Blowback (14 page)

“If you see the totally and completely fucking crazy people,
they’ll send to gnaw your brain, little bits all chewed away. Don’t look.”

Tom felt his stomach sour and his eyes came open as she
reminded him of blindfolding him. There was something about being blindfolded
that played on a man’s fears. After he’d mouthed off to the woman who came to
do the branding, four big guys had come and put him on his back, pinned him
down while a fifth strapped him down so that Tom couldn’t even move while that
annoying cheerful woman had carved up his chest with a laser, and that still
hadn’t put him in nearly as bad of a mood as being blindfolded.

“Send who to gnaw? Wait. Are you saying that the people from
there,” Tom pointed to the second rock, “were the ones I couldn’t see?”

Da’shay nodded.

As much as he’d rather pretend that little moment of joy had
never happened, Tom thought about that room where he’d been blindfolded. “He
didn’t call you Da’shay.”

She shook her head and watched him with large, dark eyes.

“What did he call you?” Tom asked. It’d been a name, close
enough to Da’shay, but longer.

Instead of answering, she shook her head again. “Vultures
gnaw and gnash. They picked my bones, whole thoughts gone.”

Tom’s blood ran cold as he put pieces together. “Are you
saying that those assholes sent some sort of doctor to rip up your brain so you
wouldn’t remember what you saw?” He could feel his stomach churn. It wasn’t as
though there was any cause for her to lie at this point. He was a fucking
slave. She could take him to the next town and sell him without anyone ever
questioning her. Ramsay would just assume Tom had been unlucky enough to get
caught and the law on Nodar gave her the right to do what she wanted with him.

Tactically, it might be smart to get a long-time crew on
your side if you were handling a tricky captain, but Ramsay seemed to trust
Da’shay more than Tom. True, Ramsay knew first-hand that Tom had done some
mighty stupid things, and putting the tracker on her had just been the last and
most glaring example of that, but still…it didn’t seem as if Da’shay needed him
to talk Ramsay around. And when all the tactical reasons were gone, about all
Tom could think was that she was telling the truth.

“Rip and pull skin with the scab. Whole words gone. Go to
say how I feel and all is cat’s cradle, yarn all ruined.” She traced the long
line between the second location and where she said
genta
humans lived.
“Run. Mice in a maze, all floating in space. Words all gone.”

Tom closed his eyes for a second and tried to think that
through. “So words are gone, but not just any words, the words you might use to
describe these assholes?” Tom looked over at her. For a long time she stared
back at him, chewing her lower lip. Then she slowly gave a single nod.

“Well fuck. You have a lot of words missing, princess,” Tom
said, suddenly not quite so comfortable calling her pea brain anymore. “I’m
thinking there’s something mighty big that someone’s trying to cover up and we
stepped in the middle.” He looked over to see if she agreed with that.

“Cat’s cradle,” she said softly.

Cat’s cradle. Carl and Evert had played cat’s cradle the
year that disease had taken about half the crop. Tom remembered sitting with
his butt on fire from getting whipped after he’d ruined a batch of fertilizer.
The two brats had taken ma’s knitting, a sweater some town woman had hired her
to make, and they’d done cat’s cradle until the yarn separated into ugly
strings that bunched and knotted. It’d been a fucking mess and all their ma had
done was cry over it when she’d found her ruined work. Cat’s cradle. Tom didn’t
need a translation for that.

Tom rolled over and pulled the pillow closer. His back
ached, and he rolled the other way to ease the strain. It took a couple of
seconds to realize he wasn’t pressed up against the cold hull of the
Kratos
.

He blinked and tried to focus his eyes. The sunrise turned
the white tarps pink and made Da’shay look almost purple as she rocked back and
forth, mouthing silent words. Tom sighed. If he believed what she’d been saying
last night, she’d had whole parts of her ripped away. His stepfather had tried
to change Tom—tried to tear him apart. Some nights after taking a beating, Tom
wondered if he shouldn’t just keep his mouth shut and learn to be the kind of
person his stepfather wanted. Of course that feeling never lasted because he
just plain hated the man. But Da’shay hadn’t even had a chance to fight. The
idea of someone doing that turned his stomach. If it was true. Tom didn’t have
a lot of illusions about his ability to outsmart someone, and that included
Da’shay. It wasn’t that Tom doubted that people were evil enough to do exactly
that—they were. He just didn’t know if he could trust himself to know the truth
if it hit him in the face like a three-day dead fish.

Fingering the chain leash still locked to his collar, Tom
figured he wasn’t exactly in the best position to make a good judgment. A big
part of him wanted to believe that she was the victim of some big plot, but
that’s what good little slaves did—they blamed the world and believed that their
owners were victims in the slavery with them. That allowed them to cuddle up to
the people who enslaved them and never see that they’d turned into something
less than human. But putting their faith in their owners didn’t protect them
from being hurt or raped or sold off when they weren’t interesting or fun
anymore.

