come out like I was talking to a toddler.
“Alexa,” she whispered. Her large, indigo-hued eyes had just fallen on the mangled bodies of the men who had been there to take her. Take her where, and to whom, I very much wanted to know. Alexa’s gaze went to Xian’s hands, which were crusted in drying, dull-red blood.
“They will not hurt you anymore,” the big monk rumbled.
“There’ll be more,” she said. “There will always be more.” She was a female of the Feyn, a child and yet middle aged. They all grew up so fast before withering in their prime, but at that moment, she sounded older than all of us.
I, too, stared at the men scattered about, rage boiling in my gut as Paige called Ship’s Security to come clean this mess up.
Theft, smuggling, and defrauding consumers, these were all fairly serious crimes, but human trafficking and slavery was a whole new ballgame. I knew my history; humanity had once embraced slavery, and then for a long time afterward it lingered like a chronic disease, a fungus in the shadows. But this ship was founded and launched on the ideal of purest liberty. Slavery in any form was anathema here, the vilest crime imaginable. If convicted, anyone connected with this ring had a one-way ticket out the nearest airlock.
As we led the young Feyn girl away, I vowed that I’d be there to hit the button for the buyers. Because, make no mistake, I was going to find them.
THE END