I stare down into the ditch, frowning. The dried corn is gone, but we’ve caught nothing. The same thing happened last week, and the week before that. I’m starting to think Tyson is playing a prank on me with this damn ditch. I don’t understand how it could possibly work or what it’s supposed to catch. But I reach into my pocket for more dried corn anyway, and my mind begins to wander as I sprinkle it on the ground.

The past three weeks have been more bearable than I would have thought possible in Settlement A. Tyson is actually a nice guy, when I can get him talking, and even when I can’t, he’s a quiet grouch. And—true to his word—he hasn’t touched Maci. But our time with him is almost up. Next week, Jaime will make us pick someone else, and I’m far from confident that any of the other men will be willing or able to take both me and Maci.

Or that I’ll be able to keep the next guy off of her.

When I’ve “reset” the trap by trailing dried corn into the narrow end of the ditch, I pick up my new spear and turn to head back toward the stream. I can hear Maci’s laughter over the gurgle of the water, and the sound brings me out of my own head. She and Tyson are close enough that I feel safe checking this trap on my own.

Until I turn around and see the silhouette of a man watching me from behind a nearby tree.

When he realizes he’s been seen, he steps into the light pouring from a gap in the crimson foliage overhead. I recognize him, and I know that he’s much more dangerous than a name like Darren would suggest.

He isn’t as tall as Tyson, nor is he as broad. But he’s still big and strong, and the malice shining in his eyes tells me there’s an edge of cruelty in every move he makes. His knuckles are still broken open and bloody from his latest fight, but there isn’t a single mark on his face. Because his opponent didn’t even get one blow in. But that didn’t stop Darren from breaking the man’s jaw and kicking his ribs in.

He could probably take a woman if he wanted one. Instead, he seems to enjoy stalking them.

I’ve seen Darren watching me in the settlement, as we go back and forth between our dormitory and the supply drops or the woods. I’ve even seen him here in the forest a couple of times, pretending to gather branches for fuel, while his gaze follows my every movement.

He’s waiting for me to wander away from Tyson. And he’s not the only one.

No one has challenged Tyson, and I don’t think anyone will. One-on-one, no one can beat him. But several of the men obviously know I won’t pick them next week, and they seem willing to take a beating if they can get me away from Tyson long enough to tear my clothes off and pin me down first.

Darren clearly thinks he’s done that.

My grip tightens on my spear as he steps closer, licking his lips as his gaze roams south of my face. “He’ll hear me if I scream.”

Darren shrugs. “So, scream.”

But I don’t scream, and his knowing glance at my spear says he understands why. I want to try to fight him off myself. I know I can’t win, but I want to see how much damage I can do before Tyson pulls him off me.

Ty has been teaching me some basic self-defense moves, and Darren has no way of knowing that the spear isn’t part of that. That it’s new, and that it’s designed for fishing, not for impaling would-be rapists.

He takes a step toward me, and I raise the spear, trying to look like I know what I’m doing. “Cooperate, and I won’t hurt you,” he says, but I can see that he’s lying. Hurting me would be part of the fun for him. “Tyson never needs to know.”

I laugh out loud. He thinks Tyson would be mad at me if Darren overpowers me?

“Audra?” Ty calls through the woods. He heard me laugh, and he knows me well enough by now to recognize that there was no real amusement in the sound. “Speak up!”

“Over here, Marco Polo,” I call, without taking my focus from the man standing in front of me, both fists clenched.

Darren gives me a quiet, malicious smile. “Another time, then.” With that, he disappears into the woods.

“I told you, Marco Polo is a water game,” Tyson says as he pushes through the brush with Maci on his heels. He starts to pull me into an embrace, then he gets a good look at my face. “What’s wrong?”

“Darren followed us out here.”

Maci goes stiff at my side, her gaze roaming the woods around us.

“He’s gone,” I tell her.

She nods. “I don’t like him.” She says that about all the men. And she means it.

“Me neither.” Tyson glances into the empty ditch and sighs over whatever animal we’ve failed to catch again. “Let’s give the spears one more shot before we head back.”

I follow them to the clear, bubbling stream, where I refill my water pouch and drop a purification tablet into it. Then I take off my shoes and socks, roll up my pants, and step into the water.

