Last week's episode ended with Addy and Max sliding into the Human Breeding and Research Center's garbage chute. I love this next chapter because something BIG will be revealed that will change Max and Addy's relationship. You won't want to miss this!
An abducted cop and a gladiator prisoner must learn to
trust each other with their lives…and their hearts…to escape their alien
captors.
Catch up reading on CAPTIVE here for free: Chapter 1 Ch 2 Ch 3 Ch 4 Ch 5 Ch 6 Ch 7 Ch 8 Ch 9 Chs 10 & 11 Ch 12 Ch 13 Ch 14 Ch 15 Ch 16 Ch 17 Ch 18 or buy the full book for only $2.99.
CAPTIVE
Chapter Nineteen
“Wait for what?” Addy asked.
“Divine intervention.”
“Do you have to be so cryptic?”
“Trust me, it’s better you don’t know.”
Trust him? She didn’t trust him as far as she could pitch him. Though nothing would please her more than throwing him headfirst into a slimy wall, for now, she’d have to go along with him. What other choice did she have? If he’d leave her behind for not keeping up, what would stop him from leaving her behind for making him mad?
“How long will it take before we are intervened?” If she hadn’t been holding her lightstick, she would have put air quotes around the word.
“Two hours. Maybe four. Get some sleep—tomorrow’s a long day.”
Two to four more hours of this stench? Her stomach convulsed again. “You actually think I’ll be able to sleep in this? I don’t even want to be standing in it.”
He snapped off his lightstick, settled into the garbage resting his back against the wall, and placed his backpack on his chest. “Suit yourself.”
After a tiring hour standing in thigh-deep refuse, circling her lightstick like a lighthouse beacon, Addy picked up Max’s discarded pants and shirt and arranged them on a more stable-looking pile of garbage opposite him. She pulled on her thermal suit hood as well as the hood from the cloak to protect her hair from the sludgy wall, and sank into her makeshift chair, backpack on her lap and lightstick in hand.
Dampness saturated the cold air. White breath clouds formed around her, yet her body felt warm—perhaps even a little too warm.
Max had said without the proper gear no one could survive the outside temperatures. If she had escaped alone, how long would she have lasted before freezing to death without thermal cream? That assumed no aliens caught her after the choker alarm informed them that she went outside. And that assumed she’d actually made it out of Ferly Mor’s apartment in the first place. His observation walls were probably unbreakable.
Queasiness due neither to pregnancy nor garbage churned her gut. Like it or not, the man she despised was the one man she needed in order to survive.
His chest rose and fell in a steady, peaceful rhythm. What tortures could the guy have endured to make sleeping in garbage not bother him?
“Max?”
“Hmm.”
“Why did you change your mind about helping me escape?”
“You were right,” he breathed, half asleep.
“About what?”
“Dying once.”
Xanthrag’s hologram flashed in her mind’s eye. She’d never forget Max’s gruesome murder, or his emaciated body on the exam table, whip marks streaked across his back, his bones broken.
How could he be okay now? How could he look strong and solid and healthy after only two weeks? His wounds had healed, and he’d gained weight, though he was nowhere near as muscular as he had been in the breeding box.
“Max?”
“Hmm.”
“What happened to you after they pulled you from the breeding box?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Did they hurt you?” Did it make her a bad person if a part of her wanted him to say yes?
“Why do you care?”
“I was scared for you.”
“You were scared of me.” His words lacked their earlier sleepiness. His eyes opened and pierced her with a menacing glare that sent chills down her back. Why did alpha gladiators thrive on scaring the crap out of everyone? “You still are.”
“You’re wrong. I don’t like you. I resent you. But I’m not scared of you.” Well, she didn’t fear him like she feared Regan, anyway. Max never tried to kill her.
“Why sugarcoat your feelings now? You hate me. You made that clear in the orchard.”
“Fine. I hate you. I despise you. You raped me. Knowing you’re my baby’s father makes me sick. Happy now?”
* * *
“How many times do I have to tell you, woman? I did not rape you.”
“Then how’d I get pregnant? Immaculate conception?”
Why the hell did she insist on beating a dead gladiator? He shot to his feet and stomped through the garbage to get away from her accusing, loathing gaze. She couldn’t leave it alone, could she? She had to keep bringing up one of the most humiliating things the Hyboreans had ever done to him. Unable to control his anger, he kicked his backpack.
“Why won’t you admit it?”
“Hell, woman, because you’re not the one who was raped. I am!” His words echoed in the receptacle.
Silence. Finally.
Apparently, she was too stunned to speak. Or blink, for that matter.
For several minutes he paced while debating how much more he should divulge. His humiliation was unbearable, but if they were to escape together, he wanted no doubts about what really happened in the breeding box and after.
Unable to say it to her face, he turned away and rested a gloved hand on the slimy wall for support. His head dropped.
The inhaled breath of decaying garbage didn’t give him the courage he’d hoped for. “When they took me from the breeding box… The Hyboreans… They held me down and—” Be a man and say it already. He wiped his free hand over his face and stared at the slimy wall. “They manipulated me, a goddamn alpha gladiator stud, so they could impregnate you.”
He had tried hard to forget the degrading way the Hyboreans took their hands to him. He’d tried hard to forget how his body betrayed him by responding to their touch. Fighting hadn’t helped. They had overpowered him and milked him like a goddamned animal because he wasn’t man enough to get a woman pregnant. And here he was explaining it to that woman and reliving his shame.
“I’m sorry, Max. I didn’t know.”
He half shrugged one shoulder. He had nothing more to say.
“After Ferly Mor pulled you from the box, he came back for me. He brought me into an exam room and drugged me. I didn’t understand why. It all makes sense now.”