Worst part was that Tom was feeling this damn need to
believe Da’shay on day three of his slavery. He thought of himself as a strong
man, had some good evidence for that, in fact. There weren’t two men in the
whole universe who had a chance of winning a street fight with him and he’d
never lost a fight where he wasn’t outnumbered three to one. When he’d
discovered at fifteen that the trick to a fight was to not be afraid of the
pain, it was like discovering The Holy Grail. He had a real talent at ignoring
pain, and that let him focus on inflicting more pain than his opponent could
handle. Ever since he’d made that discovery, he’d thought of himself as strong.

Now though, he felt a need to reevaluate that conclusion.
Three days in and he was already trying to explain away feeling sorry for the
woman who owned him. About the only way he was ever going to be okay with this
was if Ramsay heard her talk and came to the same conclusions…either that or if
they were out of slaver space and the collar was off him so he could think
clear. Right now, he could feel twin pulls—one to try to keep Da’shay happy and
the other to poke her until she had no choice but to hit him. He didn’t figure
either one was particular healthy.

“Diamond floating through dark waters, sparkling without
light,” Da’shay said. Tom rolled his eyes. Clearly they were going back to the
crazy.

“Diamond ain’t likely to float,” he pointed out. “It’s a
rock.”

“A mineral. A rock is a naturally occurring solid aggregate
of minerals or mineraloids, classified into igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic
and incendite.”

“Ain’t no reason in the world for you to be knowing that,”
Tom pointed out. He sat up and pushed his chain leash to the side. “Ain’t any
reason for the leash, either.”

She looked over at him. “Totally and completely fucking
crazy people watch, wondering if they didn’t taste enough. Have to give them a
reason why I would claim you, pay your fines.”

Tom looked around. He was security, so he knew full well
what was and was not possible in terms of watching a person. The wind had
pushed sand halfway up the wind break and it still made a rustling sound
against the tarps, almost like rain. “No one’s listening out here. Sand would
bugger up their equipment. Satellites are expensive and you still can’t really
tell shit. Oh you can tell where a car is driving or if someone’s built some
big honking weapon, but spying on a person from space is science fiction.”

She lay down on her side and looked at him, and he wished
for about the millionth time that he was better at reading people. “Can’t stay
out here. Have to go back and then they’ll watch. Have to be like the people
who dress up and say things they don’t mean.”

“Actors,” Tom offered while still thinking about how much he
didn’t like what she was saying. “And I ain’t good at acting. If you want me to
act like a fucking slave, I’m going to lose my temper and break someone’s neck.
Now I know that sometimes the captain says things he don’t actually mean, like
when he told Becca that he was going to have her scrub the hull with a
toothbrush next time that wild paint of hers showed up in the galley. But I
ain’t kidding. Someone looks at me like…” Tom stopped. If someone looked at him
as if he were powerless, as if he were some victim who couldn’t protect
himself, as if he were some stupid bastard who’d gotten himself into a mess… He
sighed. “I’d break more than one neck,” Tom finished.

She got up and walked over and stroked a hand over Tom’s
shoulder. She still hadn’t given him a shirt, and he shivered as her warm
finger traced a pattern against his skin. It felt good, too good, just having a
woman touch him. Her hand trailed over his skin until she reached the chain
hanging from the front of his collar. Picking it up, she backed away, the leash
sliding through her hand. Tom watched her, suspicious. She hadn’t done much to
him so far except chain him, but she owned him, so she could do anything that
came into her mind. That worried him since her mind wasn’t exactly steady or
predictable.

She was near the end of the chain before she closed her fist
around it and started wrapping it around her hand as she moved closer and
closer. Tom tensed up, not sure what to do. Fighting was about the first thing
that came to mind, but that was just all kinds of stupid.

“Hands on your knees,” she ordered him. Tom’s hands were at
his sides, and he fisted the sheet, pulling it away from the plastic pad below.
Da’shay stopped and looked at him. Despite the fact that his whole body ached
with a need to do something, Tom slowly moved his hands to his knees and dug
his fingers into his own flesh. Lots of times he dreamed about some woman
taking control, and now he was having trouble figuring out if his body really
was warming up to the idea of Da’shay or if his fantasies were getting tangled
up with reality. Da’shay went back to wrapping his leash around her hand until
her hand was under his chin and he was looking up at her as she stood between
his legs.

He wanted to reach up and put his hands on her hips. They
weren’t the familiar round hips he always sought in a woman, but she was a
woman. She smelled like one, and now, as she pressed close, his cock was
getting all sorts of interested. It didn’t hurt that she had the sort of
strength to keep on fighting, even after taking so much damage. Most people
took one really good hit, and they didn’t get up again. Those people had
thought to end Da’shay, and she still fought back. She’d played her game well
enough that they never did figure out that the
Kratos
was full of spies.
There was something about a woman who didn’t give up that appealed to him, but
he couldn’t sort out which of his feelings was real. Seemed as though he should
be carrying more hate for a woman who’d had him marked as a slave.

“Ain’t liking this,” he said because he was liking it a
little too much. Maybe there was something wrong with him because he couldn’t
imagine Ramsay getting his feelings tangled up this fast.

