Rebirth lost souls book.., p.17
Protecting Mercy, page 17
part #2 of Pioneers Series
Protecting Mercy
II of Pioneers
Angel Lawson
(Feb 2019)
* * *
I came to this new world to stay safe and have the protection of the mighty Alien warriors of Athion.
No one knew an enemy was in our midst until it was too late.
I woke shackled to a bed, on a ship far off in space, surrounded by bruised and battered women-slaves of the Tradrych preparing for auction.
When I'm bought and sold like a piece of meat to my owner's handler, I have no idea what to expect.
Who to expect.
Will my warriors get here in time?
PROTECTING MERCY
PLANET ATHION: BOOK 2
ANGEL LAWSON
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Afterword
1
Mercy
I WAKE to the sound of metal creaking and a sharp pain in my neck and another behind my ear. Groaning, I shift to my side and blink, the room—not my room—coming into view. The walls are gray, steel, and the room is dark, other than a single bulb hanging from a chain in the middle of the curved ceiling. I’d spent my time on the transport ship asleep, not awake at all, but I know in a moment that’s where I am: a ship.
It's been days, I think, since I was taken from the transition facility. I vaguely recall waking before—chained to the wall. I scan the room for the scary girl with her dirty face and matted hair who told me I’d been taken to the Master’s ship and I’m now a slave, but I don’t see her in the dark, dank room.
I have no reason to doubt her, but every fiber in my body wants to reject what she told me. It has to be a mistake. I’m not a slave. I’m Mercy Ladd. Midwife. Pioneer to Athion.
I stand, wobbly on my feet, the springs under my mattress straining. There are no windows. Just a door. Stretching my legs, I walk over and touch the flat, cold surface. There’s no handle from the inside. I remember Dr. Kane—or whoever the hell he is—flirting with me, whispering in my ear. I recall the evil smile, the glint and then pain of the needle. He didn’t care for me. He never had. He just wanted me for something—my skills, if not more.
“Hey chickadee, finally woke up, eh? They must’ve doped you up good.”
I spin around, surprised to hear another voice. I see nothing—no one, until a shadowy figure emerges from the corner. No, three shadowy figures.
“Hello?” I ask, trying to keep my voice calm. I am not calm. Not in the least. “I can’t see you.”
“Because we’re smart, and hiding is the safest thing to do down here.”
“Where are we?” I ask, hoping for a different answer.
“Hell,” one woman snorted. Her face is dirty, her once-blonde hair matted, her clothes ragged and torn.
“Ah, don’t listen to her, chickadee,” the one that spoke earlier says. She’s moved further into the light and I see that she has wild black hair, curled out in an afro, and smooth, brown skin. Her hands are dirty and her feet bare. “It’s not so bad. You’re a pretty thing. You’ll get snatched right off the auction block.”
“The auction block?” I ask, feeling dread in my belly.
The women tittered, giggling in the shadowy room. It didn’t sound as much mocking as just slightly unhinged. The third woman sat on the floor, drawing designs with her finger in the dust.
“I guess you may as well hear it from me,” the woman with dark skin says. “You’re on a Tradrych slave ship and we’re all up for auction. For sale. Some of us for sex and making babies, some of us to clean toilets, others to cook and clean and serve.” She eyes me. “I’m thinking you’re for sex.”
“No,” I say. “No, I don’t think so.”
She cocks her head. “Why not? You’re pretty enough. Good body. Nice teeth and eyes.”
“The m-man that took me said something else. I’m skilled, and I suspect he needs my services.”
“Skilled in what?” the blonde asks. She has an accent—French, maybe.
“I’m a midwife.”
Their eyes widen. The one on the floor looks up.
“A midwife?” the dark-haired one repeats, then laughs loudly. “You’ll go quick—the Trad birther rings need people like you.”
There’s a sound in the hallway and everyone looks up. The three women slink back into the shadows. There’s movement at the door and in a quiet voice, I hear, “Don’t assume because you have a skill they won’t also want your body, chickadee. These males? They want both.”
The door swings open before I have a chance to say anything else, and a man with a mask over his head enters the room, walking toward me and grabbing me by the arm. I’m halfway out the door when I hear a voice call in French, “Good luck,” before the metal door slams and I’m pushed down the hall.
I’M SHAKING as I’m taken down a long hallway and left in an empty, sterile room. It’s cleaner than the holding cell I’ve just come from but no less a prison. The door locks behind my escort and there’s nothing in the room. Just a chair bolted to the floor and a long, silver table.
