I am prepared for Barrett to be like Varian. I am ready to make him happy and keep him happy. To earn my place. Because there’s violence in him. I can hear it rumbling in the underbelly of every grunt and growl that slips up his throat. I can see it peeking out at me from behind the scowl he wears like it’s part of his prison uniform. I can feel it in the way his muscles shake with the effort to hold back anger when he gets frustrated, mostly with his own inability to speak.

So at first, I walk on eggshells, waiting for his temper to show itself. He insists that I owe him nothing, but there’s no one else here to strike out at when the pressure I can feel building inside him eventually erupts. I brace myself and wait for it.

But that eruption never comes. Not even after six weeks with me by his side nearly every second of the day.

He’s not like Varian. Well, he is, in a way. They’re both violent men, but unlike Varian, that’s not all Barrett is.

He doesn’t try to kick me out anymore. And he doesn’t try to leave me behind. Every morning, he gives me a cookie or a brownie for breakfast and he insists I take a vitamin. He doesn’t seem to mind my chatter, and when he catches me singing, his whole face lights up.

I think he likes music. I wish I knew more songs.

We go on long walks every day, just to be out in the sun. Barrett says I need the exercise. At least, I think that’s what he’s trying to tell me, when he squeezes his hand in front of his chest, like a beating heart, then walks the fingers of one hand across his opposite palm. He’s saying I need cardio, for stamina. Because I passed out that first day. Because they didn’t let me exercise on Station Alpha, and I got weak. Although the truth is that I was already weak.

But I’m getting stronger all the time. Not as strong as Barrett, though. He spends hours every day doing exercises that involve lifting his own weight in various ways, since there are no weight benches or exercise machines out here. His body is like a beautiful sculpture. No, it’s like a weapon. Like a blade he keeps sharpened, just in case. I want to touch him all the time. And he lets me, even when he's busy.

Sometimes I crawl all over him, just because.

We have sex a lot, and it’s always just the two of us, because he doesn’t have any friends. He makes sure I come first. Then again. I like to ride him outside in the daylight. I like to smell the grass and feel the sun on my head.

I like the way his eyes look in bright sunshine. Pale blue, as if there’s a light peeking out at me from the darkness inside him. And he smiles sometimes, now. Which is how I know he has a dimple. Just one of them, in his right cheek. His dimple is so cute, surrounded by dark scruff. It’s like his dimple doesn’t know Barrett is big, and strong, and that he mostly speaks in grunts, even though he’s capable of a whole range of non-verbal vocal sounds.

His dimple hides when he scowls, but then it always comes out to play again when I make him laugh. Like when I dance around the shelter naked. Or when I kiss his nose. He pretends he hates that, but his dimple can’t lie.

The hardest times are at night. It’s difficult to sleep, knowing I might wake up with his hands around my throat. Knowing that just because he doesn’t want to hurt me doesn’t mean he won’t hurt me.

Twice, he has nightmares. The first time, I think I hear him say something in his sleep. Something real. It sounds like a name.

Both times, I listen and wait, and when his sleep noises start to sound angry, I take my blanket across the shelter and sleep in the opposite corner from the mattress—as far away from him as I can get. Just in case. And in the morning, everything is fine.

For just over six weeks, we see no one else. I know this is a prison planet, populated mostly with men like Varian and his guards, but Barrett seems to have found a little place no one else knows about. In part, I think that’s because he keeps the metal roof of the shelter covered by plants. Mostly vines, that he’s trained to grow over the top. I tried to help once, after a strong storm, by dragging a big, broken-off branch on top of the hatch, but he shook his head and scowled.

The next day, I understood why. Overnight, the leaves died and turned brown, and that branch stood out from the rest of the reddish vegetation. But I seriously don’t even think that would have mattered. Since I’ve been here, no one’s come close enough to even see his camouflaged shelter, standing out here all alone. At least, not that we've seen.

I asked him about that, once—why there would be a shelter out here all by itself.

He showed me a bunch of big chunks of concrete, left over from where there used to be a building. Not much of it is left now, and what’s still here has been overgrown by grass and vines. If you’re not careful, running through the field around the shelter, you could hit one of those concrete chunks and trip and bust your head open.

Barrett is always careful. He understands what a head wound can do.

Sometimes when I catch him watching me, he looks sad. No, that’s not it. He looks like he’s in pain. But he never wants to talk about it.