Artificial insemination. That was what his existence had boiled down to. He had no worth beyond his sperm.
“I don’t know what to say.” Her words, soft as a whisper, floated to him. “I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me the truth that night in the rain?”
“I couldn’t.”
“I pelted you with apples.”
“I deserved it.”
“But…you were innocent.”
He turned to face her and realized it was a mistake. The unshed tears in her eyes were like a swift kick in the gut. “Hell, woman, don’t look at me like that. Don’t you dare pity me. I accept the consequences for my stupid decision to act like a man in the breeding box. I knew better. I knew I was nothing more than—as you’d precisely put it—a ‘fucking animal.’”
“But you aren’t, are you? You stopped, Max. We both know you could have done anything you wanted to me. You chose to stop. An animal wouldn’t do that.”
Tired, he sat back down in his spot opposite her, rested his elbows on drawn-up knees, and raked his hair with all ten fingers. “The women I’ve bred with were Hyborhus. They understand this world. They’re accustomed to it. They willingly accept their roles as broodmares. But not you.”
“I’m sor—”
“Don’t. Don’t apologize for your strength. Regan’s assault on you, and then all his taunts, made me think about what the Hyboreans did to me. It paled in comparison to what he and other alphas will do to you the rest of your childbearing life. Your spirit challenges them. It excites them. And they’ll continue breaking it until it dies. Just like the Hyboreans killed my spirit years ago. That’s why I’m helping you escape.”
“What about you?” she asked gently. “Why are you escaping?”
“In my fifteen years here, I’ve been humiliated, tortured, beaten, starved, whipped, stabbed, mauled, drowned, and thrown off a fifty-foot cliff. I’ve been killed more times than I can count. And every time I think it’s the last, every time I think I’ll finally get some peace in my grave, the bastards reawaken me. They reset bones, grow new tissue, and bring me back to life. For what? So they can gamble on how many gladiators I slaughter before I die again.”
Max leaned forward and held her gaze. “You want to know why I changed my mind about escaping? It’s because you were right. Out there you can only die once. Here, you die over and over and over again.” He slumped against the wall. “And I’m fucking tired of dying.”
“I’m sorry for everything you went through, Max. I’m sorry for the way I treated you. I should be thanking you. For stopping. For telling me the truth. And for getting me out of that zoo.”
“You do realize we haven’t left the building.” He closed his eyes. “Get some sleep.”
* * *
VZZZZZZ. Swack.
She hadn’t realized she’d dozed off until dropped garbage splashed muck across her face. Goop the consistency of raw egg slid down her chin. “Eww. I’m going to be sick.” She wiped the thick gel from her cheek. “How much longer do we have to stay in here?”
“Not long. Put on your goggles. You’re going to need them.”
She did as he said, heart pounding in excitement. It wouldn’t be long before they left this building and their masters behind. A loud clunk reverberated and echoed in the receptacle. Addy jumped to her feet. “What was that?” The room jerked, almost knocking her face-first into sludge.
Max threw on his backpack. “Time to take out the trash.”
Addy shrugged into her pack, barely getting her other arm through the hole when Max yanked her to the sidewall. A blast of white vapor rose from the muck in the center of the receptacle. The floor began swallowing the disgusting mixture of liquid and garbage.
“Hold on to me. This is one god-awful ride.”
“Nuh-uh. No way. I can’t go through there.” She clung to Max and cursed the contents spilling through the floor.
“Mouth closed. Hold your breath. Swim for the top.”
Like sand through a funnel, she and Max slid with the garbage, tumbling in darkness, lightstick lost. Refuse crashed around her like ocean waves.
Strong fingers gripped her arm, and pulled her up. She kicked her legs to swim for the top, but the cloak strangled her neck.
It was stuck on something. She would drown.
Stay calm, Dawson. Unhook the clasp.
Lungs burning, she fumbled with the clasp until the cloak released its grip. Addy kicked and climbed her way up and out of the sea of garbage, sucking in a huge breath of putrid air.
Max pulled her to his chest with one arm. He somehow kept them afloat as garbage shifted around them when the vehicle moved. She panted through her mouth to give her olfactory organ a break and hoped her tears would wash away the slimy coat of filth.
“You okay?” he asked.
She pounded his shoulder. “Couldn’t you have found a less disgusting way to escape?” Maybe someday in a free future, she’d look back on this and laugh. Yeah, right. Who the heck was she kidding?
“Hold on to me,” he said.
This time she did so without hesitation. His confession earlier had expunged any reasons to hate him. She had no more cause to avoid his touch. Max had been an unwilling participant in Ferly Mor’s sick game. Even though he let her believe there was a cult, and he’d been sexually aggressive, it was understandable and forgivable. How could she blame him for wanting to avoid punishment? In the end, he had stopped. That’s what mattered most.
Max briefly let go of her to snap on a lightstick—the one she thought she’d lost. His one-handed grip on a small ledge kept them from sinking into garbage. His lat contracted under her arms as he pumped the other fist in triumph. “Yes!”
“How you could be excited about an alien dump truck filled to capacity is beyond me.”
“Because ‘filled to capacity’ are the key words.”
“What do you mean?”
“Last time, I got pummeled twice more with trash. They must have changed their route since then. A full truck has only one stop to make.”
“Any chance it’s Earth?”
#
Wow! Can you believe Max's secret? Crazy, right? I'm glad he wasn't the bad guy Addy thought him to be. Maybe now their relationship can move from enemies to friends as they escape in the garbage truck. But where is this truck taking them? Find out in next week's episode Chapter 20 or read the full story now at
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