Rescuing Ash

Chapter Fourteen

Time had passed as she stared at the familiar letters of the Genome. It astounded her that despite the physical differences, Trevorians were so damn similar to her own people. Sure, their reactions to women were certainly different...or were they? Men on her world were...well...men. They took what they wanted and the only thing that stopped them was the thought of displeasing a higher power. No, not God but rather a person of superior station to them. That was the only reason she hadn’t been raped by the many male officers in the prison. She was subjected to humiliation and torment. That had been fine. But violating her could have angered the General who was the warden of that particular vessel. With inmates too dangerous for anyone other than a brutal and battle hardened General.

Since General Roubideau didn’t have to regularly answer to anyone about something as simple as a government slave, she was nothing more than a pawn in his hand to be used and destroyed if it moved his plans forward. She’d made the choice not to be used. If he wanted to know if the two races were compatible, Sadie had said no in the hopes he’d have to find another person. Instead, he used her choice against her and chose to destroy her. That is exactly what rape does. Destroy.

It was terribly hard to make a judgement about a whole race when she’d only met four men. Though, they had made a judgement about her race on Sonar 7 with nothing more than a few television shows meant for the spoiled, snobbish, and wealthy.

She heard some noises against the wall and realized that Ash was probably putting his room back together. His temper was certainly one she’d never seen the likes of before. It should have frightened the crap out of her, but it didn’t. Noise came from the bathroom and she heard the shower turn on and her door lock. As if she was going to barge in on him. Sadie frowned.

Her head throbbed as the colored letters of their genomic patterns began to blur together in front of her eyes. She’d already determined that of the twenty-three pairs of chromosomes that make up all humans, Trevorian’s have twenty-four. By those standards, though they were very humanoid, they were not humans. Ancient ways of thinking would have said that their two species could not cross breed, but that wasn’t true. It was up to how the proteins reacted and she wagered it was extremely possible that those proteins would react as normally as they would in a two humans. Though, that mattered little to her now. Now it was about figuring out what was wrong with their females.

Doc had provided a female Trevorian’s RNA and DNA for her to look at. She was not actually comparing her own RNA and DNA that had been taken from her. Domehow Doc had already broken everything down for her. Sadie had no idea how Doc had managed such a feat so quickly. Now, the true struggle would be deciphering what each chain of chemicals is related to. She had only some knowledge to go on.

There was a knock on the door to the hallway. At least they knocked. Knowing it wasn’t Ash she told them to come in. The door slid open to reveal Doc standing with a tray in his hand. He eyed her strangely and she supposed she looked ridiculous sitting in the corner of the room rather than in the cushioned chair or her bed. Hell, even the table that doubled as a desk would have been better. But the corner seemed safe. Something solid against her back and it had a way of making the room look bigger. If she’d faced the window, her back would have been to the door, and out of habit, it wasn’t a comfortable place to be. The only reason she’d slept in Ash’s chair with her back facing the door was because he was in the room, and she knew she’d wake him if she’d tried to move the thing.

“Ash said he didn’t think you’ve eaten anything today so I brought you some dinner.”

Dinner? Holy crap, how long had she been staring at the tablet?

“I didn’t realize he’d left his room.” Her voice was bitter and she hated it.

“He didn’t,” Doc murmured as he set the tray down on the table. Turning to face her, he pointed at his head.