I can understand that. Talking about painful things never makes me feel better either. Talking about other things sometimes does, though, and so does singing. But Barrett can’t do either of those. I want to help him, but I don’t know how. So I usually just try to give him a blowjob.

Sometimes he lets me, and that does seem to make him feel better. But just as often, he refuses my offer, only to throw me down on the mattress and lick me until I scream his name. I think he may actually be keeping a mental record of all our oral, and he will not let me get ahead in the count. Which is pretty okay.

I don’t fully understand why he can’t speak, but there is nothing wrong with that man’s tongue. Which he seems determined to prove.

Then, one day, I see him sitting on the floor of the shelter, counting these little marks he makes on the wall with the burnt end of a stick, above his stack of rations. Every seventh mark is slanted across six others, dividing them into batches. I can see that he’s counting the days, organized into an Earth standard week. But I don’t know why.

I kneel behind him and drape myself over his broad, warm back, wrapping my arms around his neck. “What do the marks mean?” Then I lean down for a taste of his earlobe. He smells good. Like clean sweat and tomato pasta, from lunch.

Barrett reaches back and swings me over his shoulder onto his lap, then he nibbles his way up my neck to my mouth, where he kisses me, long and hard. He knows I’m a sucker for a good kiss.

“That’s a solid effort, on the distraction,” I say when he finally pulls away. “But what’s with the marks? Those are blowjobs, aren’t they? You’re counting your blessings?”

He rolls his eyes at me and gestures at our dwindling stack of ration envelopes. Then he makes a sound like a shuttle engine and mimes dropping something from the sky.

“Oh. A supply drop.” And presumably the slanted marks are drop days. Once every standard earth week. “We need to go to it?” He nods, and I climb out of his lap and plop down on the mattress. “There will be other men there,” I say, and he nods. “Varian might be there.”

Barrett exhales slowly, and I already know that means he’s going to say something I won’t like. He shrugs, then nods. Which means he doesn’t know for sure, but it’s possible.

I’ve gotten pretty good at understanding his signs over the past few weeks.

“He’ll kill me, Barrett.” But first he’ll make me pay for what I did.

The worst thing Varian ever did to me was the bodyguard lineup. I was hoarse for two days and I couldn’t chew without pain in my jaw for more than a week. But I got off easy, compared to poor Billy.

That won’t be the case if Varian finds me here. He’ll hurt me until I beg him to finish it.

Barrett shakes his head firmly. He’s saying he won’t let Varian near me. But just because I don’t know how to read doesn’t mean I’m stupid. I see the way he watches the horizon when we’re outside. He’s on alert, looking for threats.

There’s a reason I’ve been safe here with Barrett, and that reason is that no one knows I’m here. There don’t seem to be many women in zone three—I have no idea what happened to my friends from the Resort—and I’m pretty sure that if anyone else sees me, there’ll be a fight. Barrett’s a big guy. Stronger than Varian. And he’s a gladiator champion, but from what I understand, so are half the men in zone three. This place is populated mostly by men who are strong like Barrett, but mean like Varian.

If he has to fight more than a couple of them at once, he won’t win. They will take me. And I can’t live like that anymore. Not after the past six weeks. Not after feeling so good—so normal—for so long.

I don’t ever want to see anyone else again. Seriously. I want to live out the rest of my life here with Barrett, bathing in the stream and having sex in the sunlight. Picking flowers in the field and chasing rabbits through the woods.

One day I’ll catch one. Barrett wants to cook a rabbit, but I won’t let him cook mine. I’ll keep it as a pet. And he’ll let me because he likes me.

He doesn’t just like fucking me. He likes being with me. Every time I think about that, I get a little lightheaded. For the first time since my parents died, someone actually cares about me. I can’t give that up.

I won’t.

“I’ll just stay in the shelter,” I tell him. “You can go get whatever we need, and I’ll wait here for you.” As scared as I am at the thought of being here without him, that’s better than the alternative.

Barrett looks torn. He taps his wrist, as if he were wearing an old-fashioned wristwatch. Then he shrugs.

“I know it could be a long time. That’s okay.”

He frowns, then he points to the hatch in the ceiling. I can’t reach it.

“So, leave me a big stick, so I can push it open from down here. I need to be able to get out of here on my own, anyway, right?”

