I count twelve guards, each carrying an electrified baton and wearing thickly padded body armor. They’ve clearly figured out that their guns no longer work.

“Put your hands in the air and face the wall,” the guard at the end calls out. They’re too far away for their chips to trigger an attack by the hounds, but I can send my pack after them with a single word. Yet I’m not sure I should.

I don’t think their body armor will do much against teeth made of razor blades, but those batons… If the hounds’ exterior metal “skin” isn’t well grounded and the batons have enough amperage, one touch could fry their circuitry. That’s a lot of ifs. And the batons could just be a bluff.

But they have four more batons than I have hounds.

“What’s the plan?” Graham whispers from my right. “I’m good for at least two of them. Maybe three.”

“Same here,” Callum says. “So, Maci, if you and your hounds can get the other six, I guess we’re good to go.”

I can’t tell whether or not he’s joking. Until I look up and see his grim smile. They’re serious.

“Stay back,” he whispers. “No matter what.”

I want to argue, but I know better. I’m good at several things, but fighting isn’t one of them. Which leaves me only one move to make.

“Attack!” I say in a loud, clear voice.

The hounds stampede across the lobby, cracking floor tiles with every step.

“Hit them in the muzzle!” The guard on the end takes a defensive stance with his baton raised. “There’s a diagnostics port in their noses.”

Shit. That port is a direct electrical connection to the robo-dogs’ most vulnerable systems.

The hounds slam into the guards like steel hammers, their razor teeth slicing through padded armor as if it were no more substantial than silk. Men scream. Several drop their weapons as the arms wielding them are shredded beneath layers of blood-soaked padding.

A couple of the guards are driven to the floor, crushed by the hounds pinning them. The four who weren’t targeted by a hound lunge into action, swinging their batons at the muzzle of every dog in their path, like angry owners swatting pets with rolled up newspapers.

One by one, the hounds go still with a soft sizzling sound and a smell like burnt ozone. When it’s over, there are five guards still standing, two with broken, bleeding arms. All five wielding electrified batons.

“Stay back,” Callum repeats. Then he and Graham race in where the hounds have failed.

I watch, transfixed, as Callum ducks, swings, and spins into kicks, targeting the electrified batons with the rubber soles of his shoes. Both men punch like their fists are made of iron, and though Graham clearly has some kind of formal training, Callum fights with a vicious abandon that seems to know no boundaries.

And, it turns out, they can handle two or three guards at a time. Each.

When three of the remaining guards lie on the ground, incapacitated but still breathing shallowly, I begin edging around the perimeter of the lobby, eager to ease past the fight and into the dorm. To start explaining to the women what’s happening, while Callum and Graham finish up with the guards.

I’ve only made it a few steps when a hand closes over my mouth from behind. An arm wraps around my waist and lifts me off my feet, then swings me around to face the stairwell…where I find two more large men waiting.

I kick and flail, trying to scream, but in less than a second, I’m in the stairwell. The door closes behind me, and the man holding me sets me on the landing but keeps his hand over my mouth as he leans down to whisper into my ear.

“If you scream, I will rip your tongue right out of your head. Do you understand?”

I nod frantically. When he lets me go, I spin out of his grip and back up until I hit the wall, my heart pounding a panicked, irregular rhythm in my ears. One of the men has his back pressed to the door and another is blocking the stairs. All three of them are huge.

“Cooperate, and you’ll live,” the one on the landing with me—the one who took me—says. “Fight, and…well, that’ll just be more fun for us.”

“Okay, let’s talk about this.” The back of my throat tastes like fear, sour and metallic. But I can’t let them see that. Men like this feed on fear. “I can get you out of here. I can—”

The man on the landing grabs two handfuls of the front of my shirt and pulls me toward him. His arms flex, and he rips the material open, from collar to hem. His tongue snakes out to wet his lips. Then he spins me and grabs me around my rib cage, pinning my arms to my sides. “Get her pants off.”

The man on the top step reaches for my waistband and I kick him as hard as I can. He stumbles backward, and for a second. I think he’s going to tumble down to the next landing. But then he steadies himself with the handrail. Brows drawn low, he backhands me so hard that for a moment my vision starts to go dark. Their voices sound swampy.

Distantly, I feel something tug at my waist, and by the time my sight and hearing swell back into focus, I’m naked from the waist down.

“I’m next,” the man holding my pants says, while the first man pushes me to the floor on the landing. My ears are still ringing from the blow when he grabs my wrists and pins them to the tile over my head.

“Callum will kill you for this,” I spit as he shoves my knees apart. My voice sounds strange. Hollow.

“We all gotta die sometime.” He positions himself between my legs, and I feel the hard length of him pressed against my thigh.

My mouth drops open and I scream, my tongue be damned, but then his weight drops onto my chest, forcing the air from my lungs and strangling my cry.

“Nonononono…” My mouth moves, but no sound comes out.

“Hurry up—” The man holding the door shut suddenly flies forward and trips over the man on top of me.

“Maci!” The weight disappears from my chest, and I can breathe again. I crawl into a corner of the landing, and through tears, I see Graham throw one of the men down the stairs, head first. He lands with a brutal crunch of bone, and he doesn’t get up.

