Ava leads the Aberks a merry chase around the stacks and then leaps aboard the bookworm. Unfortunately for her, the beast does not move particularly fast, certainly not fast enough to help her make a true getaway, and it moves in the open, which means she remains trackable the entire time.
I find myself rooting for the human. If she gets away, she certainly deserves her freedom.
“Zed. Fix this.”
A little gray man is tugging at my elbow and pointing in the direction of the escaped human.
“Fix what?”
I pretend not to notice what is going on. None of this is my problem. The funds have been transferred. Possession has been taken. I am now as much a spectator as anybody in the library.
“We paid for her.”
“And then you promptly lost her.”
“Zed!” The alien demands. “If you do not provide the product, we will take our funds back and you will have nothing. We know of your many debts and ill-dealings. We did not come to deal with you without preparation.”
They are threatening me. Ava threatened me too, but I suppose their threats hold slightly more weight.
“If I catch her again, you have to get her out of here right away. I can’t play human catcher for you indefinitely without charging you for it.”
* * *
Ava
I’ve almost gotten away. I can see the front doors of the library with its three giantess guardians. When I get to the parking lot, I’m taking the ship and I’m getting the hell out of dodge.
“Not so fast!”
A big green arm wraps around my waist, swinging me off my feet. Zed has caught me. Of course he has. If there’s one thing the universe likes to do, it is throw us together at the worst of times.
“Let me go!”
“Can’t do that, sweetheart. Sorry. Don’t worry, you’ll enjoy belonging to them. They have a thousand ways to harvest your pleasure.”
I know there’s nothing I can do to change what is about to happen. I know it already happened. I know all that, and it doesn’t make it any easier.
“Zed, you’re making a huge fucking mistake.”
“Sorry, human,” he says. “You’re worth more than I can count. I sell you now, and I never have to work again. I can pay off all my debts. Never worry about another thing. I do this one terrible thing to you, and the rest of my life is perfect forever.”
He really hasn’t absorbed anything of what I’ve said. He’s played along, he’s told me what I want to hear. And he turned on me the moment it became convenient to do so.
“But this is how it all goes wrong. I told you that!”
He gives me a brief shrug, and I know that the Zed looking at me is the Zed the other Zeds hate more than anything. I have to say I share their feelings. He’s a real dick.
This betrayal seems unfathomable. Impossible. But I have to remember. It’s not him. It’s a different version. One who never really listened at all. One who never really knew me at all.
“Come with us, human,” the spindly aliens insist, now that they have caught up with me. “We own you now.”
“This is not going to end well.”
I don’t know why I keep trying to warn all these alien men. They don’t care what I say. They are thinking with their wallets and their cocks. I could tell them the secret of existence right now, and they’d forget it immediately.
“You’re going to regret this,” I tell Zed. “Next time I see you, you’re in real fucking trouble.”
“Be careful with that one,” he says. “She’s a bit rough and tumble.”
“We can subdue a human,” they say in their creepy little voices which are full of threat and smugness. As they speak, I feel myself start to lose my personal gravity field. I’m floating an inch or so off the ground, which is enough to make it absolutely impossible to run anywhere.
“Zed. Please. Don’t…”
“Come. Human.” They tug on the invisible bonds and lead me away. I am taller than most of them. I am definitely going to hurt the first one of them who tries to lay one of their weird, frog-like fingers on me.
I look back at Zed one last time. He is not looking at me. He is looking at a holographic representation of his new riches, a virtual mountain of gold.
Asshole.
CHAPTER 8
Zed
“Money money money. So much money. Going to buy all the things,” I hum to myself. It is not so much gloating as it is an effort to reassure myself.
The moment Ava is gone, I have the feeling I have made a terrible mistake. Huge. It’s a sense of foreboding powerful enough to block out a small sun. And it’s not only because according to her ramblings we are all going to be consumed by a giant squid. It’s because it suddenly feels like the middle of me has been plucked out.