Liz is right. We’re nothing but cattle to these things. They’re going to sell us to someone else to rape, to eat, or both. Or something else more horrible that I can’t even imagine.
I’m not going to take my fate sitting down, though. I cross my arms tightly over my pajamas, draw my legs up, and study my surroundings. I look at each nook and cranny of the strange walls, trying to determine if there’s anything I can grab that can be used as a weapon.
Because I’m going to kill those pebbly, gross bastards if they ever try to touch me.
? ? ?
No one else comes on board the ship for the next week, so I’m starting to suspect we’re “full.” Which is good, considering that our tiny hold gets more and more crowded-feeling with every hour. Now with Dominique—the brutalized redhead—squeezed in with us, we feel like sardines.
Not that anyone is jumping up to complain.
Liz and I talk quietly during the night, when the guards leave us alone. We must be heading out to space now. Our ears have been popping repeatedly during the last few days, and we suspect we’ve begun traveling at a high speed.
And we don’t know what to do about it.
“We start with killing the guards,” I tell Liz and Kira for the second time tonight. “The little green men seem to have the basketball heads doing all the grunt work. I think if we get rid of the orange ones, maybe we can bully our way into demanding a return to Earth.”
“Tiny flaw in this plan, Georgie,” says Liz, ever the practical one. She gestures at the bars of the cage. “We’re on this side, and they’re on the other side. With guns.”
“We need to do something to prompt them to open the door.” Kira’s quiet voice cuts through the darkness. “I would say we could wait for another captive to show up, but . . .”
“Yeah,” I say thoughtfully, my gaze sliding over to where Dominique huddles in a corner, alone. She’s been a straight-up mess ever since they’d returned her to the cage. She’s quiet now, of course. She spends her waking hours with her fist stuffed against her mouth and biting down on it, tears streaming down her face. And she resists all attempts to befriend her or calm her down. It’s going to take time and patience, and because we’re all crammed into something the size of a closet, patience is running short at the moment.
I look back over at Kira and Liz’s grim faces, thinking hard. “What if we all pretend to be sick the next time they come to feed us?”
“That won’t be too hard,” Liz says. “Those seaweed bars are fucking nasty.”
But Kira shakes her head. “And what if they decide that since we’re all sick, they’ll just dump everyone into space? We’re extras, remember? As long as they have their quota in those pods, we’re expendable.” She gestures at the lockers on the opposite side of the room.
I can’t forget them. I don’t know if I’m jealous that they’re completely unaware of our situation or even more horrified at what they’re going to go through when they wake up. But she’s right. The pod people being safe and secure makes us superfluous, and I’m not willing to add “sabotage the pods” to the escape plan. Nor am I willing to leave them behind. We’ll simply have to factor them in. “Well then,” I say. “What if we scream?”
Kira swallows audibly. “That terrifies me.” She peers over my shoulder at Dominique and shudders.
“I don’t like it either,” I tell her. “But what are our options? One misbehaving person ensures that everyone else stays safe, right? So we get their attention, get them to open the doors . . .”
“And?” Liz prompts. “What? Get raped?”
“No.” I don’t even want to think about that. “We need a distraction of some kind. We can rush them when they open the doors. There are more of us than them.”
“But they have guns,” Kira points out.
“But if we all rush them—”
“Then the ones in front get shot,” Liz says. “I don’t want to be here, but I don’t want to die. And I don’t know that the others do, either. They’re not really fighters. None of us are.”
“But what choice do we have?” I protest. “We can be good little slaves and still get raped and still get sold off for God knows what. At least if we fight back, we have a chance.”
“No, you’re right.” Liz draws her knees up close to her chest, thinking. “So we make a distraction, have them open the doors, rush them, take the guns, and take control. We just need to make sure Kira’s protected through all of this.”