An exasperated breath left her. Why was Mace so obsessed with her nutrition? She checked the time on her bonds and straightened when she realized it had been hours since she’d eaten rations in his quarters. Her stomach growled.
“Yeah, okay,” she said aloud, climbing to her feet. There’d been food vendors in the main area, some with items she’d never seen before.
The atrium common area was still crowded. Nia made sure to stay as far away from the weapons vendor as possible. Skimming her eyes over the people spread throughout the area, she couldn’t see the enforcer who’d watched her earlier. When she looked over her shoulder, Elec remained meters away.
She wasn’t sure how to feel about both Mace and him giving her the illusion of space, a false sense of freedom, whether it was thoughtful or insulting.
Following delicious aromas, she headed for the bulk of food vendors and stopped at one roasting skewers of unknown protein.
She tilted her head. Like most CORE citizens, she’d been raised vegetarian. It looked like real meat, but it couldn’t be. Where would they keep livestock? It had to be synthetic.
An older man stood behind the counter, his white hair matching the white stripes of his shirt. He asked her a question in Tellusian.
She stared a him a long minute, decided his face was kind, and held up one finger, pointing at the first row. The skewers smelled way too good not to try. She presented her wrist for the cred exchange. His eyes crinkling, he took her money and passed her a stick of meat.
Nia eyed the skewer. When the man gestured for her to eat, she took a bite.
Her eyeballs pricked with tears.Too spicy.But the man watched her with an expectant expression on his face.
“So good,” she said with what she hoped was a convincing smile. “Thank you.”
From his furrowed brow, she’d failed. She took another bite. “Mmmm.” With one last attempt at a smile, Nia headed away from the vendor to circle the perimeter of the common area.
Skewer empty and taste buds burning, she threw the stick into the public reclamation unit on the bulkhead and noticed a narrow corridor she’d missed earlier. It was almost hidden, like the arboretum’s entrance. Would she discover something just as wonderful? But no one went inside, skirting the area on purpose. Her curiosity grew.
Moving closer, a fowl scent wafted toward her…flesh and rot…it should of have repelled her like any normal person, but instead it pulled her forward. Why would it come from a doorway similar to the arboretum?
The corridor darkened, winding in on itself, then opened into a room almost as vast as the arboretum—some sort of public theater. But it wasn’t the raised seating or the blue banners on the bulkheads that drew her eyes. No, it was the three decomposing bodies hanging by their wrists on the raised dais. But for their general shapes and some exposed bones, they were unrecognizable as humans.
A large, black bird flapped its wings as it pecked away at one of their faces. The meal she’d eaten climbed her throat. None of their eyeballs remained.
Crumpled clothing lay at their feet, dark blue and brown: Tellusian uniforms.
Scalding bile burned her mouth. Without her wanting it to, her brain filled in the information. These people had been stripped, publicly tortured, and killed. Tears burned her eyes.
Every vile story she’d ever heard about Tellusians came back to her. The pictures the CORE liked to post on the media reels of recovered prisoners. Everything the Mullers had said had happened to them. The body counts. The savagery. The barbarism.
It was all true.
Why had she pushed these facts from her head these past few days?
A hand landed on her shoulder, and she spun around on a scream.
But it was Elec. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Who?” It was the only word she could squeeze from her tight throat.
His eyes skimmed to the hanging bodies, then returned to her. “They were traitors, tried and convicted. Commodore Cache likes to leave them up for a while as a warning.” He stepped between her and the sight. “The commander wouldn’t want you here.”
When she didn’t move, he turned her with a gentle hand on her shoulder and nudged her the way she’d come. The world around her blurred, unseen, as she placed one foot in front of the other. She wasn’t aware of where she was going, only that she’d stepped onto a lift and it hummed around her.
The sight of those bodies was burned in her brain. She’d never forget it, her mind continually putting herself in their position.Traitors.It looked like their skin had been peeled off.
She didn’t know how she’d arrived at Mace’s quarters, but there she stood, alone, her hand clutched around the locket at her sternum. She wore a tracker, signaling to any CORE ship on the right frequency who passed close enough.
If Tellusians could do that to their own… What would happen to her if they found out?
Maybe she’d been wrong about some things, like the sex slaves and working captives to the bone, but she hadn’t been wrong about others. Tellusians were a merciless race. All they knew was violence.