Da’shay pulled the leash a little tighter and Tom was forced
so close that the fabric of her shirt brushed past his lips. He swallowed and
tried really hard to ignore all his feelings—both the ones that wanted to touch
her and the ones that wanted to punch her so hard that she’d feel it for a
week.

With her free hand, she brushed hair back out of his face.
Tom hadn’t realized he was sweating until her fingers slid over the damp skin.
“Not going to do more than touch.”

Tom snorted. That wasn’t worrying him one way or another.
She could beat the shit out of him or push him down and ride him, but none of
that was as worrisome as the feelings that were getting all tangled up in his
head.

“Show them that I need you.”

“That’s not far of a stretch. You just about got arrested
for punching some random idiot,” Tom pointed out. Focusing on Da’shay’s faults
was a lot more comfortable than trying to sort through his own feelings.

“Can’t focus. Swimming through water, deviation of light
from its original path so that all objects are distorted, moved, larger than
reality,” she whispered. She closed her eyes, and even as bad as Tom was at
reading people, Da’shay in particular, he could see just how tired she was.

“With diamonds in the water?”

She nodded.

“I’m guessing diamonds ain’t diamonds then, but you’ll have
to give me a lot more to go on if you want me to figure that part out.” He
waited for her to go into more of her cryptic descriptions or maybe to draw
another lop sided star chart. She fingered his hair, twirling short locks as
she stared at nothing.

“Refraction dependent on angle of light. Keep moving, but
can never see true shapes.”

Tom waited for some sort of explanation, but when she
finally looked down into his face, he didn’t understand anything except that
she needed something and he didn’t know how to help.

She sighed and kept playing with his hair. “Need someone to
tell people to go away before I break their necks.”

That made him laugh. She cocked her head to the side and
frowned. “I’m more the type to do the breaking than to keep people from it,”
Tom explained.

She pulled her one hand away while still fisting his leash.
“Never broke stepfather’s neck.”

Tom jerked back so violently that he could feel the steel
collar dig into his skin as he pushed Da’shay away, his hands against her
stomach. She didn’t let go, though. Instead, she fell on top of him as he
struggled to get away. The weight surprised Tom and he collapsed back onto the
inflated sleeping pad with her on top. He froze.

“Get off.” He spoke each word carefully, ignoring the way
her weight rested on his cock.

She tilted her head to the side. “Just talking breaking
necks,” she said with a hurt expression as if he’d just insulted her. He
gritted his teeth, and kept his eyes focused on the wall of the tent.

She slid off him so that now she was lying beside him, her
arm resting on his chest, and her hand still fisting his leash. He could feel
the slight pressure of the collar around his bruised neck as she held tight.

“Lesser man would have killed stepfather,” Da’shay said
softly. “Anger like rust. An anode yielding electrons, absorbing oxygen to make
iron oxide to crumble under your fingers. But your iron resists corrosion.”

“I said I don’t want to talk about my stepfather,” Tom said
darkly. “You want to talk on anything else or give me some fucking order, fine,
but you stop discussing my family or we’re going to have that fight you were
asking about yesterday. Got it?”

She didn’t answer and he looked over to find her studying
him. His skin crawled as he wondered how far this was going to go. Sometimes
he’d won the fight with his stepfather by intentionally getting the old man
worked up and just taking some god-awful licking. That would let in just enough
guilt to get something done if he really wanted it. Part of him wanted to do
that. But Da’shay was too strong, and as much as her mind seemed to be
constantly slipping away, Tom figured she’d kill him sooner or later if he made
this a regular feature of their relationship. However, if she really pushed
things, he was very willing to go down that road again. Bruises healed. Guilt
tended to stick around a little longer, so some things were just worth a good
bruising.

Her head was tilted to the side and it looked as if she
wasn’t even breathing. “No discussing family,” she finally agreed in a quiet
voice. She unwound his leash from her hand and practically crawled over him to
get off his sleeping pad.

Tom blew out a relieved breath. “You hold to that and I’ll
play actor,” he told her. “I ain’t sure I can do it too well, but I’ll do my
best.”

She looked at him for a minute. “Sit up.”

With a sigh, Tom sat on the edge of the bed and didn’t react
when she caught his leash just under the collar again. “Hands,” she said and
Tom forced himself to take a deep breath as he put them back on his knees.

“So, if you want to play slave owner and slave, you have to
do something for me,” he said.

“Am doing something. More words excised from the brain,” she
pointed out.

Tom frowned, not sure he understood that.

“No discussing short men with inferior genetic lines and
poor parenting paradigms,” she tried again. It still took Tom a second to
understand she’d taken him literally and wasn’t going to use the word
stepfather. He couldn’t help but smile. For
gentas
, calling someone
genetically inferior was about the worst insult they could come up with.
Considering how Kevan Teppe’s genetic sons had come out—weak, back-stabbing
little weasels—Da’shay might even be right.

Tom shook his head. “Deal is that you don’t talk about
genetically inferior men in return for me not starting a fight we both know
I’ll lose and you’ll feel guilty about.”

She frowned. “Guilt would be illogical when—” She stopped in
the middle of her sentence and cocked her head to the side as she stared at Tom
as if she was waiting for him to say something. Crazy
genta
.