I sit up, feeling the blood drain from my face as I stare at the bug-man. He holds up his tiny, claw-tipped hands before rushing out with, “but all is well!Luckily, they came early, and you know how Mama likes her sleep and will not tolerate being woken. She will probably sleep for a good few hours yet, which is fortuitous, because she would eat me if she overheard what I have done.”
“What does that mean?” Lois asks before I get the chance. “What have you done?”
“It is the good news!” Yix says unhelpfully. Lois, Jaya, and I all stare back at him, hoping he will elaborate. “Iliedand told the customer that you have already been purchased!” he blurtsbefore covering his little buggy mouth with his little buggy hands like he can’t believe he said the words out loud.
“You did?” Relief washes over me and I stand, my legs a little wobbly from hardly any sleep as I stumble over to Yix and throw my arms around his bony body. He is taller than I am, like most aliens I’ve encountered, but his frame is slender underneath the swathes of multicolored robes he wears. Yix holds himself stiffly for more than a moment or two before I feel an awkward pat-pat on the top of my head. “Thank you.”
“Hewas nothappy about it, but I managed to convince him,” he says as I pull away and go back to sit on my bunk. All I can picture is those ghostly white Yoxxarii with their pointed teeth and big, pitch-black eyes. I bet they were sorely disappointed to not get their hands on their chosen meal. I’m so grateful to Yix for covering for me, but he’s right. If Mama was around and overheard him lying like that, she’d for sure eat the only one of her husbands that has ever given a damn about any of the humans she sells.
“So,” Jaya starts, pulling her knees up to her chest as she sits beside Lois, “what’s that final bit of bad news you just thought of?”
“Well…” Yix’s antennae start twitching wildly and he makes this little clicking noise, too, “it had occurred to me that since Niska did such a good job collecting large tips for the club, that Master Joolyx may decide to purchase her himself to put her to work permanently.”
Fuck.
I close my eyes and grit my teeth. He’s right. That outcome is likely. Tringa had been super impressed by the amount the Prince had given me when I’d handed my credit collecting orb back to her at the end of the night. But she’d also looked a little concerned too. Maybe she’d come to the conclusion quicker than Yix or I had. When Master Joolyx sees that big deposit in hisaccounts, he’s going to follow the breadcrumbs as to who got that for him. And, like I’d said to the Prince, he could buy thirty of me for that amount. It would make business sense for him to invest in a worker who might be able to replicate that success.
But I can’t. Not really. It was all that Xaviann and his deep pockets.
Why did he have to pay such a noticeable amount?!
“What should I do?” I hear the words said in my voice without really realizing I’d spoken them out loud. The others blink at me, concern etched so deeply in their expression it guts me a little just to look at them. They don’t know how to get out of this inevitability either.
I can’t go back there. I can’t work atthat clubevery night. That can’t be my life.
“I’ve heard rumor that there’s a bunch of Svevaari vacationing on level twelve,” Yix offers. “Their females are renowned for their love of companion pets. They like dressing them up, and entering them into pet competitions,” he says, his arms moving as he explains. “If I tell them that you are a particularly affectionate human, a highly sought after, top specimen of your species, I might be able to convince one of them to buy you.”
“So… she’d be like a show-poodle?” Lois asks.
Yix’s mandibles wiggle before he speaks. “I do not know what that means, but I do not think Svevaari are known to molest their pets in any way. They take great pride in their ownership and treat them lovingly.” He stands there a moment, shaking his head. “I-it is the best scenario I can think of in this predicament. Perhaps I can convince one of them that humans are better off in packs, and she will take all three of you to keep you together?”
I force myself to smile at the tall, lanky bug man. He really is trying to do all he can to help me. “Thank you, Yix,” I tellhim, “that sounds a hell of a lot better than most of our other prospects.”
Yix bows his head and takes a few backward steps out of our cell. Glancing at his novelty Halloween watch, he says, “I will try to return before-” he pauses, arranging his arms like the hands of a clock to indicate three o’clock. I nod my head and watch as Yix steps over the electrified threshold with a buzzing noise that indicates that he is permitted to pass through the doorway where us humans would be treated to a shocking bolt of electricity should we try to do the same.
God, I hope he can sell me to be someone’s show pony or teacup pup, because Ido notwant the alternative.
7
Chapter 7 - Niska
When Mama Z’rykby finally wakes up and comes to the store, she is quick to put us to work, cleaning the premises and laundering our clothes and awful, uncomfortable bed linens. There are roughly a dozen humans that she has ‘in stock’ here at the store, but the number fluctuates daily depending on who has been sold, whether a new shipment has come in from the auctions, and who is working off Mama and her husband’s debts in various establishments. I’ve even heard rumors that she sometimes loans girls out to the nearby prison craft to act as ‘conjugal relief’ as punishment if they displease her.
Which is all the more reason I’m the first to offer to prepare Mama her snacks and pour her drinks. Sometimes, she has favorites, and she doesn’t like to see them go until she’s utterly bored of them. The last favorite she had was a girl named Jessica and she was very reluctant to let her go. If I can become her next favorite, maybe she won’t sell me to Joolyx.
It’s a flimsy plan, but I’m grasping at straws here. Yix still hasn’t returned, so I have no idea how well his plan to sell Lois, Jaya and I as prize pets is going. I’d just finished the disgusting job of hand-feeding Mama these stinky little eel-like creatures she likes to eat alive when I hear the tinkle of the storefront door opening and closing again.
“Oh! Customers!” Mama cheerfully claps as she heaves her slug-like body out of her seated position and moves as fast as she’s able to so she can go and greet whoever is out there. I’m left here standing with an almost empty platter, a couple of left over baby eels flapping around in their bed of slime. My Grandma used to take me to church every Sunday, but as the years went by, my faith has faded to a point where I’m really not sure what I believe. But I’m praying now - to any God that will hear me. I pray that it’s not Master Joolyx out there, coming to take me away to a life of trying to please his patrons in any way they see fit.
Unfortunately, it’s not long until I’m called for, the customer apparently asking specifically for me.
Fuck! That’s not good.
My feet are frozen in place, utterly unable to move. It doesn’t take long before Mama sends one of her other husbands to fetch me. My feet walk again now, but it feels like a dream - or more of a nightmare, really, not unlike an outer-body experience as I walk toward the storefront where us humans are paraded to be sold.
When I step out from behind the heavy red drapes that separate the ‘back’ and the customer area, a wave of relief washes over me when I see that it’s not Master Joolyx coming to buy a new worker. It’s not even a male. There are two, very tall and elegant looking females standing with Mama as they watch me enter.
They look-
