Aletta wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “No.”
He backhanded her across the face, her head whipping to the side. “Clean. It. Up.”
She turned her head slowly, her lip stinging and blood running down her chin. “No.”
A’Kar lifted his hand again.
Aletta met the eyes of a man hurrying past. He looked away, his cheeks darkening. A dock worker walked by as if she wasn’t there. A family rushed past, the mother shielding her children’s eyes from the sight of Aletta’s bloody face.
Her vision blurred.
Nobody stopped to help. Why wouldn’t they help?
She flinched as A’Kar’s hand descended toward her again, lifting her free hand as if it would stop him. She screwed her eyes up and braced herself for the blow.
It didn’t come. Instead, the comm on his wrist beeped. He spoke into it in a low voice, face turned away from Aletta.
A man spat at her feet as he walked past, then sneered at her. She watched him in shock. What was wrong with these people?
A’Kar jerked her arm, dragging her along after him with renewed purpose as they left the crowds in the hangar and entered the space station proper. Aletta gawked as levels opened above them.
It was a hive of activity. Hawkers sold food from hovering carts, shouting to be heard over the hum of so many voices. Couriers pushing similar carts, laden to overflowing with boxes moved with purpose through the throng, not even pausing to let people get out of the way. A’Kar jerked Aletta out of the path of one such courier, but she didn’t fool herself into thinking it was for anything other than his own benefit.
He might be taking her to her sister, but she doubted it. He needed her for something, and the only thing she could think of was the same fate Dylan faced.
His grip tightened painfully on her arm as he scurried through the station, with each turn moving farther and farther away from the crowds, and deeper and deeper into the station. The first elevator ride, she let out a yelp as, instead of moving up or down, it jerked sideways, almost throwing her to her knees in the small space. A’Kar had laughed at her discomfort, and she had seethed, vowing to get her own back against the disgusting cretin of a?—
“We’re here.”
What? She’d been so stuck in her own head, plotting all manner of revenge against him, that she’d barely noticed he’d dragged her to a dark corridor. An empty, dark corridor. There were signs above the doors, but in a script that she couldn’t read. It didn’t help that the only light was from a flickering bulb halfway down the hallway.
A’Kar stopped in front of a steel door and banged on it three times. A small hatch at eye level slid open to reveal a screen behind a reinforced mesh cage.
“The race stands forevermore, pure as it began,” A’Kar said, hand braced in a fist over the middle of his chest, middle two fingers splayed.
What the fuck?
The door unlocked with a metallic thud as bolts slid back. A’Kar smiled and stepped inside, dragging Aletta behind him. The first room was little more than an empty corridor, apart from the giant bouncer standing guard over a second door.
The main door shut behind them with a thud, and Aletta whirled as the hallway behind her disappeared.
The air smelled like an oddly sweet tobacco, and the soles of her shoes stuck to the floor, peeling away with effort like it hadn’t been cleaned in a decade.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. This was not good.
A’Kar bent so his face was in line with Aletta’s, his hands on her upper arms. She leaned back as far as she could to avoid his fetid breath, turning her head to one side and closing her eyes.
“So this is where Dylan is?" She avoided breathing through her nose, which made her sound a little nasal.
“No.”
“But you said?—”
He snickered. “Stupid girl.”
She pressed her lips into a thin line. She was going to kill him.
But first, she had to get out of here.
