Page 14 of Fighting Gravity
I watched the pouch hit my foot and then lifted my eyes, unamused. She was fiery, but that flame would get her far.
“How easy it would be to rip you apart,” I snarled in my own tongue. “You do not even know how little it would take to skin you alive.”
She paused again, her body going stiff like the sound of my voice tickled her, but she didn’t like it. She rolled her shoulders, shaking her head as if coming off a drug.
“Knock that off,” she said, quickly rubbing her arms until the tiny bumps disappeared.
It took me a moment to understand what was wrong with her.
“Ahh, my Thel is bothering you,” I spoke, amused by the fact.
“I said, stop.”
“Stop what?” I replied, using her language so she could understand my words. “Stop speaking?”
“Yes!” she snapped.
I leaned forward, slamming my hands on the table on either side of her and moving in close. “Let me clarify something for you,human.You’re a prisoner and one my entire crew wants to kill, including me. I’d take great pleasure in choking the life out of you right now, but I believe you can be useful. Am I wrong?” Abruptly, I lifted my hand to her slender throat and dug my talons into the sides of her neck. “Because if I am, now is the time to make peace with your gods.”
5: Quinn
When the big, brutish alien released my throat, I swore my whole life flashed before my eyes.
And it wasn’t finished. No matter how much I wanted to antagonize the guy, I wasn’t done living. I realized that the moment I was taken off my shuttle and locked in a tiny cell for days. But… ugh! I couldn’t help myself. Talking back to assholes was second nature. I had never, and probably would never learn my lesson. I wanted to see all creatures like him get knocked off their pedestals.
Norm stepped away, giving me enough space to move. I hopped off the table and onto the floor. When my feet hit the cold metal, however, my legs just collapsed beneath me and I fell right down. Reaching up, I grabbed the ledge of the examination bed and pulled myself up with no help from my captor. Standing on wobbly feet with a lot of help from the bed, I tried to get feeling back in my legs by wriggling my toes and slapping my thighs with my fist. Norm watched my every motion like I was dog doing tricks.
“Stop staring,” I demanded.
Instead, he stepped toward me, invading my bubble again. “How much do you eat?” he asked.
“Huh? I don’t know. Two-thousand calories or so. But I lift, so sometimes I eat more.”
“Lift?”
“Yeah. Like, weights.” I tried to flex my bicep, but my arm sort of flopped back down to my side. Guess I wasn’t really awake yet.
“What’s a kalaris?”
“Acalorieis how we measure how much food to eat to meet certain goals. It’s, I don’t know, a measure of energy. I wanna fit in a cockpit, but I also want to lift big boxes over my head.” I stopped, sizing him up. “And kick dickheads in the face.”
“Are you saying you are strong for your species?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I can do a few pull-ups, yeah. I’m no athlete, but I’m a physically able version of humans if that’s what you’re asking.”
He laughed lightly as if I had just told a joke. “You are so small and breakable. I can’t see how you are strong.”
“I’m tall for a human woman, actually,” I said, taking offense at everything he was saying.
He raised a brow… err… stripe. Slight patterns on his green skin made the illusion of brows, but looking at him closer, I noticed there was not a single trace of hair on him.
“So, you are larger for a human female,” he listed. “Fitter. If you are the best example of a capable human, I can see that humans won’t be a threat.”
“Really? Because valerians seem to think our military power is good enough to trade for syfer.”
“That ship was no indication of your military power I hope.”
“Thatshipwas a trade vessel with civilians on it. Not soldiers,” I said through my teeth. “And you slaughtered them all.”