Barrett nods.

I look at the hashmarks again. “Three days until drop day?”

Another nod. But then he shrugs and pretends to look off in the distance. As if he’s searching for something. That one takes me a minute. “Oh. You don’t know where it will land?” They told us that during in-processing, before Lilli and I were pulled out of the line and sent to the Resort. They said there’d be two drops per zone, on drop day, but they would land in random locations, to keep the same people from getting to the supplies first every time.

The guards also told us to expect a brawl at the drop site. But that’s no different on Devil’s Eye than it is in the rest of the galaxy. The strong take what they want, and the weak get the leftover scraps.

Or the weak borrow something that belongs to the strong and get beaten to death.

Poor Billy.

In zone three, I suspect the weak are extra weak by comparison, because half the zone is populated by gladiator champions. If not for Barrett, I wouldn’t be able to get near any of those supplies.

That afternoon, we go out and find a big, sturdy branch, and Barrett helps me strip the twigs and leaves from it. I practice opening the hatch on my own a couple of times, and I’m not gonna lie. It’s hard. The hatch is heavy, and I am not strong. Fortunately, the ladder folds down on its own once the hatch is open.

In bed that night, I can tell from Barrett’s breathing that he’s having trouble sleeping. Hell, I can practically hear the gears in his head grinding. He needs to turn his brain off. I only know of one way to help him do that.

But when I run my fingers up his chest, through the dark curls that grow there, his hand lands on top of mine. He doesn’t push me away, but he doesn’t let me explore him either.

I reach over and click the flashlight on, so I can see his face. The worried look in his eyes scares me. “What are you thinking about?” Normally I try not to ask him open-ended questions. They’re hard for him to answer. But tonight, he needs to get it out. So he can sleep.

Yet Barrett only shakes his head, and I’m not sure if that means I shouldn’t worry about it, or that he can’t figure out how to explain. Or that explaining would be too much work. I worry about that sometimes. That talking to me is too much work for him, and he’ll eventually get tired of the effort and ask me to go.

“You look worried,” I say, and he nods. “About me, staying here alone during the drop?” Another nod. But that’s not it. There’s something more. “What else? What’s wrong, Barrett?”

Finally, he holds up the first two fingers of one hand, then traces them with his other index finger to make the letter V.

“Varian?” I ask, and the moment the name crosses my lips, Barrett begins to growl. I don’t even think he knows he’s doing it.

I’ve told him too much about Varian. At first, I did it because I needed Barrett to understand how badly I needed him. After that, I did it because he kept asking. I haven’t told him everything, though. He got so mad over what he’s heard that I can’t tell him anything more.

He’s never even met the man, yet he wants to kill him. And the truth is that that would be okay with me. I’ve seen Varian do terrible things to people. I know he deserves it. But I also know Varian won’t be alone out here. He’s good at getting people to like him. To do what he says, and to feel good about doing it—about pleasing him—even when they know what they’re doing is wrong.

And I’m not even talking about myself. I was sold to him. I had no choice. But his friends… His guards… They chose to be around Varian. They fed from him like ticks from a dog, lapping up every drop of sex and violence he tossed their way, like people on parade floats toss out candy for the masses.

I was that candy, more than once.

Barrett thinks I don’t understand how bad Varian was to me. Like I’m in denial, or something. I’m not. I know what Varian is. Fuck, do I know. I just prefer to think about the times when he was good to me. When I was in his favor. Not to remember him in a better light, but to remember myself in a better light.

“Don’t think about him,” I whisper as I snuggle closer. “He doesn’t matter. And you probably won’t see him at the drop. Even if you do, how would you recognize him? You could have seen him a dozen times since you got here, and you wouldn’t even know it. Right?”

Barrett gives me a strange look. Which is when I realize he’s not worried that he will see Varian. He’s worried that he won’t.

“Oh my god. You’re actually going to try to kill him?” I ask. Barrett gives me a solemn nod. “That’s why you agreed to leave me in the shelter? Because you do think he’ll be there?”

Barrett shrugs. And for the millionth time, I wish he could elaborate.

Sleep doesn’t come easily for either of us that night.

Pain tears through my scalp, ripping me from my dreams. I scream, and my eyes fly open. Concrete scrapes my lower back.

