Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 43557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
I am worried about Zayne. He says the wound is nothing, but I can see how painful it is. There is a lot of exposed goop, or there was until he bandaged it. When he moves, it is far more gingerly than usual. He is hurt.
“We should take you to the hospital,” I say as he dabs at it with what has to be far too little antiseptic. It’s basically a face wipe that he is trying to use to mend the tear on his chest scales.
“No,” he says. “No hospitals. Not until I know what is going on here.”
“Have you gotten in touch with Simon? Is there any word on what the hell happened back there?”
“I am not getting in touch with Simon.”
“Why?”
Zayne looks at me with big golden eyes narrowed with pain. “Because I think he was behind that attack.”
I stare at him for a really long second, because what he just said sounds absolutely insane to me. It sounds so crazy that I am starting to worry that Zayne is crazy. Maybe the stress of being attacked has put him over the edge. Maybe he’s paranoid, seeing enemies everywhere, even in his closest allies.
“What? That doesn’t make sense. I’m the intergalactic superstarlet.”
“These are deliberate acts of aggression You are not being harassed. You are being hunted by a creature who controls your environment. This has been set up from the beginning.”
“But I’m not worth anything dead.”
“Wrong,” he says bluntly. “If you die, your record sales will be significantly higher, and the tour costs will be negligible. If I die, he is able to evict my family. Simon may simply have decided to cash in early on this tour. Why wait three years for your earnings to trickle in?”
“So he wins if we both…” I make a gesture with my thumb across my neck.
“Yes.”
“And even if he doesn’t win… even if we both stay alive, he’s still going to tell everyone I’m a dead druggy, and the scandal with you is…” I breathe out. “Fuckkk. We’re kind of fucked. And your family… what…”
“Yes,” Zayne says. “What.”
We both fall silent. There are no easy answers. The truth is, without Simon Scowl we are both broke. My accounts are held by the Starlet Corporation. They won’t be transferred to private ownership until the end of my contract. That means I am functionally penniless and have been the entire time. If I understand things correctly, Zayne has been paid in rent for his family’s lands. All the work we’ve done, all the risks we’ve taken, they were all for nothing, and we have absolutely not a leg to stand on.
It’s depressing. The fear and adrenaline from the attack and surviving it has abandoned me now, and what I am left with is the realization that I have less to my name when I did when I signed onto Simon Scowl’s contract. I gave up my apartment lease, I gave up my day job. I might be able to get employed again, but given how trashed my reputation is now, maybe not. Everybody thinks I am a drug-addled lunatic with blood on my hands. Even worse, I may in fact be a drug-addled lunatic with blood on my hands. It’s becoming clear to me now that I have been a pawn in Simon Scowl’s game, and it is my turn to be sacrificed.
Zayne gets up with a growl. He seems more primitive out here, more primally driven. I am glad I have him with me. If it were anyone else I am almost certain I would be dead by now. Zayne is the difference between life and death for me.
“What’s wrong? Where are you going?”
“Stay in the cave,” he says. “Do not wander. I have to hunt. And think.”
Before he leaves, he presses a laser weapon into my hand. “Use this if you even suspect you are in danger,” he says. “Shoot anything that moves, you understand? Anything.”
“What if it is you coming back?”
“I will call out,” he says. “If you do not hear me, kill.”
I am very uncomfortable with those orders, but I am even less comfortable disobeying them. I have gone from being a cosseted, spoiled star to being a survivor in the wild, shivering in the back of a cave and using the seat cover from the hovercar as a dress. It’s amazing how fast you can lose everything. In the blink of an eye, all you ever had can be taken away.
It makes me feel morose thinking about it. I’m supposed to be living everybody’s dream. I’m supposed to be the person everybody aspires to either be or have. I’m sitting in the dirt, having been betrayed, and having fucked myself over completely. I wonder if I’d been a better worker for Simon, if I hadn’t angered him at the outset, maybe he wouldn’t have spent this entire time undermining me.