It’s weird how colorless the shallow freshwater is here, when from a distance, all you can see of the Devil’s Eye is the rusty depths of massive saltwater oceans, outlining rich, fertile crimson continents.

While I squint at the surface, searching for a fish close and slow enough to spear, Maci settles onto a sunlit rock at the edge of the water and continues braiding lengths of the old bed sheets that I washed in the stream and Tyson ripped into strips for her. She thinks we need an alternate exit from our second-floor room, in case of a fire or a break-in, and I think she might be right.

Tyson stands across the stream from me, mirroring my pose. Then he bursts into motion and shoves his spear at the water. “Shit.” He pulls the spear up with nothing but mud on its tip.

I stifle a laugh and make several false stabs of my own before finally…

“I got one!” I shout, so surprised by my victory that I don’t realize I’ve left my spear imbedded in the soggy ground at the bottom of the stream. With my fish impaled on it.

Maci claps, then pushes tangled hair back from her face as she wades toward me, her pants rolled up to her knees, her rope abandoned on the warm rock. The water’s cold, but that’s refreshing in the heat of the day.

Tyson scowls as he crosses the stream toward me, but he’s not mad. He’s irritated because he hasn’t caught one yet. It’s almost as if the fish aren’t quite scared enough to impale themselves on the end of his sharpened branch.

He pulls my spear from the water, fish and all. Then he throws his head back and laughs. “You caught a sardine.”

“Fuck you. That’s a real fish.”

He hands me my spear. “Catch ten more, and you’ll have a bite full.”

“Big talk from the man with nothing on his spear.”

“I’ll give you a spear.” Tyson wraps one arm around my waist and pulls me close.

I laugh as my toes skim the surface of the stream. “Right here?” He’s serious. I can feel that, with my body pressed against his.

He shrugs. “Maci doesn’t care.”

He’s right. Maci is more than used to blocking out our grunts and groans through the bathroom door. But I’m not going to fuck him in front of her, and I’m not willing to let her out of our sight, even in the woods. Darren isn’t the first of the men to follow us out here. I’m pretty sure a couple of them have been watching us, trying to learn how to set traps.

Or maybe hoping to steal our meat. But they’d steal Maci, if they got the chance.

When Tyson was on his own, he cooked and ate his kills in the woods, and from what I can tell, no one really cared what the woodland “savage” was up to. They were all too busy squabbling over supply drops and fighting over women. But lately we’ve been grilling our meat at the park, and while the grill is a much easier and more efficient way to cook than over a spit, we’ve given up privacy for the convenience.

People have started to notice how well-fed we are. The women look jealous of me and Maci. The men look like they want to bash Tyson’s head in and take everything he has.

“Tonight…” I whisper, and instead of dropping me, Tyson lets me slide down his body until my feet break through the water and settle onto the floor of the stream.

“Tonight,” he echoes. “First, I’ll fill you with fish. Then I’ll just fill you.”

“Dork,” I accuse. But I’m smiling.

Then the ticking clock in my head brings me back to reality, and my smile fades. I edge closer to him in the stream and lower my voice. “Ty. I need some advice. About next week.”

He stiffens beside me. We’ve avoided talking about it, but I can’t afford to ignore the inevitable anymore.

I glance at Maci, but she’s absorbed in her cord tying, probably under the assumption that we’re whispering dirty things to each other. Which we’ve been known to do on occasion.

“Please,” I say when he seems determined not to answer. “I think you’ve been happy with us—with me—so is there any chance you’d want to keep us for another month? I mean…if I pick you again?”

“That’s not allowed.” His voice is tense and angry. And almost too low-pitched for me to hear. “The whole point is to spread the wealth. To give more men a chance at…you.” He looks up at me, his spear clutched in one huge fist. “But yes,” he says through clenched teeth. “If I could, I would keep you, Audra.”

“Thanks,” I murmur, blinking stubborn tears from my eyes as I head back across the stream, to a spot where fish seem to swim by often.

By the time we leave the stream, he’s caught five small fish and I’ve caught four, and Maci has filled a washed-out veggie-loaf pouch with wild berries that seem to be a hybrid of black- and raspberries. At least, according to Tyson. We didn’t have either of those on my home-moon, but since he’s proved to me that they’re edible, I’ve been gobbling them by the handful whenever we find them.

