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So I head to the lavatory to brush my teeth and get ready for bed, and try not to think about how the sink was just defiled...and how I can't stop obsessing over it and how he touched himself. I change quickly into my night tunic (another one of his old tunics, this one a pull-over that hasn't been resized and hangs off me like a dress) and emerge into his quarters again. The lights have been turned low in preparation for sleep. Kazex has his pallet set up in front of the door, like he always does. He's stripped to the waist, his tattoos stark against his bare skin, and he's laying atop the blankets, his hands behind his head.
There's another bed in the room, directly across from mine. This room sleeps two crew members, with two single beds. It’s Erzah’s bed since the reshuffle, but every time I come over, I never see him in it. Kaz is rarely in his room, either. He sleeps outside my door, insisting he wants to protect me and to make me feel safer. That more than anything, he wants me to feel secure. Normally I try not to let it bother me. He's a grown man. If he wants to sleep in a bed, he can.
Tonight, though, I'm bothered by the pallet. I'm bothered by him picking something that's clearly uncomfortable in an effort to make me more at ease. He works hard for Lord Straik, and I know sometimes he's aching after a hard workout. Sleeping on the floor can't be helping that. "You can sleep in the bed, you know. I'm not scared."
"We're docked," he tells me as if that explains everything. "The ship could be boarded at any time. It's better if I protect you."
"You can still protect me from the other bed. You'd hear someone coming before they ever got in the room."
"I'm fine here."
I climb under the covers and turn the light off, but I can't sleep. I just keep thinking about Kazex and how he put his head in my lap earlier. How he insisted that he was mine. How he gave me everything I wanted and...I backed away again like a coward.
Ugh. I hate myself sometimes.
I flick on the light and move to the door. I hit the switch to open it and lean over the door jamb to look down at Kaz. "Come to bed."
"I'll sleep here to protect you."
"No," I say, and point at my bunk. "Come to bed. With me."
Kaz sits up, and I could swear his eyes seem darker. Hungrier. "I shouldn't."
I'm confused at his response. "But?—"
"It might be too much for me," he answers quickly. "But thank you."
"Ah." I'm disappointed, though. I liked sleeping curled up against him. I liked waking up and feeling his warm, hard body against mine. I felt safe, and loved, and protected. I'm just being greedy, though. If it's too much for him, it's too much. I turn the light off again and let the door slide shut. "Good night, then."
I'm in chains. They drag against my wrists and ankles, tearing into my flesh.
My feet are bare and cold against the metal floors of the lab. I stare at the floor, because my head is too heavy to lift. I'm so tired...
"Bring her this way." It's a stranger's voice, and he's speaking a language that is strange and garbled, yet I somehow understand it.
"What about the others?" another person says.
Others?
I lift my head, and as I do, I see I'm in a long hallway. There are rows and rows of tubes lining the hall, and in each tube, a woman floats in a strange liquid. Each woman has dark hair and looks like me. I pass one with piercings on her brow and one in her lip, and the same scalp-close haircut. Her eyes open as I walk past, and she pulls the breather out of her mouth.
Help me.
I turn and run, but my feet are weighed down by the chains. I make it to the end of the hall, and I turn down another. This one has more tubes, and in these, the women are thrashing, desperate to break free. They're drowning because someone forgot to give them breathers. They want help, but I can't help them.
Someone grabs me from behind and slips a breather over my mouth. I scream and scream and scream even as I'm shoved into a tube and the water comes up around me...
I wake up sobbing, coughing on water that doesn't exist. I flail against the bed, desperate to get up, to run away, to save the others. To do something.
"Hey," says a familiar voice. Warm hands grip my shoulders. The door is open, light spilling in from the hall. "Hey, I'm right here, Ruthie."
Biting back a whimper, I nod frantically. "Sorry. Bad dream. I'm fine."