“Barrett!” He’s dragging me across the shelter by my hair. I clutch at his wrist, trying to keep him from ripping my hair out by the roots. “Wake up! It’s me! Please!”

He reaches the end of the shelter in just a few steps, and with nowhere left to go, he tries to haul me to my feet. By my hair. I scream from the fire in my scalp, still grasping for his arm, and finally he lets go, only to slam me against the wall by both shoulders. My head hits the concrete and the room spins.

“You’re hurting me!” I cry, but Barrett just glares at me. He growls, his lips pulled back against his teeth in some angry perversion of a smile, and tears fill my eyes. “Please wake up. It’s me.”

He pulls his fist back, and I suck in a breath, trying to swallow my terror. He’s going to kill me. He’s going to beat me to death with rage and glee in his heart, because he thinks I’m someone else. Someone who deserves it.

I give in to my tears and go limp in his grip, and just like last time, when I stop struggling, he blinks at me. Then his eyes come into focus. He’s awake.

Evidently whoever he thinks he’s killing would never stop fighting, and that out-of-character move from me is enough to jar him back to reality.

Barrett lets me go and backs away in horror while I straighten my clothes and rub my scalp. He turns and stomps three steps away from me, then turns again. His forehead is deeply furrowed. His gaze trips from one of my shoulders to the other, where I can still feel the ghost of his grip. There will be bruises.

He reaches for me, and I scuttle out of the way. “Don’t. Please.” I can’t trust him. Not yet.

He backs away from me with both palms held up, his jaw clenched in mute frustration. He touches each of his shoulders, then lifts one brow at me, asking me about the marks he left on mine.

“I’m fine.”

Barrett rubs the back of his own head, then arches that same brow.

“Yeah, my head hurts. But I’ll be fine. Go back to sleep.” Someday I’m going to demand to know who he’s killing in his dreams. Who I’m standing in for, in real life. Not that he could tell me.

He sinks onto the mattress and waves me forward, his arms spread. Asking me to join him. To let him hold me and apologize with kisses—the language we both speak. But I can’t.

I wipe my face with both hands, then I pick up my satchel, with my blanket folded inside. “I can’t stay here tonight, Barrett. I’ll be back in the morning. Please don’t come after me. I promise I won’t go far.” I reach for the bare tree limb, to push open the hatch.

Barrett shoves himself to his feet and lurches forward to stop me. I back away from him, and the pain in his eyes speaks more clearly than his tongue ever could. He hates that I’m afraid of him. But he understands why that is.

He points overhead to the hatch, then he points at me and shakes his head. He points at me again, then points at the mattress.

“I told you. I can’t stay here tonight. I—”

He shakes his head again, cutting me off. He pats his own chest, then points up at the hatch.

“You’ll go?” He’s offering to leave me here, so I can have the bed. So I won’t be out in the open.

“No. I mean thank you, but no.” This is his space. I need to be in a space of my own right now. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He shakes his head again and crosses thick arms over his massive chest, standing firmly between me and the branch I need in order to open the hatch. Then he repeats his offer to be the one to leave.

But I know how that will go. He’ll spend the night right on top of the hatch, trying to keep me safe, and I’ll feel trapped. Captured.

“Please don’t do this. Don’t make me stay here against my will. You said I could go whenever I wanted.” But he’s still standing firm. Towering over me. Refusing to budge. So I use the only weapon I have against him. “So this is it, then? You own me now?” I sink onto my knees and look up at him with tears in my eyes. “Is this how you want me? Should I open my mouth?”

Barrett stumbles backward, as if I’ve just slapped him right across the face. He reaches up and opens the hatch, then slowly moves away from it.

“Thank you,” I say, and his jaw clenches while I climb the ladder. There’s more he wants to tell me. I can see his frustration at being unable to express it. But whatever it is, it’s going to have to wait. I have to get out of here. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I walk away from the shelter with my satchel over my bruised shoulder, and his wordless cry of frustration follows me.

I wake up to strange voices, and at first I can’t figure out where I am. The ground is cool beneath me, but the sun is warm on my face.

I’m on my blanket, on a bed of trampled grass, not too far from the shelter. When I left in the middle of the night, I intended to head for either the stream or the woods, but I’ve never slept alone outside, and I was afraid that without a fire to keep animals away…

Snakes. I’m afraid of snakes.

