“Is he hurting you?” I asked, feeling anger bubbling up inside. “Hitting you?”
Natalie looked uneasy.
“No…not yet, anyway. R’xs is the kind who likes to ‘talk things out’ before he gets physical. When I first joined his ‘stable,’ he agreed that I would only have to sell my blood,notmy body.” She lifted her chin. “I can stand being bitten twenty times a day but I don’t think I could live with myself if I had to be a ‘fuck and suck’ girl instead of just a ‘suck girl.’”
“Of course,” I said quietly. I had the feeling she needed to talk about this to someone—maybe had been needing to for a long time. “How long have you been here?” I asked.
“How long?” She passed a hand over her face and I saw a bracelet of bite marks around her slim wrist. “Oh sweet Jesus,monthsI think, but it feels like years. Every day here is the same—freezing my ass off and just praying I’ll get enough customers who want to taste ‘exotic blood’ to make enough money to eat and pay R’xs his cut.” She shivered miserably and I felt so bad for her I wanted to cry.
“Well, you don’t have to live like that anymore,” I said, frowning. “You’re going to come with me and Sir—we’ll take you away from all this.”
Natalie shook her head fearfully.
“I don’t dare go with you. R’xs had me implanted with a chip that will track my location. No matter how far I go, he’d come after me and bring me back. And then…” She shivered. “He’d do horrible things to me! I know, because one of the other girls, Ger’tha, tried to run away with a customer she liked. They got as far as O’nagga Nine’s fifth moon before R’xs caught up with them.”
“He chased them that far?” I asked, frowning.
She nodded.
“He killed the customer but he brought Ger’tha back and he…” She swallowed hard and I saw raw horror in her big brown eyes. “He made an example of her.”
“Made an example of her?” I asked, frowning.
Natalie shivered but I could tell it wasn’t from the cold.
“I don’t want to tell you the details.” Her voice was raw. “She…has to wear a hood that covers her face now—she’s so disfigured that the customers wouldn’t come near her if they could see what she looks like.”
“What an evil bastard!” I exclaimed indignantly.
“That’s R’xs,” Natalie said bleakly. “Like I said, he told me I only have to sell my blood, but I’m afraid he’s going to change his mind if he gets many more requests for ‘hsh’fruxpussy.’”
“Istillthink you should come with me,” I told her. “Didn’t I tell you that Sir can break things with his mind? He can protect you. Plus, we’re going all the way to another galaxy—I’m sure your pimp couldn’t follow youthere.”
Natalie sighed.
“It’s not like I don’t appreciate the offer, but this sounds like it might be an ‘out of the frying pan, into the fire’ type situation, as my Granny used to say. How do I know that being a ‘pet’ will be any better than being a Blood Whore? And besides, I just want to go back to Earth and it sounds like you’re going in the opposite direction.”
I opened my mouth to argue with her…and closed it again. I vividly remembered Sir saying that Natalie might “belong” to another male and that he couldn’t take someone else’s property. As much as I liked my Master, this idea that people could be bought and sold was a serious flaw in his character. He might very well refuse to take Nathalie away from her pimp and then she would be worse off than before if the pimp found out she was trying to get away.
“Is thereanythingI can do for you, since you won’t come with me?” I asked, feeling terrible.
Nathalie gave a broken little laugh.
“Huh—I guess I could ask you to take a message back to my folks—ifyou ever get back to Earth. But what are you gonna tell them? ‘Hey, Natalie’s fine—she’s just working as a Blood Whore on a frozen planet fifty thousand light years away from Earth?’” She snorted. “Yeah, I’m sure that would go over justgreat.”
“But Natalie—” I began. But just then a deep, tolling sound began to boom out, echoing through all the tunnels.Gong…gong…gong…
“Oh my God—is itthatlate?” Natalie jumped up, her eyes going wide.
“Why? What time is it? What’s happening?” I looked around and saw that the area was almost completely clear and the only people around were hurrying away, making their way to different tunnels as fast as they could.
“It’s almost time for the Sweepers to come out.” Natalie’s eyes were full of fear. “We can’t be caught in the Central Hub when they do or we’ll get chewed up or pushed out into the night. And as cold as days are on O’nagga nine, nights are ten timesworse.”She looked around frantically. “I have to get back to my hole. You better come too—or else go back to your ‘Master’ right away!”
“I’ll go back to Sir,” I told her. “But I have to dosomething,for you before I go. I can’t just leave you here!”
Natalie shook her head.
“There’s nothing you can do for me, though I appreciate you wanting to. I’m stuck here, freezing my ass off, probably for the rest of my life.” She sighed. “However long that might be.”