Sarah Ellison had gotten used to the dark. It was all she had known since being taken aboard Henry’s ship.

No, that wasn't quite right, she was sure to remind herself whenever she thought about being on board. He hadn’t taken her, not again, not like before, back on Earth, so long ago.

No, the alien had not abducted her. She had boarded his ship. Of her own free will. But, her life had been at stake. Her and Fib’s life.

Sarah felt like an idiot. Like a fly landing at the center of a spider’s web, dismayed by the fact that it can no longer take off, it’s twitching legs stuck to the glue like strands of webbing as the spider crept close and closer, ready to pounce on its new victim.

The young woman from Earth was like the fly. Stuck in a web she had landed on. The only problem was the dark; the pitch black nothingness that swallowed her up. Was the spider with her? Was it creeping closer?

When she had stepped onto the ship days ago, she had been shocked to see Henry. Her mouth had fallen open, and words had begun to form in her brain; a brain which attempted to spur her mouth into speech and her tongue feeling fat, heavy, and dumb. Before she had managed to say anything, and with Fib, the female Zaytarian who had followed her to a massive volcano to end the madness once and for all tensing and preparing to fight, Henry had lifted his arm and pointed a gun at her. Even as he fired, she had said nothing. A bright blue flash of light and Sarah saw no more. When she woke, just the darkness.

Her body had ached at first, and every time she had tried to stand she could not, her head pounding, swimming, and buzzing all at once. But eventually she felt better, and had pushed off from the hard ground on which she lay, cold-like metal with a bit of reverb flowing through it, making Sarah think she was still on a ship in space, the engines hurtling them forward. Toward what, she did not know.

The room was small. She had found one wall quickly and then had walked to her left, trailing her fingertips against the cool hard surface she had found. The room was circular. She never found a corner. She had to keep stepping away from the wall lest she walk right into it. She felt nothing on the wall as she walked around. No panel full of buttons. No doorway. She circled around against the wall, moving her hands up and down, trying to reach something, anything, near the ceiling or the floor, there was nothing for her to feel.

She had to pee. She was thirsty. She was hungry. Not a peep from Henry. That bastard. The thought of him brought a raw anger to her heart, hot tears burning her eyes. If she saw him again, she would kill him. She was going to kill that psychic asshole, for everything he had done to her.

And, of course, she thought of Gar. She hoped he was okay. He had been grievously injured the last she had seen him, evacuated from their mission early in an attempt to save his life. Now where was he? Was he alive? If he was, did he know she had not returned from the Aeon home world? She was off it, she was sure of that, thanks to the shaking floor, but she had not returned, not to her lover.

All of these thoughts and emotions swirled through her as hours turned to days. Then, finally, light.

A panel in the wall slid up. Henry was there. Beyond, Sarah could hear someone screaming. Fib. Then the door slammed shut and she could hear her no more, and she could see nothing, not until a dim blue light shone from above. Dim as it was Sarah had to shield her eyes to look up and see that it was set in a ceiling ten feet above her head. She looked to Henry.

“You asshole,” she said.

Henry shook his head softly, the two antennae bobbing back and forth. Henry didn’t speak with his mouth, he never had, instead when Sarah heard his reply it was one sent directly to her brain.

“That does not sound like gratitude,” the alien said.

Sarah scoffed audibly. “Is that what you expect? Gratitude? For what?”

“Saving your life,” Henry said. His name was not Henry, not really. An alien would not have such a mundane name, but the Aeon’s had no names, since they spoke telepathically they simply all felt a bit different, and the speaker could always speak directly to whomever they wanted, so names had not been needed. Henry was a name from Sarah’s youth, an old friend. A name which had seemed to fit the blue-skinned alien when she had first met him.

She had fallen for him quickly, and they had made love on the ship that had abducted her from Earth, all for a crystal she’d worn on a fine chain around her neck. That crystal was no more, having been cast into a volcano to end the threat the Aeon species represented to the galaxy at large.

Sarah had come to find that the feelings she thought she had felt for Henry had been implanted in her mind, put there by the alien himself. She had slept with him. He had forced her to.

Anger bubbled up within her once more, and she flew forward.

ZAP!

Halfway across the small room Sarah hit... something. Something she could not see. A forcefield that buzzed with current she heard right before she felt it, sending shock through her body and throwing her back against the rounded wall.

“Please, do not do this,” Henry said. He was holding a box in one hand, and used the other to gesture with. “You are a guest here. I gave you time to cool off. You are hungry, and thirsty. I can make you comfortable. I did save you, even after you destroyed my planet. It’s gone now, do you understand? If anyone knew I had you here, they would kill both of us. I love you, Sarah from Earth. That is why I came for you.”

“I do not love you,” the girl snarled from the floor.

“You did.”

“I did not. You forced me to…”

The antennae on the alien’s head waved in a way that Sarah remembered represented laughter. Then Henry shook his head.

“Is that what they told you? Is that what he told you? Your new lover? Is that how he took you from me? I did no such thing. It is against a deep moral code my people have to do something like that. We understand the power we could possess, and we work to never possess it.”

Sarah didn’t believe Henry, not for a minute.

“You lie,” she told him.

Henry seemed to respect the fact that he was not going to change her mind. How could he? He had kept her shut in the dark for two and a half days without light, or food, or water, or a place to relieve herself. He was rectifying that now.

Sarah wondered if they were truly alone, Henry had made it seem that way, as though he was the only Aeon on the ship, but Sarah wasn’t convinced. She had heard Fib screaming. Surely someone was torturing her. Of course her life had been like a big budget science fiction film lately, she had seen many wondrous things. There could be a robot, or a machine doing the dirty work for Henry.

“This light will stay on. And…” he added as he waved his hand, and a whirring from behind Sarah made her turn. A box slid out from the wall. A box she had been unable to feel during her inspection of the walls. Inside, was a toilet and a showerhead.

“Here is some food. Every time that door opens a shield will keep you from me. I will bring more, every day. Please do not test the shield. I do not want to see you hurt. I want to earn your trust back.”

Sarah shook her head. “You never had my trust,” she said.

Henry looked sad at that, his antennae drooping. But he did not send a response to her mind. Instead, he bent and placed the box on the floor and turned, the door sliding open behind him. Sarah could hear Fib screaming once more.

“What are you doing to my friend?” Sarah asked.

“She is our enemy,” Henry replied simply. He stepped out and the door slid shut behind him.

Sarah waited a moment, not wanting to seem too eager to any cameras in her room. She stood and hurried to the box. The shield in the center of the room gone. She knelt down and opened the box, pulling out warm bread that was a pleasant purple color, and a meat salad of some sort; dark red with the texture of ham salad. It was salty and delicious, and Sarah spread it on the bread.

Exploring the small shower cube at the back of the room revealed a faucet and a cup, and Sara drank water that way. Stepping out of the cube there was another hum and a bed slid out from the wall.

Sarah ignored it. She had to eat and drink and use the restroom. She didn’t have to use Henry’s bed. She lay instead on the hard floor, and folded her hands beneath her head. She hoped he could see her. She would never bend to his will, she wouldn’t even let him force her. Not again.