Page 183 of Everdoll

“I’ll accept your offer. On one condition. You evacuate everyone on Mars.”

I will finally bring an end to my endless days devoid of you, my love.

CHAPTER 11

Mina

Opening my eyes, the first thing I felt was thick, dried grime. My fingers were slick with filthy grease, and my eyes struggled to focus on nothing but darkness.

The second thing I felt was the heavy iron clamped around my wrists. I was chained down. Like a damn prisoner.

I knitted my brows, straining to see. Slowly, the space took shape. A small room with pale walls adorned with tiny, cheap paintings. My gaze drifted lower. Despite the mound of pillows hiding the figure, I caught the faint glow of a tablet screen. As I pressed my hands into the slick floor to push myself up, the harsh sound of scraping metal made whoever was hiding behind those pillows freeze mid-motion.

“Who’s there?”

My voice came out far raspier than I expected. Just what happened? The last thing I remembered was Raymond pressing his lips to mine like a madman. And after that… I had felt numb. Had I passed out? Did that bastard drug me? Where the hell was I?

The figure huddled in their pillow cave didn’t answer; they only doused the tablet’s light.

A bitter chuckle escaped me, though I hardly had the energy for it. “I’m not a kid. I know you’re there.”

The silhouette remained still a moment longer before letting out a slow sigh. It sounded like a middle-aged woman.

She pulled the blanket back, stood up, and turned to face me. Dr. Aneta. A personal physician to the elite, ruling families—including the Kerns—in a world dominated by artificial intelligence. She was close to the Loxtons, too. There was no record of her ever doing a shred of good for the common people; she lived exclusively for her own money and her own family.

“You…” I muttered. “Did Raymond send you? Where is he? Where are we?”

“I can’t answer any of your questions, young lady. All you need to know is that you are safe now.”

I rolled my eyes. “Since when does Raymond play the knight in shining armor? Who said I wanted to be safe? I need to get back to the planet. My friends are all there. People were dying, I—”

“Ray took care of it.” She gestured with her chin toward the corner behind me.

Following her line of sight, I saw the injured boy from the street lying on a white examination table.

Had she treated him? Did he make her?

My face grimaced, my body tensed. “So? It’s not like he can gather every single person I know and airlift them off the planet.”

“That is exactly what he did.”

The doctor stood up, leaned toward the wall in the dimly lit room, and tapped a few keys. A camera feed materialized on screen. A wide shot of the galaxy, framing the deep navy hull of a starship from the outside. Aneta pressed another sequence, shifting the view to the vessel’s interior.

And there they were. Prisne, Reila, the old woman from the watch shop, workers from the UE agency and 12-Hours Bureau… even people I had only ever passed with a brief hello. People whose names I didn’t even know, yet recognized. Looking at the screen, I didn’t know what I was supposed to feel.

Was the value of a human life determined by whether they happened to know me? Was that the full extent of Raymond’s morality?

“Why are you still taking orders from him?” My stomach churned at the sight on screen. “Raymond isn’t a powerful man anymore.”

“Let’s just say we had a deal.”

“Oh, really? What did he do? Offer you a mountain of cash? Threaten you? Or… promise to protect your family?”

The doctor’s eyes locked onto mine like bullets. Oh, that was it. I shifted where I sat, resting my chained wrists against my kneecaps, and flashed her a lazy smirk.

“None of your kids have great customer satisfaction ratings. Neither does your husband, Fabian. But surely you wouldn’t leave them behind on the planet… would you?”

Her features contorted in disgust. “Damn reporters.”