“Dylan!” Andromeda showed up on the screen, looking agitated. “Beka’s trying to launch the Maru!” He turned around with a disbelieving expression on his face.
“What?!? Stop her!”
“Hangar bay doors secured. Dylan, she’s not stopping!”
“What is she going to do? What does she think she’s…Rommie, I thought she was fine now!”
“Fine is a…relative term. Obviously.”
“Call Trance, tell her to meet me down there. I’m going. Keep those doors closed, Rommie!” He rushed down the corridors as fast as he could, until Andromeda’s hologram turned up next to him.
“Dylan! She’s blasted through the doors!” He stopped dead in his tracks.
“What? She can’t do that!”
“Obviously she can. The Maru must be pretty bashed up but she’s still flying.”
“God, Rommie, do you have any idea how dangerous this is? She’s all alone out there and she’s…well, she’s not quite sane! Can you track her?”
“I’m not sure…Dylan, this makes no sense. She obviously doesn’t know what she’s doing, and I would assume she’s half in shards, but the way she’s disguising herself…I’m confused, Dylan.”
“Are you saying we can’t find her?”
“I’m saying I don’t understand how she, in her mental state, could hide herself like this. I will find her, but perhaps not as quickly as would be preferable.”
“Well,” Dylan said, on the verge of a nervous outburst, “get started then!” She stared him down.
“I already am,” she said calmly before blinking out. Dylan spun around on his heel, unsure what way to go when he saw Trance rounding the corner as fast as her legs would take her.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Dylan, what’s going on?”
“She…Beka’s escaped.” Trance frowned.
“What, medbay?”
“The ship! She’s left, on the Maru.” Trance’s eyes widened.
“What?!? But…I thought she was getting better.” She sank down on the floor. “Where has she gone?”
“We don’t know yet.” Dylan buried his face in his hands. “I don’t know what to do about her Trance. Is it just me or do things just keep getting worse and worse?”
Trance didn’t reply.
****
Beka wasn’t sure where she was going, and she wasn’t sure she even cared. The voice in her head was dulling, but kept egging her on, telling her where she was going. It was almost comforting to rely on it, not to have to think. Even as she flew the Maru, she felt it wasn’t her hands steering. Someone else was holding her hands, going with the flow, letting her rest and just follow with it. She felt like she could fly for ages to get wherever she was going and it wouldn’t matter, whatever happened she’d be safe…
Suddenly she saw a small ship, and she knew that’s where she was going. It was smaller than the Maru and almost without any power of her own, she had let the ship dock. Closing her eyes, she waited.
****
“Dylan, I’ve located her.”
“Set a course!” He stood up from where he’d been slumped in the pilot’s chair. Beka’s chair. “What’s our ETA?”
“I’d say we could be there in five to ten minutes. She’s not moving anymore.”
“Right,” Dylan nodded. He grabbed the controls. “Bring us to slipstream.”
****
And finally she met him. The voice in her head. He was there, and she couldn’t fight anymore. She didn’t want to fight. He took her clothes off and strapped her wrists and ankles to a bunk, Harper’s bunk she thought it was, and she let him. There was no point not to. She lay back, staring at nothing as he tightened the straps and stood up again, leering down at her.
“You wonder why I’m doing this, don’t you?” She didn’t reply. “I know you do. I know you’re probably asking yourself why I’d want to do this to you.” He stroked her cheek gently. “Or are you too far gone for that? I guess so…but I’ll tell you anyway.”
He suddenly struck her hard across the face. Her head flew to the side and stayed there. She was strangely relaxed. The pain, it didn’t seem to matter. She had a strange feeling he was hitting her again but wasn’t sure anymore. She closed her eyes. Drifting off seemed so tempting…then he started talking again.
“You ruined my life, you little…whore, you little…” she thought she heard skin against skin again but the sting seemed dulled. “You took it all from me. I had it all. I was no monster, Rebekah. I ran a respectable establishment. You could say I saved those girls. Are you proud of yourself, of what you’ve done? Now, the girls who get raped on that drift, they’ll have nowhere to go at all, because I’m not there to save them. I’m not pretending I was a samaritan, but because of you they’ll die. They’ll get raped night after night until they get killed, and it’s all your fault. You took their lives like you took mine, so I think it’s only fair…”
He got up and smiled at her. Tiredly she lifted her eyes to look at him. She felt herself drifting off. There was nothing left…
“Once I’m done with you…I’m going to take yours.”
