I look at the other two. Looks like a pretty boy hunter and a snake man. Snake man has stern dad energy. Pretty boy hunter has very sharp teeth and an air about him that makes me think he is probably more dangerous than he looks.
“Belong,” I say. “That’s a strong word. Makes it sound like you own me. Did you buy me at some point? Was I for sale?”
The question is a trap, because obviously I am not for sale. I am a free human. I come from the wilds. I am a survivor among women. I am absolutely fucking not a human for sale.
“You were never for sale. You allied yourself with us when you were in trouble many years ago, and we have been trying to keep you safe ever since.”
“You keep running away and getting your mind wiped for your troubles,” Sharp says. (That’s snake man’s name.) “We’ve begged you to stop, but you keep putting yourself in harm’s way.”
“Worth it, to try to save humans,” I say.
“She’ll never learn,” pretty boy Kronos curses. “No matter what we do, she won’t stop trying to save literally everybody but herself.”
I don’t like him talking about me as if I’m not in the room. He’s obviously annoyed at me, which makes me instantly annoyed at him.
“Do I look like I need saving?”
“If we had come in any later than we did, you would have tentacles in every hole you have,” Kronos says bluntly.
I recoil at that mental image. It’s graphic and it’s grotesque.
“Stop trying to scare me.”
“There’s no way to scare you,” he says. “You don’t respond to fear. You never have.”
“That does sound like me,” I admit. It’s not completely true. There are lots of ways I’m controlled by fear. I stayed away from the cold lands underneath the flying cities because I feared them. But if someone had gone missing in there, I would have gone in after them. I think.
“You ran,” he says. “We asked you not to, but you did it anyway. We freed you from a mental prison once, and you ran right back to it. You are so disobedient, and you have absolutely no interest in common sense or self-preservation. You have an obsession with trying to save those who cannot be saved.”
Now would be a good moment to point out that I don’t owe him anything because I don’t know who he is, but the video tells me that I cared once. I feel a pang of guilt, knowing that my every decision costs someone else something they don’t want to give.
“Looks like the ship is currently full of women who could be saved after all,” I say. “Maybe it’s worth having my brain hollowed out every few months if it means these women aren’t in that hell hole anymore?”
“Gah! Hopeless!” Kronos says. “You are an absolute carnival of chaos. There is no reaching you, no teaching you.”
His sharp teeth flash, and the drama of his tone is incredibly, well, dramatic. I stare at him as he throws something of a tantrum, though I am sure he would not like to hear it described that way.
“I am thinking of stealing you and taking you off to a private prison where you will be forced to be safe,” he says, pointing a shaking finger at me. “The things I will do to you in order to guarantee you have a long and happy life as our mate, our pet, our little fuck hole…”
“Hey,” I say. “That’s rude.”
“Oh, is it rude?” He asks the question in a tone that suggests he doesn’t care.
“It is rude,” Sharp says. “Remember, she doesn’t recall our previous intimacies…”
“That’s her fault!” Kronos exclaims.
“Is it? Have I been wiping my own memories?”
I ask the question sarcastically, but the way they look at me makes me feel very nervous. They’re staring at me as if they had never considered that possibility before, but have started to actively consider it now.
“Why would I do that?” I ask the question with my voice shaking.
“It allows you to not feel guilty about leaving us behind,” Kronos points out. “And it will help you avoid the scrutiny of your enemies, because you are clearly brain wiped.”
“I don’t remember if I did this to myself,” I say.
“Exactly,” Kronos says.
