Phantom Universe Read Free

even speak for him if he asks her to, but he doesn’t. He knows it will only make her have an anxiety attack.
    She reaches for Landon’s arm to catch his attention and points at the skillet. He places his elbow on the counter and leans in to watch. The way he looks at her is always surprising to Summer. It’s always in wonder or fascination. In silence, she shows him exactly how she expects the chicken to be cooked. Her hand gestures and questioning glances amuse him so he just grins at her animated moves, nodding when necessary.
    She stabs a fork into the chicken to check tenderness and turns to face him with a raised eyebrow, the gesture asking, Are you paying attention? Landon nods with much enthusiasm as she flips the chicken over in the skillet and adds more Italian dressing. Without glancing up, she points toward the bottle of honey. He immediately hands it over. She squeezes the bottle, dumping it all over the chicken and flips the piece over and over, making sure she covers all sides.
    When the chicken is done cooking, she wraps it in foil to keep warm and stares up at Landon again. Her expression is triumphant and his amused.
    “ Rub it in—you’re better than me at cookin’ and I know it!” He wraps a sturdy arm around her shoulders and gives a tight squeeze.
    A clap of thunder booms overhead, and Summer slips from his grip like a greased pig and dives underneath the prep table again, shaking. She still hasn’t forgiven the storm for its traitorous actions four years ago.
    Landon reaches down and holds her quivering hand. “The storm will pass, and I’ll still be here,” he says, suppressing a sigh. “Ye can’t let that troll ruin your life. It’s just not like ye to let him.”
    She grips his hand with more strength than someone her size should have before she lets go and clicks her tongue once. Landon doesn’t hold back his sigh this time because when she clicks her tongue it’s meant as a sarcastic remark. Once she wrote on a piece of paper “If you can’t see, I’m rolling my eyes” and then she clicked her tongue at him. He shakes his head and continues to make the dinner for the crew. It’s progress that she came out for even a few minutes. She hopes the storm passes before nine so they can both serve dinner. It’s best if questions aren’t asked and weaknesses aren’t shown. Summer knows that you won’t survive long if you’re weak, and she is anything but. Still, she must keep up her image of stamina, endurance, and show no fear. She’s proven herself on this ship, but mistakes can be major setbacks in the slave-crew relationship. Even minor sickness is considered weak.
    Summer only needs thirty minutes; she hopes the storm passes by then.

CHAPTER 3: SALVATION
     

     
    12 years old
     
    The air is so ungodly hot Hades himself finds the weather comfortable to down-right pleasant. This is how it’s been for a month as the Cosmos cruises through the Indian Ocean while the crew scours ships and steals their merchandise like sweet-tooth trick-or-treaters after the biggest, most divine piece of melt-in-your-mouth chocolate. There isn’t a cloud in the too-blue sky, which makes Summer’s skin burn and blister under its insatiable inferno.
    Today there are two crew members who tease her as she cleans the dirt away from the top deck. One of them has only just arrived on the boat, but is evidently close friends with the other crew member Karl. She worries because they are being more touchy-feely than she’s used to. She has seen many slaves beaten and raped in the past and doesn’t want to be one of them. Captain Travis kicks those types of men off his ship to protect his property—which is exactly what she is—but that doesn’t mean incidents like rape don’t happen when he’s not around.
    There are no other women left on the ship; she is all they have left, and her young age of twelve never stops them from their obscene and lewd advances. Actually, the older she gets the more