Page 4 of Aurelian Prisoner

I head into the change room. There are a few girls in there already, all in various stages of undress. They’re sitting, standing -chatting… I give the girls polite nods and smiles as I pass. I don’t want to come off as rude, but I don’t really relate to any of them – and I’m not here to make friends. I just try to keep my head down instead. There’s a brutal, social pecking order around here – and I have no interest in getting involved in it.

Besides, there’s no point investing in the time and effort to make friends when you need to be able to leave everything and anything behind at a moment’s notice.

I’ve never really had friends, but I can’t say I miss it. The only real friend I ever had was my sister – and she just proved that having friends opens your heart to misery, loneliness and grief.

Gods! If you’re listening - please let her be alive out there, somewhere! Please, let my sister be okay. I miss her so much.

A shadow falls across my path. It’s Brienne – a dark-haired temptress who takes guys ofanyspecies back to the pleasure room for the right price; although she charges considerably more for Toads. She stalks up to me, her wavy hair bouncing past her shoulders as she sashays in those five-inch heels she seems to have been born wearing.

“Well,” Brienne pauses, putting her hands on her curvaceous hips. “How’d you do tonight?”

I shrug.

“Fine.”

I’m not going to tell her exactly how many credits I picked up. Brienne takes pride that she’s the biggest earner for the club – and I’ve got no interest in competing with her.

My only interest is survival.

It’s always been about survival for me. I was only eighteen-years-old when I first learned that you have to be prepared to do anything andeverythingto survive.

Back then, I was working on a mining ship, near the periphery – doing menial jobs with my sister for board and food. The ship itself could barely afford to keep itself running, and so when the maintenance robots had finally broken down, the owners had decided to hire a couple of orphans for the four-week journey instead.

Those orphans were me and my sister. We never had parents – but we’d always looked out for each other.

That was until we were hit by space-pirates mid-journey; and my little sister was taken for ransom.

My little sister. Lilac… Lilac…

I’d had to do what I’d had to do. I would have killed any man or woman in the universe to save my sister – but Aurelians don’t like law-breakers.

That’s why I’d ended up on the Aurelian Capture List. They wanted me to serve twenty years for what I’d had to do to try and save my sister. To those gargantuan, God-like aliens – who live for thousands of years – a twenty-year sentence is nothing.

To me, though, it would be my entire youth. I’d leave jail middle-aged, withnothing.

But the sickest part?

After everything I’d done to get that ransom money – to save my sister – the space-pirates had never even showed up to the rendezvous. They’d not turned up to collect their ill-gotten gains, in return for my sister. I’d never seen her since.

I pray to the Gods – the same ones I barely believe in – that Lilac is somehow safe out there. I wish I had the resources to go and find her, but it’s all I can do to eke out a threadbare existence on this rock of a planet, Bara-KitosE – let alone leave.

For now.

I plunk myself down on a rotating chair and kick off my heels. My feet ache – but they’re far from the only thing causing me discomfort right now.

For example, Brienne apparently isn’t satisfied with the answer I’d given her – and she crosses her arms, staring down at me pointedly.

“I heard your little conversation with Obbit through the door,” Brienne warns me coolly. “Those businessmen aremine.Don’t you try to approach them.”

Businessmen? Ugh, I remember now.

From the Rogue Aurelians to any of the other customers out there tonight, there were plenty of leering men who probably described themselves as “businessmen.” Brienne was probably referring to the man in the business suit who’d shoved that cash between my teeth, and his leering buddies. He was the only one who’d propositioned me with the invitation back to his place.

I shuddered.As if.

But Brienne clearly can’t believe that I’d turn down the extra credits I’d earn by going back to the hotel room of a crowd of visiting businessmen – or, even more conveniently, taking them back to the VIP room here at Spur’s. There, they could be milked out of a fortune for bottles of fancy liquors… but it would be in return for the promise ofmorethan just a private dance.

I’ll never go into that room. I’ll never give up my morals for easy money.

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