Who knew I’d have to be sentenced to life in prison to get fresh meat and fruit on a regular basis?

In the park, our favorite grill is taken. Tyson stomps toward it, obviously ready to claim it, but I put a hand on his arm to stop him. I don’t know the name of the man poking at the weak flame with a stick stripped of bark, but I recognize the woman sitting next to him on her knees, on patchy reddish grass kept short by consistent foot traffic.

Michelle has lost weight since Wendy left us here. The man she originally chose lost her within a week, and this new one has already fought for her twice. He’s managed to win both fights, but he hasn’t had much luck at the supply drop. They both look dirty and hungry, and I’m not going to let Tyson run them away from the grill, where he’s heating water in a can while she slowly nibbles on a protein brick.

Maci gives me a sad look, and I know what’s coming. I glance at the line of fish impaled kabob-style on my spear. Then I set my backpack on the ground and dig out a meal packet. Maci takes it from me, then carries it toward Michelle.

“You don’t have to encourage her,” Tyson grumbles.

“And you don’t have to pretend to be such an asshole,” I shoot back.

“I’m not pretending.”

“Yes, you are.” I’ve spent enough time with him over the past three weeks to know that.

“No.” He catches my gaze and holds it. “I’m not. There are no good guys here, Audra. We’ve all made bad choices, because those are the only kind we get.”

“I have to believe you’re wrong about that,” I whisper. “I need to find another one like you. Help me out, Tyson. Tell me who to pick. Tell me who won’t touch Maci and won’t hit us. Who won’t pass me around or make me do something I don’t want to do. There has to be someone else like that here.”

He nods slowly. “There are several. But none of them will be able to keep you. Or feed you.”

My throat feels tight. I swallow thickly, pushing back panic. I still have a week to work something out. A week to figure out who to pick. Or how to run and where best to hide…

I start to ask Tyson if he knows of any place in zone four that isn’t easily accessible, but a shout from across the clearing startles me. We both spin toward the sound to see that Michelle’s man has Maci by the arm.

“…don’t need your charity!” he yells. Then he turns his fury on Ty. “Two’s not enough for you? You need a third?”

Shit. He thinks we sent Maci over with food to lure Michelle away.

“Let her go,” Tyson shouts across the clearing, and heads turn to stare. Suddenly I’m hyper-conscious that there are no other women in the park, other than Michelle.

“It’s just food.” Michelle’s voice sounds nasal, as if she’s been crying. Or is about to. “They’re trying to share.”

“They’re saying I can’t feed you,” the man snaps as a crowd begins to form. Jaime is at the center of it, and I already know that if a fight breaks out, he’ll demand blood. “They’re trying to take you.”

“No—” The rest of Michelle’s protest is lost to sobs. She’s staring at the food. “Please, Thomas. I’m hungry.”

“You’re fine,” he snaps, still clutching Maci’s arm. Her eyes are wide and terrified, and just before the crowd blocks her from view, he shakes her, and she loses her grip on the food packet.

“Stay here,” Tyson says, his voice low and tense. Then he barrels into the crowd after Maci, shoving people aside as he forces his way through.

I stand on my toes, trying to see, but I’m too short. The crowd is too thick. Thomas is still shouting and Michelle is crying, but I can’t hear anything else over the chanting as the men demand a fight. Then I hear the distinctive sound of a fist slamming into flesh, and the crowd roars in approval. In bloodlust.

Tyson will win. He always wins. But if things get out of hand and this becomes a riot—

An arm snakes around my waist and jerks me backward. I gasp, startled, but before I can scream, a hand clamps over my mouth.

Fear surging like fire through my veins, I try to bite, but the hand is too tight and when I open my mouth, my teeth cut into my lower lip. Blood dribbles into my mouth.

As I’m dragged backward, I wrench my jaw open, widening the cut on my lip, then I taste filth caked on someone’s finger. I bite down. Hard. More blood flows into my mouth, and I’m loathe to swallow, but I can’t spit it out. So I bite harder.

“Fuck!” The hand disappears from my mouth, but the arm around my waist tightens until I can’t drag in a breath, much less scream. “Do that again, and I’ll snap your neck right here.”

I recognize Darren’s voice. The strength of the arm around me tells me he’s not bluffing.

