like a computer program or something. Hopefully. Maybe there were ghost type aliens. Did they work like that? She didn’t know.
“What do you want with us?” She asked, getting straight to it. “Just tell me. Don’t play stupid mind games with me!”
“I assure you, we are doing no such thing. We only want to help.”
“Yeah? Then why are we being boxed in, huh?!” She pointed to one of the two creepy twins that were standing there, eerily still, setting her nerves on edge with their unnerving presence.
“Sorbet and Tebros were merely instructed to keep you contained so as not to hurt yourself. They mean you no harm. The captain has already assured your safety.”
And again, it came right back to the guy with red eyes. He hadn’t looked away from her. She shivered under that unerring gaze but couldn’t even say she found it truly uncomfortable.
Garnet clenched her jaw, and decided to give in. Just a bit. Not that she really had much choice. They were surrounded on all sides by huge, hulking figures. Tanin was shorter than the others she had run into, but that didn’t make him short. He still stood well over her head.
But he wasn’t looming. He wasn’t intimidating. He was just kind of there. Watching her with those demon red eyes. Like he was just waiting for her to decide to do the right thing.
“Okay.” She started. “Let’s say I believe you. How did we get here?”