I don’t know how long I wait, but in the silence of the room, my stomach grumbles, realizing it’s been too long since my last meal. There’s a bitter taste in my mouth and I try my hardest not to panic as the minutes pass by.
I know one thing for certain: I need to get out of here.
I refuse to sit, and wait with my back against the wall until I finally hear the sound of someone outside the door and the beep of the lock opening. I act the instant I see the gap between the door and the wall. Lunging at the person walking in, kicking first, punching second. There’s a gasp and the clatter of a data pad on the floor. Dr. Kane and I stare at one another in shock, but I regain my senses and push past him, racing down the hall.
“Stop her!” His voice echoes down the hall. An alarm sounds, ringing in my ears. I dig deep, thinking about what my men would want me to do—fight.
I dart down a side hallway and try all the doors. None budge. I don’t even know where I’m going. It’s a ship. What am I going to do? Jump into space?
But I don’t want them to think they own me. Not Kane. Not whoever this Master is. I became a pioneer to change the world, not to just be another victim.
The echo of footsteps bounces off the hallway behind me. I don’t look back. I run. I run down the narrow corridors, arms pumping, feet slapping against the cold steel floor.
I run until I reach the end. There, I stop and brace myself and turn—facing the burly men running my way, and when they finally reach me, I fight back.
2
Kai
THINGS HAVE BEEN a blur since Mercy was taken. I feel like I can’t focus on anything, while only being able to focus on one thing: getting my woman back.
“How the fuck did they even get her?” Dimka asks, barging into the room. He’s been combing the grounds for any sign of where the actual escape happened. For any clues in Mercy’s room. The hard expression on his face tells me he found nothing useful.
I don’t respond to his question. The truth is, I don’t know anything other than there was a false alarm, a breach, and an aircraft that got through our force field. Whoever took her has means.
“Check this out,” Alex says suddenly. He’s been working quietly in the corner, focused on his data pad.
“Got something?”
“Yeah.” He hops up from this seat. There’s a deep worry line etched in his forehead. “We just got a notice about someone who didn’t show up for work today.”
“Who?”
“Dr. Kane.”
We all exchange a look.
“Kane? The doctor Mercy worked with?” Dimka repeats.
“The one that was questioning her relationships with us,” I add.
“The very handsome, human Dr. Kane.” Alex says. “Fuck. I should have known. There was something about that guy…but I just thought I was being—”
“Petty?” I ask.
“Jealous.” He runs his hands over his head. “We need to do a search and see if he’s still on campus, but if not…”
“Then he’s the one that took her,” Dimka says.
“And he’s most likely not a human, either.” I swallow back the fear. “We knew it was a possibility a Trad got through the ranks.”
“If it’s Kane,” Dimka says, hands balling into fists, “this wasn’t a spontaneous thing. He groomed her. Got her complacent, and his job in gynecology couldn’t have been a mistake.”
“He wanted a midwife.”
“Why?” Alex asks. “Mercy’s gorgeous.”
“She is, and that’s part of the appeal, but the Trads need her to work the birthing rings.” My chest clenches. We’d all heard the terrible rumors about the hovels the Trads kept kidnappe d human women in during labor and delivery. “Look, there’s two good things about this.”
“You’re kidding, nothing about this is good,” Dimka seethes, showing more emotion than I’ve ever seen.
“If Kane took this much time and specifically chose her for her skills, it means she’s safer than an average human female.”
Dimka’s color has faded. “It also means she’s going to the auction block.”
“That’s the second thing—if she’s headed to the auction ship, it means that we’ve got someone on the inside—well, sort of.”
Alex’s eyebrows raise. “Do you think he’ll even answer?”
I walk across the room and reach for my data pad, signing into a secure line. “He better fucking answer—or I’m going to kill him.”
3
Mercy
MY ANKLE TWISTS when they toss me back in the cell.
“Careful,” Kane says harshly. “Don’t damage her.”
He bends and touches my foot. I flinch from the pain and his touch. I fight the bile rolling up my throat. “Get your hands off me.”
“Why? Because you prefer the touch of Athions?” he replies. “I got you out of there just in time. I didn’t realize how attached you’d become to them.”
“Don’t mention them.”
“What? Your beloved Custo? Too bad they have no idea where you are, who you’re with, or how to find you. Your behavior surprises me, Mercy, you were so gentle and docile back at the facility. I had no idea there was so much fight in you.”
He doesn’t know me any more than I know him. He’s unaware that after my sister found herself manipulated and pregnant, she killed herself. He doesn’t know that I vowed to never be in the same situation. That I took self-defense classes, boxing, kickboxing, and mixed-martial arts to ensure my personal safety.
