AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The passagedidlook like a dead end, and even when they reached the end Alina didn’t see that it was anything but until Julia shoved her shoulder into the corner, dislodging a panel just enough to dig in her fingertips.
“Security corridor,” she muttered quietly over her shoulder. “Used to be authed. Not anymore.”
The corridor was entirely unlit and so narrow that theyhad to walk in a single-file line, and soon enough the floor descended into a seemingly endless set of stairs. All Alina had to go by was Julia’s breathing up ahead, and that had almost been drowned out by her own increasingly ragged panting. The dreadful urge to tell Julia that this was a bad idea, to turn back and not do anything that could ruin her standing with Threxin, grew increasingly acute.
What if they got caught? What if they gotkilledbefore Threxin even heard what was going on? What if they kept them alive and brought them to him, and he’d think she betrayed him? But delivering medicine and bringing up samples wasnota betrayal—how could it be? It wasn’t hurting Threxin or the uhyre, only helping her own people, which had always been the point.
Her ruminations were cut short when a sliver of light appeared in front of her. Julia had shouldered open another maintenance door, her silhouette slinking through to the other side.
The smell made her neck hairs stand on end before she even left the passage. Alina placed a hand to her nose instinctively as if that would help. It did not. It was a sour stench assaulting her nostrils. It was carnal and disgusting, and it made her want torun. Instead, she held her breath and nudged through the small opening and onto the Common Residence Deck.
She stepped out into a small alcove, where Julia was talking in hushed voices with a man. Alina moved to the edge of it, where the expanse of the Common Residence Deck was unveiled.
It was dim like the command deck, but bright enough to see all she needed. Alina hadn’t quite been able to picture what an extra three hundred and sixty souls would look like down here before. It looked like flimsy tents pitched up through the floor, some tucked in shadowy corners and others in the middle of the deck. It looked like vandalized cabindoors lining the walls, each of them firmly shut in contrast to how she was used to seeing them. It was a sense of claustrophobic crowding and fear, even though there weren’t that many actual people visible out in the open—maybe a few hundred at most. And it was hot—so hot. Most wore almost no clothes at all, their bony limbs on full display. They moved slowly, some limping, some not bothering to cover chesty coughs.
Alina thought they had it tough up on the command deck, living under the constant guard of the uhyre. She realized they’d had it easy in comparison. They weren’t all skin and bones, and they didn’t smell like they hadn’t had a shower in days. How much water were these people getting, anyway?
How could Threxin do something like this?
He thinks we’re pests, that’s how.
Alina felt sick to her stomach as the extent of the special treatment she’d been getting sank in.Thisis what people had to live through under Threxin’s command while he slept in her bed. He’d shown her what he was many times, and she chose to overlook it all, thinking he was not that cruel, not that indifferent. He hurt people, killed them, and was now tormenting them down here.
If any of this—saving him, getting close to him, all of it—will have been worth it, Alina had to stop wasting time and make himdosomething about this.
A quiet clatter behind her turned her back to Julia. The man she’d been talking to had placed two metal toolboxes on the floor.
“Get this to her right away, okay?” Julia muttered quietly, shifting her gaze to the CRD. Her hand briefly met the man’s, a pillbox handed over quickly. There were no uhyre on this deck that she could see, which led Alina to believe it was other people that she was hiding the meds from. God, they already had one riot the night Threxin was attacked… What would people do for medication if they noticed?
The man nodded, stashing the box in his pocket with a tattooed hand. He glanced over at her, shadowed eyes scrutinizing.
“She’s good,” Julia said before he could ask. “We can trust her.”
He didn’t look so sure, but nodded. “All right. Get these to Manda quick. Some of them need to be chilled.”
“Let’s go,” Julia motioned Alina over. “Grab one of these.”
The boxes were maintenance toolboxes, exactly the kind they used at the docks. It made sense—two dockworkers carrying toolboxes wouldn’t look strange.
Alina was somewhere else as they took the passage stairs back to the command deck. She kept tripping in the darkness as her leg grew fatigued, and they had to stop several times for her to catch her breath and rub her knee.
“We’re almost there,” Julia had said, helping Alina rub her knee. “I’m sorry I made you do this. Usually a nurse from the medbay comes with me, but she couldn’t today.”
Probably Manda. That’s who the guy mentioned.
“It’s okay,” Alina insisted. “I… I needed to see that.”
“We’re close to the medbay at the exit point, so all we need to do is hand these over,” Julia said.
Alina nodded and shoved her bangs out of her face. For what, she didn’t know—not like she could see anything. She felt for the toolbox at her side and picked it up, finding the wall with her other hand. “Let’s keep moving.”
Julia took her to the medbay through quieter passages, and they’d managed to avoid most of the uhyre patrol checkpoints on the way. Alina was pretty sure they were spotted a couple of times, but two dockworkers’ presence with some toolboxes didn’t seem to raise any particular alarm, especially considering the medbay was on the way to the rear dock.
The handover of the samples went smoothly. They were waved into an exam room, where the nurse Manda quickly transferred the vials and tubes from the boxes to a chillbox.
“You should really take it easy with that leg still, Alina,” Manda commented as she led them toward the exit doors of the medbay. “Rest up for the rest of the day.”
Her kneewasaching by that point, and Alina couldn’t wait to get to her cabin and rest it under a warm five-minute shower.