I kick and flail as he drags me out of the park, panic dumping adrenaline into my bloodstream, but the burst of energy is fleeting. When his hand covers my mouth again, I don’t have the strength to bite. I can’t breathe. A halo blossoms around my vision, then darkness encroaches. Dimly, I can still hear the crowd shouting, but they sound like they’re far away.

My feet drag the ground, but the grass is gone. I’m being hauled over cracked concrete—what’s left of the street running down the middle of the settlement.

Something clicks, and as the darkness threatens to swallow me, I see a door close. I’m in a building, but it’s not our dorm. I don’t know where I am.

Worse, Tyson doesn’t know where I am.

Another door closes, and Darren releases me. I collapse to the floor as I suck in a huge breath, and color returns to the world. Lack of oxygen has left me dull-witted. My head throbs. My torso is one big bruise, shooting pain through me with every inhalation.

I pull in another breath, then crawl away from the boots coming into focus in front of me. I drag my gaze up over pants with no holes or thin spots and a shirt that could have come out of the supply drop yesterday to see Darren leering down at me, huge fists propped on his narrow hips.

“Tyson will kill you for this,” I say, but my voice has little volume. My oxygen-deprived body isn’t yet willing to devote much air to speaking.

“Do I look worried?”

“We can work something out. Let me go, and I won’t let him kill you.” My voice is stronger now. I stare boldly up at him, projecting confidence I don’t feel, even though I’ve spent weeks hiking through the woods on a protein-heavy diet, training with Tyson in self-defense.

I’m stronger than I’ve ever been, but Darren is huge. Not as big as Tyson, but close.

“Counter offer.” His grin is terrifying. “You don’t fight, and maybe I won’t kill you when I’m done with you.”

“Go to hell.”

The sound that rumbles up from his throat raises chill bumps all over my body. He grabs my arm and hauls me up from the floor, and for the first time, I take in my surroundings. Looking for a weapon.

This isn’t a dorm room. There’s a countertop with a chipped surface and a couple of empty metal shelves bolted to the walls. This was a store, back when Rhodon was a free planet, but now it’s an empty room, scattered with trash and a couple of broken chairs.

And broken chair legs.

“You picked the wrong woman.” I back toward a plastic chair, hoping to grab the metal leg that used to support its front right corner, which is sticking out from under the seat at an odd angle.

“Oh, I think I you’ll do just fine.” Darren advances on me, and I squat to grab the chair leg, my heart racing. But the leg is heavier than it should be. And drastically unbalanced. I glance at it as I stand and see that I don’t have one chair leg. I have two of them, connected by a perpendicular metal bar at the top, which was once fastened to the bottom of the chair. I’m holding one long metal tube bent into the shape of a U with corners. It’s unwieldy and unpredictable as a weapon. But it’s all I have. So I swing it.

Darren catches the metal bar in one thick fist, then shoves it at me.

I stumble backward and release my weapon to maintain my balance, and he’s on me in an instant. He slams me into the wall, driving air from my lungs in a pain-filled grunt.

The room swims in and out of focus around me. Metal clangs against the ground; he’s dropped the chair legs. Fear firing through my synapses, I clench my left hand into a fist and throw it at his head. By some miracle, the blow connects. His head snaps back. A red spot blossoms on his cheek. Fury flashes in his eyes.

Shit.

He captures my wrists in one hand and pins them against the metal wall over my head. “You’re going to make such a pretty corpse.” Then he punches me in the stomach.

Pain radiates from my core, and for several seconds, I can’t breathe. His arm is huge. His fist is like a battering ram, and if I were a door, I’d have been knocked into the next room. The only thing keeping me from curling into a ball of agony on the floor is his brutal grip on my wrists.

Darren studies my face while I choke on and suck at the air, trying to fill lungs that won’t cooperate. “Seriously,” I gasp as he grabs the collar of my shirt. “Tyson will kill you.”

He shrugs. “We’re all gonna die here. Might as well have some fun first.” He jerks on my collar. Seams pull tight around my shoulders, then the worn-thin material rips asymmetrically across my chest and gapes open.

