Page 137 of Seven Oars
She pointed the gun at him… but before she finished moving her wrist, he slapped it from her hand, sending it rolling across the floor.
“Told you.Be quick.Or lose your advantage.”
He rose and quietly walked away, kicking the weapon back toward her with his boot.
Chapter 19
“That is a real game changer,” Gro said.“I wish he’d given it to you sooner.”
Rosamma, Eze, and Gro sat cross-legged on the floor in a tight little circle with the gun in the middle like an occult object.
“He never intended for any of us to have a gun,” Rosamma said morosely.“He knows the risks. He only gave it to me because of what happened to Daphne.”
As they stared at the gun, as if it were a scrying bowl, Eze remained mostly quiet.
“Yet the Striker did give it to you,” she pointed out as she picked up the gun, sliding the regulator down and back up. She glanced at Rosamma with silent inquiry.
“Because of Massar,” Rosamma mumbled.“He knows he’s dangerous.”
“He knows an awful lot about you, Rosamma.” Eze put the gun down with a light thud.“And he very obviously doesn’t want to lose you.”
Eze’s attention unsettled her, and Rosamma lowered her eyes.
“I don’t think he wants to lose anybody.”
Her hand found the end of her braid, following her unbreakable habit.
He’d told her before that he didn’t kill his captives. Only, she hadn’t believed him then.
She wasn’t sure she believed him now or go so far as to call him their protector. But he’d stepped in, subtly, putting the brakes on the pirates’most dangerous impulses. In his own way, he’d shielded the women, just enough to make a difference… for those who remained alive.
“So what do we want to do with it?” Gro asked, pointing at the gun.
“We’ll stash it here, at the Cargo Hold,” Eze said confidently.“If things get dire, the three of us will know where to reach for it.”
Rosamma nodded, satisfied with this arrangement.
*****
As days passed, life on Seven Oars achieved a weird equilibrium.
The pirates still hung out in the Habitat, doing what they always had under the earsplitting sounds of their“music,” swathed in toxic smoke from the drugs Thilza had evidently gotten back. Fawn was a fixture there now, absorbed into their degenerate fold.
Anske sequestered herself with Galan somewhere in the Crew Quarters.
Meanwhile, the Cargo Hold with Rosamma, Eze, and Gro might as well have ceased to exist. The pirates showed no interest in them anymore. Even Phex visited rarely, caught in the no-man’s-land: not truly a victim, but neither a part of the savage team that ran this freak show.
Rosamma didn’t complain about the inattention. She treasured the relative peace and the company of her friends.
But the creeping desolation was getting harder to deny.
How could they ever hope to get away when only the three of them even seemed to care?
With each passing day, their hope shrank a little more.
And while they hadn’t spoken about it yet, they all knew their food supply wouldn’t last the rest of their natural lives.
Spend the rest of my natural life on Seven Oars?
