Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
“Penelope? Oh, Penelopeeee,” the horribly familiar voice called. “I know you’re in here, girly! I saw you go in just before they called for the Public Breeding but you didn’t come out. So you have to be in here somewhere and I’m gonna find you!”
It’s Skrug, Penny thought, feeling sick. Her stomach was twisting into a knot and if she hadn’t been crouched down, her knees would have been knocking. He’s coming for me, she thought. Coming to rape me and hurt me and there’s nothing I can do about it!
She had the urge to jump out of the mixing bowl and run away—but where could she go? Even if she got out the door of the bakery, the whole Marketplace was just one big rape-fest. It would be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
So she crouched lower, trying to make herself tiny and invisible, hoping and praying the huge blue alien would pass her by.
Oh please! she thought wildly. Oh please, oh please, oh please!
Skrug had stopped calling her name but there was a new sound now, to accompany his dull, thudding footsteps. It was a high, awful scraping—the sound of metal on metal, Penny realized with a shiver.
A horribly vivid image formed in her brain. The humpbacked alien, walking along, dragging the huge butcher’s cleaver along the surfaces of all the silver tables as he passed them. The blade would gleam dull red in the glow from the ovens and when Skrug found her he would use it on her while she screamed and screamed and screamed…
No—no, she had to stop thinking like that, Penny told herself. But the high whining shriek of metal against metal was driving her mad, stretching her nerves almost to the breaking point. It was so loud and awful and it echoed in the empty bakery so that she couldn’t tell where it was coming from or where Skrug was. How close was he? Was he on the other side of the bakery…or right beside her?
Suddenly the scraping sound stopped and there was complete silence for a long…long time.
Maybe he left! Maybe he’s gone! Maybe he decided I’m not worth the trouble. Maybe, maybe, maybe, chanted a little voice in her head.
After what felt like an eternity, Penny finally dared to look up…
Only to see Skrug’s yellow, slitted eyes glaring down into hers.
“Hello there, girly,” he said, grinning his snaggletoothed, lipless grin at her. “So this is where you’ve been hiding.”
Seventy-Two
Penny’s heart felt like it was going to burst with fear.
Oh God! she thought, her brain working like a hamster on a wheel—running like crazy but going nowhere. Oh no! Oh God! OhGodohGodohGod!
“Get up and get out of there.” Skrug brandished his huge cleaver, the blade of which was still smeared with blood from whatever—or whoever—he’d been chopping up before the Public Breeding had begun. “Get out here, girly,” he snarled at Penny. “We got unfinished business to attend to.”
The words in Penny’s brain had changed. Have to get away! they insisted. Have to get away, have to get away, have to get away!
Yes, but how?
She had no weapons and she couldn’t reach anything but the crumpled loaf of bread she’d been carrying for her last customer—that was hardly going to be of any help. There was nothing in the mixing bowl with her but about six inches of the dark blue svetty flour which she was crouching in.
The flour! whispered the little voice in her brain. The flour, Penny—use it!
“Get out here now and give me what I want and I might not tell your supervisor that you was hiding and trying to avoid the Public Breeding,” Skrug commanded, giving her a cruel smile.
“What…what do you want me to do?” Penny remained crouched in the bowl but she gripped a handful of the coarse, grainy flour in each fist.
“Get out here and bend over this table.” Skrug clanged the blade of his cleaver against the metal worktable, drawing sparks. “I’m gonna breed you right proper, girly. Gonna shove my thick cock in that tight little snatch of yours and there’s not a damn thing your mate can do to stop me!”
His mention of V’rex made Penny wish for the big Hybrid with all her heart. But V’rex wasn’t here and even if he could get away from work, the greenhouse was across the Compound from the Marketplace. There was no way he could get to her in time.
She was on her own and she had two choices—submit or fight.
I won’t submit! She gripped her fistfuls of flour tighter. I’d rather die! If that big bastard is going to rape me, he’s going to have to work for it!
“Get out here, I said!” Skrug clanged the blade of his cleaver on the table again, impatiently. “Hurry up! I don’t got all day!”