Desperate, I throw my knee up, but he twists and catches the blow with one meaty thigh. He shoves my bra up, exposing one of my breasts, then he reaches for the waist of my pants and I fight back a scream. If I shout, what comes for me won’t be help. So I squeeze my eyes shut and bite my lip, re-opening the cut.

I can’t stop him. But maybe if I don’t fight…

He shoves my pants down over my hips, and—

A low-pitched rumble rolls over me, and suddenly I’m jerked forward by my wrists. Then I’m free.

I open my eyes, already grasping at my clothes to find Tyson standing over Darren, who’s lying on the floor. Relief rushes through me before I realize Ty is clutching his knife in one hand. And it’s dripping with blood.

Behind him Maci stares at me with wide, scared eyes. Her hair looks more disheveled than usual and there’s a bruise on her left cheek.

Darren blinks up at me. He gurgles, blood still pouring from the wound in the side of his throat. His mouth opens and closes over and over. Fading light from the window gleams on blood pooling at the back of his throat.

He sputters, and several droplets fly from his mouth to splatter his shirt.

Tyson pulls me away from the spray. I clutch my torn top to my chest, and Maci links her arm through mine. My thoughts are at war with my emotions as we watch Darren die, and I can’t process anything. So I push it all back and breathe in and out. In and out.

I am alive. I’m not hurt.

Neither of those can be said for the man on the floor.

When it’s over, Tyson leads us into the hall and closes the door, leaving Darren lying in a puddle of his own blood. My adrenaline rush fades, and now I’m so tired I could sink to the floor where I stand.

Tyson squints at me in the dark. His jaw clinches as his gaze travels over the shirt I’m holding closed. “Take it off.”

“What? No!” I clutch the material tighter, but he’s already removing his own shirt.

Oh.

I shrug out of the torn fabric and accept the one he offers me. His shirt swallows me whole, and it smells like him. I inhale deeply, and suddenly I want nothing more than to burrow into his shirt and never come out. Somehow, his scent has come to mean safety. To calm me.

I blame night after night spent with him, with food in my belly and a roof over my head—necessities I had no reason to expect with any regularity on Rhodon. Especially in Settlement A.

“You okay?” I run one finger gently over Maci’s cheek, choosing to focus on her bruise, rather than my own trauma. She frowns and mimes throwing an elbow to her side, explaining wordlessly what happened to her in the crush of the crowd.

It worries me that she’s gone quiet again.

“She’s fine. Let’s go,” Tyson growls.

Outside, another crowd has gathered, and I realize they know what happened. They saw him searching for me. Some of them might even have seen Darren drag me into the abandoned building.

Considering what just happened, I almost expect Tyson to put one arm around me, to make sure no one can grab me again. Instead, he holds his knife out and gives it an aggressive flick, flinging blood onto the ground. Splattering the crowd with it.

Though I could use a hug, I understand the strategy. He’s just told them all that he doesn’t need to keep me close to keep me safe. That he can and will spill more blood if he needs to.

The crowd backs up. A path opens for us. We march across the street unmolested, but I can feel all eyes on me. No matter what Tyson’s statement says, I don’t feel safe.

I can still feel the ghost of Darren’s hands on me. The phantom pull of stitches as my shirt rips open. I can feel his fingers beneath my waistband, shoving my pants down, and I know when I look out over the crowd that Darren’s face could be replaced with any of theirs, both in my memory and in my future.

I’ve gotten sloppy. I let good food and a warm bed convince me that I was safe and comfortable when the truth is that neither of those will ever be true.

This isn’t home. Maci isn’t my sister. Tyson isn’t my boyfriend. He’s just doing what he’s getting paid to do, and if he’s been nice about the whole thing, that’s because he’s not a psychopath. It’s because he likes the arrangement. Not because he gives a shit about me.

This is survival.

And next week, surviving will get so much harder. Without him.

A hundred gazes follow us as we head for the residence building, and I feel them like stones piled on my chest, destined to crush me.

“Looks like Darren rubbed some of the shine off her,” a voice calls out, and I flinch, then wish I could take it back. I can’t afford to let them see how upset I am.

“She definitely looks broken in.”

“More like broken down.”

“I’d still take a taste.”

Tyson pulls the door open, and Maci and I march into the building in silence. No one speaks as we climb the stairs or tromp down the hall. But the moment our door closes behind us, I burst into tears.