Page 18 of Sold to the Nalgar
“Do not resist,” the squat alien warned.
“Go to hell!” she spat. “You disgusting pricks!”
The collar fired.
Pain exploded across her throat, searing white-hot. She screamed, her knees buckling.
“That pain can become a thousand times worse,” the voice intoned calmly.
She collapsed against the wall, trembling, gasping.
Then the wall shifted.
Restraints slid out, coiling around her wrists, her ankles, her waist.
Click. Click. Click.
She was pinned, the collar deactivating but leaving its burn ghosting her skin.
The alarm sounded overhead. Red lights swept the ceiling. The ship groaned.
Cecilia hung there, chest heaving, robe gaping, the purple fabric mocking her.
Not a person.
Not even a prisoner.
Just cargo.
She closed her eyes as another shudder rolled through the ship.
I will survive this,she promised herself.Iwillsurvive this. And I hope they all die and burn in whatever hell is waiting for them.
CHAPTER 9
The ship shuddered so violently it felt like the universe itself had split open.
Cecilia screamed.
The restraints snapped her back against the smooth metal wall, holding her rigid as the chamber pitched violently. Her stomach lurched as if gravity had turned inside out. Light exploded in her vision when her head struck the wall behind her, the pain dazing her for a breathless second.
Another boom—louder this time, like something tearing through the ship’s bones.
She barely had time to think before the vessel lurched again. The floor seemed to drop out from under her. Upside down, sideways—she couldn’t tell. None of it mattered. She was pinned, helpless, dragged with every violent jolt as the ship bucked like a dying beast.
A grinding roar ripped through the air—metal shearing apart or exploding, she couldn’t tell which.
The lights above her flickered once, twice, then flared a blood-red hue.
Cecilia gasped for air, her breath ragged, her heart hammering so fast it felt like it might burst.
Then came the next blast.
A deafening shockwave tore through the hull, rattling the chamber with the force of a thunderclap inside her skull. The wall behind her trembled so hard she thought her bones might splinter under the strain.
Was it weapons fire?
A collision?