Callum tosses the man who’d held the door shut to Graham, who punches him in the face, then the stomach in even, rapid-fire blows, and as he throws that man down the stairs after the other one, I hear him mumble something about treating me like a fucking lady.

But then, all I can see and hear is Callum. He has the first man pinned to the ground with one knee on his chest, pummeling him over and over in the face. In what used to be his face, but is now just a mass of swollen flesh, broken teeth, and ruined features.

“Callum.” My voice is hoarse as I crawl across the landing and reclaim my clothes. “Callum, stop.” My hands shake as I pull my underwear on, then my pants, and I’m too flustered to remember how to make the belt work.

“Fischer!” Graham shouts, and finally Callum looks up. “He’s dead, man. See to your girl.”

“Maci.” Callum spins toward me, then lifts me to my feet. His gaze roams over me, looking for injuries, and he runs one finger over the tender spot on my cheek, which is already starting to darken on the lower edge of my vision. “Are you okay? Does anything else hurt?”

I shake my head. “I’m fine.” Though my shirt hangs in tatters and I still can’t remember how I made the belt work before, with pants that don’t actually fit me. “We need to go.” I try to push past him, mentally shoving yet another trauma into the box in the back of my mind, to be dealt with later, but his arms are like a prison, holding me still.

No, holding me against him. He’s breathing too hard, and after a second, I realize that Callum is trembling. “I’m so sorry,” he murmurs into my hair. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Hey. I’m fine.” When I can’t push my way free, I give in to the embrace and hug him back. “Really. But we need to go before Station Alpha sends down reinforcements.”

Finally, Callum releases me. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” But when he tries to tug me downstairs, I pull out of his grip again. “Maci…”

“No. I didn’t come all this way—I didn’t go through that—” I wave one hand at the three dead men. “—just to quit when we’re so close. I’m setting the women free. And you’re going to help me.”

“She’s right, man,” Graham says. “We can’t just leave them here.”

Callum nods again, and he seems to be getting himself back together. Then he pulls open the door and steps into a lobby now littered with the corpses of a dozen guards and eight metal hounds. When he’s sure it’s safe, he waves me out of the stairwell, and Graham flanks me, clearly trying to protect me from behind.

I touch one of the dead hounds as we pass them, frustrated by the loss of so many faithful companions. And so much useful tech. I think I could fix them, if I had enough time, equipment, and spare parts. But while I’m wishing, I may as well ask for a shuttle to get us off this nightmare of a planet.

“Is this it?” Callum peers through the window in the only door in this hallway.

Graham snorts. “Is it a room full of women?” He elbows his friend aside and glances into the room. Then he slides the door open.

A chorus of gasps goes up from inside, and I push past Callum and Graham to find the women I met a week ago each sitting on their bunks, staring in wide-eyed terror at the men who just saved me from the worst this planet has to offer.

“It’s okay. These are the good guys,” I assure them. “We’re getting you all out of here. Come on.”

“Maci?” Danna stands from her bunk and ventures into the center aisle. Her gaze takes in my torn clothing and bruised face. Then she looks past me at the two large men.

“Yeah. It’s me.” I follow her gaze. “They didn’t do this to me. I need everyone to—”

“What did you do?” Danna demands. “They’re going to kill us, for whatever you’ve done. They’re going to kill all of us!”

“There aren’t any guards left to kill you, and we’re going to be gone before they can send more. So, get up,” I say, but no one moves. “Come on, everybody up. Grab what you can carry and let’s go. Grab the mattress pads from the beds and roll them up. Tie them with anything you can find.” So that we won’t be sleeping on the ground, in zone three. “Throw on an extra layer of clothes.”

The women glance around at one another. Then they all begin to talk at once, asking questions I don’t have time to answer.

“No questions! Get moving!” I turn to Callum and Graham. “Guard the door,” I murmur. Then I jog down the aisle into the bathroom, where I strip and pull on a fresh set of clothes. Then I grab the linen bags hanging inside the laundry hampers and dump them out one by one. “Danna! Lilli! Come help!”

Danna appears at my side, still looking mystified, and I shove two of the bags at her. “Fill these with extra clothes. Toiletries. Anything we can use or trade in the open population.”

“The open… Maci, what’s going on?”

“I let all the death row inmates out of their cells, so they’d attack the guards and we can all get away in the chaos. But Station Alpha will send more guards down, so we have to get out of here. Come on!”

My shout startles her into motion, and she begins shoving clean uniforms from the shelves into one of the bags. Lilli appears and takes the other bag from her, then begins filling it with towels and toiletries. “Where are we going?”

“Zone three. I can open the gate.” I show them the wrist com. “But we’re going to need supplies.”

When we’ve collected everything we can carry, I throw one of the bags over my shoulder and shove a second at one of the other women. Danna and Lilli each take one, and together, we begin herding the women into the hallway, each of us carrying a thin, rolled up mattress pad tucked beneath one arm or a laundry bag over one shoulder.

“To the left.” I direct them toward the door at the end of the hall, and Graham jogs ahead to check the stairwell. He pronounces it empty, then leads the women down.