What I didn’t realize is that I’d let my guard down that much in the transition facility. I’d allowed myself to become weak again.
“I like my girls a little feisty. So do the customers.” He stands and glances at the guard at the door. “No food or bath for twenty-four hours. If she wants to act like an animal, treat her like one.”
The guard grunts and the door slams behind them, bolts locking into place.
It doesn’t take long for the women in the shadows to come closer.
“Damn, chickadee, what the hell did you do?” the woman with the afro asks.
“They took me to some room. I tried to run.”
“Run where?” one of the women asks. “There’s nowhere to go.”
“You think this girl doesn’t know that? She fought back anyway.” The woman holds her hand out to me. “I’m Simone.”
“Mercy.”
She helps me off the ground and I try not to wince at the pain. The other girl rolls her eyes at us and vanishes back into the shadows. “That one asshole—he seems interested in you. What’s that about?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know exactly. He’s the one that kidnapped me. We—well, I thought I knew him. We worked together. I didn’t know it was just a trick.”
“He’s a Tradrych,” Simone says. “Being manipulative is the only thing they seem to know how to do.”
She gestures to an empty cot and we sit. I need to get off my ankle and she may have realized that. “Tell me—what really happens in this place?”
“Like I said, it’s a slave ship. They bring us here, inspect us, grade us, and put us up for sale. The highest bidder wins.”
“How long have you been here?”
She looks at her hands. “Weeks. I don’t know. I’ve been through a few auctions. Apparently my ‘attitude’ isn’t helping my marketability. After the last one, I got sent back down here to cool off.”
“What did you do?”
“I bit one of the assholes trying to buy me.”
My eyes widen. “Seriously?”
She nods. “Look, Mercy, I respect you fighting back out there, but understand it won’t make your time here any easier. Just harder. You have to decide what’s worth it.”
I think on this for a minute, knowing that the other women in the cell are probably listening. I don’t know these people. I certainly don’t trust them. “I came out here to escape the fear I had back home—to get away from these monsters that destroyed my family. I promised I’d come here and do something good—that I’d help the women from Earth.”
Simone studies me with dark, listless eyes. “I hope you find a way to do that.”
OVER THE NEXT twenty-four hours I notice a pattern emerge. The women sharing my cell don’t speak much. They eat when food is brought (no one offers to share with me, not even Simone.) They sleep most of the day, and most noticeably, there’s a palpable tension when the guards come to the door and call for one of the prisoners. Sometimes they come back. Sometimes they don’t.
When they do return, they’re clean—freshly scrubbed—and wearing a new pair of cotton pants and a shirt. The scent of shampoo and perfume lingers on their hair and skin, but their eyes are lost and vacant. Sometimes angry. No one speaks.
After the twenty-four hours is up, I’m allowed food and a trip to the showers. We’re allowed three minutes of cold water. I don’t touch my hair, afraid it’ll never dry. We’re given toothbrushes and paste. I feel the eyes of the guards on me at all times.
Three more days pass before the door opens and the guard wearing a hood enters the room. He walks directly to the cot I’m sitting on and grips me by the upper arm.
“It’s time.”
For what? I want to ask, but I suspect I already know. I don’t look at any of the other women on the way out the door.
We travel six flights up via freight elevator and then through a maze of hallways I’d never be able to recall. Not that I want to go back to that cell anyway, but I’m discombobulated, unsure if we’ve moved up or down.
The person escorting me doesn’t speak again, merely grunting when it’s time to turn. Twice I go the wrong way and he grips me by the neck, tossing me the other direction. I desperately try not to spin on my heel and knee him between the legs.
The hallways are frigid and I’m still only wearing my medic uniform, leaving my arms exposed to the chilly air. I fight the urge to warm myself, to do anything, out of fear of the man’s wrath. Eventually we come to the end of a hall to a single door. The man pushes me aside and hits the door in a series of pounding bangs. A few moments later a latch slides and the door opens, revealing another hallway, this one dark and filled with damp warmth.
There are four other women in the narrow hallway, all perched on a bench attached to the wall. I’m shoved down, landing gracelessly.
“Sorry,” I say, ridiculously. The man that brought me in walks down the hall, opens the door, and slams it shut. The sound of the latch echoes.
We’re left in quiet, other than the sniffling of one woman on the bench and another who taps her foot nervously. The woman next to me has her arms wrapped around her waist—her skin pale and sallow.
God, what have I gotten into? What is this crazy world?
The door opens again and we all look up at once, I’m waiting for another masked man, another woman, god knows what, when I see Dr. Kane enter the narrow space. He smiles widely when he spots me.