Are there even snakes on Rhodon? If there weren’t, wouldn’t the rabbit population already have run amok? I have no idea, but fear of snakes kept me closer to the shelter than I intended.

A glance at the sun tells me I’ve slept late. I sit up as the voices come closer, trying to see the approaching men between the tall stalks of grass surrounding me. I need to know how many are coming. How close their path will bring them to me. I hope my hair doesn’t stand out too badly, and I’m glad their gazes—from what I can tell over this distance—seem trained on the horizon, well past my hiding place. With any luck, they’ll pass right by me.

I sit as still as I can, resisting the urge to pop back up and assess their approach, to see how close I am to being found. Within minutes, I hear their footsteps stomping through the tall grass. Seconds after that, their voices.

“…swear, there’s a new hole in the bottom of my shoe every damn day.” The speaker has dark, straight hair, hanging around his ears. “If there aren’t new shoes in the drop this week, I’m going to lose my shit.”

His friend has lighter brown hair hanging past his shoulders in slightly oily waves. “I told you, you’re just going to have to take what you need. Don’t wait for the drop.” They’re both smaller than Barrett. Closer to the size of his dead friend with the cleft chin. Which is still much much bigger than I am.

“Take it from where? From who?” The first man throws his arms out at the empty field. “Do you see anyone out here waiting to run into my fist and hand over his fucking shoes?”

I hold my breath, afraid with every beat of my heart that they’re going to see me.

Relief floods me when they pass my position. My eyes close. I turn to reach for the strap of my satchel, but then a breeze blows dust into my face, and I sneeze.

Shit. My pulse races so fast the world looks hazy for a second.

The footsteps stop, but the men don’t say anything. I picture them gesturing to each other silently as they investigate the unexpected noise, and I can only hunker down, hold still, and wait to see if I’m right.

Seconds later, I hear a stalk of grass snap. It’s close. They’re sneaking back through the field toward me.

Fuck.

I should run. No, I should stay put and hope they don’t see me. Why didn’t I just sleep on top of the damn shelter last night?

Two heads appear over the nearest stalks of reddish grass. “Holy shit,” the man with shoulder-length hair breathes. “Hey, sweetheart, where did you come from?” His gaze flicks toward my blanket and satchel. “You camping out here all alone?”

“No.” I stand, in case I have to run. “Barrett will be here any second.”

“Barrett,” the man with the shorter hair echoes. He turns to his friend. “She’s talking about Barrett Oliver? The champ they released last year?”

“About half a solar cycle ago,” the long-haired man says. “He’s the one that doesn’t talk.”

They know Barrett. They know of him, anyway. Surely that’ll work in my favor. Right?

The short-haired man scans the field. His stance is tense. “Where is Barrett?”

“He’ll be back any second,” I repeat. “And he doesn’t like…people.”

“Matt? Think she’s lying?” the short-haired one asks.

Matt, with longer hair, shrugs. “Only about him being a second away.” His gaze narrows on me. “How ‘bout we keep you company, since he’s not here?”

“No thanks.” I lift my satchel and settle the strap over my shoulder. “I’m fine on my own.”

Matt glances at his friend with an arched brow, silently asking a question I can easily guess at. His friend shrugs. Matt’s hand shoots out to grab my arm, and I back out of reach. Then I turn and run, abandoning my blanket.

“Barrett!” I shout, headed for the patch of vines disguising the shelter. I hate to lead them to it, but the alternative seems more dangerous.

The men catch up to me in under a dozen steps. One of them grabs my satchel, which pulls me off balance. I stumble to the side, then go down on one hip in the tall grass. Matt hauls me up by my arm and throws me over his shoulder.

“No!” I knee him in the ribs, and his arm clamps over the backs of my thighs, pinning my legs down.

“Keep shouting,” his friend says. “The more attention you attract, the more dangerous your day becomes.”

“Barrett!” I shout one more time. Because I don’t think there’s anyone else out here to hear me. But the vines don’t move. The shelter doesn’t open. I don’t even know if he can hear me, from underground.

Matt takes off running with me in tow, and the constant ramming of his shoulder into my gut keeps me from drawing enough breath to shout again. His friend trails behind us, carrying both of their packs.

Tears fill my eyes as they carry me into the woods, and the shelter passes out of sight without opening. I don’t even get to say goodbye to Barrett.