His grip on her jaw tightened. “But they had enough credits to buy a private planet. Isn’t that what you just said? They obviously have plenty of them. Planets… I can’t even imagine how expensive a planet would be.”
A soft whimper started in her throat. She quelled it and said, “Ben, you are hurting me!”
She expected him to apologize and drop his hand, but he didn’t. Instead, he stared intently into her eyes. His eyes held something she had never seen before in him. She tried to tell herself that war changed people and that he was obviously desperate and tired. Curious too, and who could blame him? But it felt wrong, that rationalization. She didn’t know why, but she did know that she didn’t want to be near him anymore.
She moved quickly, wrenching herself out of his grip despite the pain that came up in her jaw as she did so. She stood, her hands going to her chest. Her eyes went around the room. There were at least forty new arrivals, and most of them had very slight injuries. She had assumed when they had come in that they were mostly hungry or thirsty and looking for assistance. Only it seemed that almost every face in the room was now pointed toward her and Ben.
Oh, of course they were! She and Ben had been talking in tones that were quite loud. They’d been making a scene.
She said, “I have to go. I have more people to see. We have a lot of injured ones here.”
Fear started up. Why she was afraid was something she didn’t know. She didn’t need to know why she was afraid either; she just knew that she was. She took a few steps backward. Ben sprang up from where he had been laying. His hands whipped out and caught her upper arms. His fingers tightened along her skin, and she cried out, looking wildly around the room and hoping that someone would intercede on her behalf.
Nobody moved except to sit up or to stand. Were they going to help her? It seemed that they weren’t because they didn’t move toward her at all!
Ben spoke in a quiet, soft voice. “It seems to me that they favor you, these creatures that have enough credits to buy a planet to come down here and to bestow their grace upon us like… like we’re some pet that they’ve taken in off the streets.”
A hard cold lump began in her chest. She said, “They came because they care. They’re here because…”
Stop! The word rang out loud and clear in her mind. She did not know why but she knew that telling Ben that Jessica and Talon were a couple and that they were madly in love was somehow a vast mistake. She could not understand how or why she knew that and she did not ask, she simply clamped her lips shut and said nothing, standing there staring at him dumbfounded instead.
Ben said, “I do believe they favor you a good deal, in fact. Perhaps enough to make a decent ransom for you.”
Ransom? Was he serious? Her lips parted. “I’m just someone they rescued off a slave ship. They care nothing for me.”
His head tilted to the side. “I thought it was a bride ship.”
“That is what they said. But that wasn’t what it was. I didn’t find out until after the ship was wrecked that the Federation has been, for years, selling off supposed brides to pleasure planets where they are used until they are dead or too broken to be of any use at all.”
Cold horror ran through her body as she realized just how close she had come to something so terrible. The fact of it had never quite hit her before but it hit her just then, and a long slow shiver worked its way from her feet all the way up to her neck, causing her skin to rise up and gooseflesh and her heart to beat faster.
Ben said, “My dear sweet little Jenny. You never were much use. I don’t know why I kept you around except you were amusing to me. Now, however, I can see that you can finally pay me back for all that I have done for you.”
Her mouth sagged open. “What are you talking about?”
Ben’s eyes, cold as a winter’s day, landed on her face. “I hid you from the Capo. I saved you even though it was a burden. I cared for you when you were weak and sick, which was most of the time. I expected you to marry me. Especially after your eighteenth birthday. Your parents halted that since they still had dominion over you until your twenty-first birthday. I could do nothing about it.
“I intended to pawn you the first chance I got, of course. Instead, you got yourself dragged off to a…whatever ship it was that you landed on. I doubt you would’ve made a good pleasure slave. But they didn’t know that, now did they?”
What was he saying? How could he be so callous? Who was this man? He wore Ben’s face, but he was nothing like the Ben that she knew!
Ben said, “Spread out. Find the aliens. The ones who brought the ship here. You can’t really miss them; hurry up and kill any of them that you can.”
Jenny opened her mouth to scream, but before she could, Ben’s fist flew outward from his body. A hard blow landed on her chin and darkness followed.