Callum and I take up the rear. He relieves me of the laundry bag and takes my hand in his free one. His gaze is everywhere, scanning for threats. His grip on my hand is almost tight enough to hurt.

The closer we get to escape, the warier he becomes. As if he’s just now starting to believe this is truly possible. Just now realizing he has something to lose…

In the stairwell, we press past the women and join Graham as he peeks out to make sure the coast is clear. “Looks good,” he whispers. “Which way?”

I consult my on-screen map. “Left. Then left again, and right out the front door.”

Callum frowns. “Won’t that get us caught, if Station Alpha has shuttles on the way?”

“The landing pad is on the other side of the building. But if a shuttle sees us, we’re screwed no matter which exit we take, and this one’s closest to the gate into zone three.” I tap the symbol on my map. “Out the front door, and straight across the buffer zone, toward the seam in the metal wall.”

Graham nods. “You two go ahead. I’ll take up the rear.”

Callum and I lead the women out of the stairwell and down the hall to the left. They’re used to being quiet, and their bare feet are virtually silent on the tile. Though the lack of shoes will be a disadvantage outside.

At the corner, we turn left again, and the door is in sight.

“Oh my god,” Danna breaths, and I turn to find her staring at three dead guards, lying face up in the lobby.

“I told you. Chaos. Let’s go.” We head out the front door, and the buffer zone—an empty, lawn-like expanse of land—is clear, except for a few male inmates who’ve obviously had the same idea. But they’re way ahead of us, running for the gate just barely visible in the moonlight, in the tall metal wall ahead.

I can’t help but wonder how they’re planning to get it open.

Halfway across the broad stretch of grass, I hear it. Not with my ears, but with that other sense, deep inside my head. “Shuttle,” I mummer to Callum. Then I turn to the women trailing out behind us. “Run!”

We take off for the gate as fast as we can go, just as a shuttle appears over the roof of the Resort. It’s a patrol shuttle—probably the quickest thing they could scramble, while they’re rounding up off-duty guards on Station Alpha.

“Go!” Graham shouts.

I stop and begin waving the women past me, yelling for them to run, but then Callum picks me up and throws me over his shoulder. He takes off, and I bounce helplessly in his grip, one hand braced against his back as I wave to the straggling women, still trying to get them to hurry.

To my horror, one of the women stops. Graham stops with her, and though I can’t hear what they’re saying, she’s clearly terrified to go any farther. Maybe she’s scared of the open population, or of the guards who will punish her for trying to escape, if they catch her.

Finally, Graham picks her up, ready to rescue her by force—until the shuttle overtakes him and unleashes a fine mist that seems to hover above the ground, each microdroplet shimmering in the moonlight.

“No!” I’ve seen this before, in zone four. It’s a sedative the patrol shuttles use to shut down riots.

Graham falls to the ground, unmoving, with the woman next to him. They’re unconscious.

“Callum!” I shout. “We have to help them!”

He twists to look back, then forges ahead with renewed speed. “There’s nothing we can do for them now, hellkitten.”

With the shuttle bearing down on us, we race toward the gate, and as we approach, I tap on my wrist com to open it. Callum sprints through the opening at the end of our procession of escapees, still carrying me, and the gate slides closed on its own once we’ve passed several yards from its sensor.

“Head for the trees!” Callum shouts, and finally he puts me down. Together, we run toward a thick patch of forest—all we can see of zone three so far—armed with nothing but a bag full of women’s toiletries and a small army of former sex slaves.

In the woods, we huddle with the women beneath the thick canopy, waiting for the shuttle to appear overhead. For the sedative fog to descend. For guards to be lowered into the woods by cables.

Instead…

“It’s leaving,” I tell Callum, as the sound of the shuttle begins to recede, deep in my head. “It’s leaving!” I shout for the others to hear. “They’re not going to chase us!” We’re not worth it, when they have dozens of death row inmates to round up, guards’ corpses to recover, and a building to secure.

I wrap my arms around Callum’s neck and he lifts me, his hands cradling my ass as my legs wrap around his hips. “We’re free,” I whisper, leaning in for a kiss. “I mean, we’re back in the woods, and we have, like thirty women to look out for. And we’re still on a prison planet. And if we do run into any of the guards, they’ll probably kill us.” I frown as what I’m saying finally sinks in. “Okay, that doesn’t sound as much like freedom when I say it out loud as it did in my head.”

Callum laughs. “I’ve spent the past year in a cage, waiting to die. This is more freedom than I ever thought I’d see again. We have the whole planet. And the rest of our lives.” He leans in for a kiss that scalds me from the inside, holding me tight against him as his cock grows hard between us. “You gave me the whole fucking world, Maci,” he mumbles his face buried in my hair, while my wrist com translates. “I don’t know how I can even begin to repay you for that. Or to deserve it.”

“I have everything I need right here.” I squeeze him with my thighs, and he groans against my skin. “Just promise you’re not going to trade me in for one of the other women, now that you have options.”

“What other women?” His breath raises goose bumps all along my neck. “I can’t see anyone but you…”