It wasn’t that I hated Hera Martin. Sure, I killed her husband.
And her son.
And I’d kill her too, if given half the chance.
But I didn’t hate her the way I hated the rest of her family. No. They got what was coming to them.
But Hera Martin: She disgusted me like I’d never be able to scrub myself clean. Every aspect of her from her polished heels, to her cocked head, to her sardonic, hollow smile made me ache to finally finish her off.
With a flick of her wrist, Hera set her lackeys on me and Pen, wiping the sweat and grime from our faces and stripping us of our ruined uniforms. We both knew better than to resist, but even so, with Pen’s arm and my leg out of commission, there wasn’t much we could do other than allow ourselves to be manhandled.
Even after all these years, the cold, creeping gray marks on the pulsar under Penelope’s skin looked incorrect, like she could never allow herself to be hurt. One of the attendants grabbed the wound and Penelope’s brow furrowed, the only sign she was in any pain. It made me want to kick their stomach and give them something that hurt twice as much as anything they did to us.
These thoughts of violence and killing filled my head so fast that I hardly noticed the attendants were hurting me too. I saw the white marks their fingers left in my pulsar poisoned flesh, but it barely registered in all the chaos that’s in my head. I wanted out and I wanted Penelope to get out and I had no idea what was happening to Leda and I just needed everyone to stop touching me. I needed to move and breathe and just take whatever punishment they were going to give me for destroying their starship. Or I needed to fight and get away and break this attendant’s hand because she was touching me. I needed to make sure she would never touch me again.
Something in the back of my head should have reminded me that nothing was the attendant’s fault, but I wasn’t listening.
“Excuse me,” Leda said, breaking me out of the spiral. “As the Parataxis’ medic, I am obliged to look after her crew.” Her voice was so light and proper it activated my fight or flight reflex.
“Of course,” Hera Martin said, that smile widening across her face. “The photoshoot for the mid-season finale starts at 06:00 and then we have a super special announcement. So, it would behoove you all not to be late, m’kay?” Her saccharine voice dripped with all the venom of a fer de lance.
“I’ll be sure to keep it in mind,” Leda matched her poise and demeanor. “If I could please have some privacy with my patients.”
Only Leda Selihu could wave Hera Martin away and expect to walk away unscathed. That was her dirty little secret. Leda’s mother, Laophante Selihu, and Hera were friends and Laophante would sooner smite Olympios Rex than let any real harm befall her children.
“The two of you have really done it this time,” Leda said as Hera and her lackeys slammed the door.
“It’s just a bit of pulsar,” Penelope sighed. “Nothing too bad.”
I still wasn’t ready to speak yet. Leda and Penelope knew how it always went. I sat, legs crossed in the small, plastic chair staring as Leda took care of Penelope. She worked so fast with her deft, clever hands. The pulsar marks seemed to fade away with each injection and salve she pulled from her bag. It was a lie though, or it felt like a lie. The wounds still hurt days after they disappeared from view. This time, they struck so close to Penelope’s chest and throat. Her skin looked waxy and sweat continued to bead on her forehead even though the danger had passed.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
I jumped when someone dropped a package of clean, crisp uniforms behind me. Pen was red. Leda was blue. I was purple. You know, just in case people couldn’t tell us apart from looks alone. Leda sauntered over, elegant and calm, and picked up the bag of makeup that was dropped off too.
“I don’t want to,” I muttered.
It was juvenile, pointless, and meaningless and I understood why the guards wanted to slap me when I said it. But I didn’t want to look nice and pretty. I didn’t want my features to show up under the harsh lighting. I wanted every rich person in all of the OEHS to see me for the ghost that I am and everyone else to know I was one of them.
“Cress,” Leda sighed. “I know you don’t want to, but you have to, and this way it’ll be over quicker.”
I looked over my shoulder at the pile of clothes. On top of it was a bag of makeup complete with eyeliner and fake lashes. Leda and Penelope’s piles also had notes that people sent them. Most of the time they were from viewers, but Leda always got one from her mother and sisters.
In the time I spent grumbling, Penelope was already dressed and had gotten herself ready. She held her one arm limply across her side.
“Just, do everything except the lashes,” I told Leda. “I hate it when you spend that long near my eyes.”
“Do we have to do this every time?” Leda asked as I struggled to put on the new pants. My leg didn’t want to obey and they were a size too small anyway.
“What are they going to do?” I asked, knowing exactly what the answer was. “Pin me down and glue them to my eyelids?”
“You’re the one who insists on making it hard for yourself.” Pen walked over and hauled me to my feet. Leda took over as my human crutch, balancing me on one shoulder while she dabbed foundation on my face with the other arm.
“Some of my old buddies from the Navy think our fight was ‘totally wicked’,” Pen scoffed as she read her note. “Selene Tromatter— you remember my old midshipman?”
“The one who tried to sneak her cat on the starship?” I huffed.
“Yes, that one. Be nice. She says we should get our eyes checked out when we get a chance. Something about the position of the sun and the planet making the UV rays in our area particularly bad. She said she would have sent us some drops just in case, but she can’t afford them right now.”
“That’s sweet of her,’ Leda said as she finished painting on my lips. “Can you read the note from my mother?” She untied the ribbon from my hair and pressed it into my palm. It was like my heart and lungs were suddenly too big for my ribcage. I stuffed it in my bra where it was unlikely Hera would find it and take it from me.
Penelope walked back over and rested her hand on my shoulder. “Laophante says she has secured a hotel room for us tonight and will bring a ‘real dinner’ up with her as well. She also claims she’s bought ‘something that will ease our burdens’, but she doesn’t elaborate.”
“Knowing her it could be anything,” Leda shrugged. “All done.” She tapped my shoulder twice and I stretched my facial muscles.
It wasn’t a moment too soon either. Hera and her goons arrived ten minutes before the photoshoot was scheduled to start. This time, they didn’t even ask me if my appearance was dress code compliant. They just got straight to the pinning and the gluing. I fought valiantly, but alas the six foot tall, three hundred pound guards were no match for my 5’1” self.
“You know,” Penelope knelt down beside me with a gently amused expression on her face. I could barely see her through the involuntary tears, but I knew she was there. “It doesn’t have to be this bad every time.”
“Trust me,” I gasped, trying to land another kick on one of the guards. They were lucky one of my legs was out of commission. “It is so much worse if you do it.”
Penelope could say whatever she wanted, but she stayed with me until it was done.
The photoshoot itself was practically nothing. It was as if Hera got three human dolls to play with for the next three hours. She dressed us up in different little variations on the same pretty outfit and moved our bodies to hold her poses that made our waists look tiny and our tits, huge. It was all just a game, prodding our facial expressions for the right amount of alluring determination or sexualized fear.
***
The time always gave me the chance to ask myself. What exactly was this for? Everyone in the OEHS knows that we are conscripted war criminals. Our situation is not a secret. I think, deep down, there must be some appeal to seeing us like this. Not necessarily the sex appeal or whatever Olympios Rex is actually trying to sell, but the clean, airbrushed, overly staged quality of it. I think it makes them forget that the war is real, that we’re fighting it, and once we die, they’ll be next.