Voices by M J Marlow (uplifting novels txt) 📕

found myself wrapped in the arms of warmth that was
sleep. Drea looked down at me a moment and saw the lines of pain
ease away from my eyes. She gave me a painkiller as I lay there
helpless and then went to check on her other patients.
“You’re a doctor,” Anjela said as Drea came to check on
her. “Can’t you cure them?”
“Of being able to help people?” Drea asked; her anger
silencing the older woman. “You are not letting yourself see that
these two women are a benefit, not a curse.” She smiled over at
me. “Neither of them would harm another being unless it were to
protect themselves or those they care for.”
“It’s not right,” Anjela insisted as she pulled on the straps
holding her down; “walking around in other people’s minds like
they do.”
“If Laura had not been able to do so,” Drea replied tightly;
“Maya would still be in a coma. Instead, Maya is awake and aware
and ready to go home when her father arrives the day after
tomorrow.”
“More of their kind are coming here?” Anjela was alarmed
by this news. “They’ll turn us into their toys! Punish us for what
was done to their girl!” She pulled on the straps. “You have to let
me loose. I can’t be here when they come. I can’t.”
“Calm down, Mrs. Foster,” Drea said as she readied a
sedative. “They are only coming to take Maya and her brother
home. The Betazoid do not make ‘toys’ of people,” she assured the
terrified woman. “That,” she continued coldly; “is something I
hear the Lassiters do.”
She did not hear the man coming up behind her. The next
thing she knew she was being gagged and bound. She looked up as
the man freed Anjela and kissed her on the cheek. Gone was the
helpless old woman. The cunning in the woman’s eyes terrified
Drea.
“We take the new women,” Anjela told her nephew; “and
leave Maya here. Her people are coming for her,” she told the
disappointed man. “You’ll have much more fun taming our new
doctor.” She nodded over at me. “Help the doctor to her feet and
have her give the little witch a sedative. We can’t have the child
waking up too soon and crying for help.”
“She’ll be sacrificed then, Aunt?”
“You will be given a chance to chain her, Mick,” Anjela
smiled coldly; “as you wish. But,” she continued as Lassiter’s eyes
gleamed; “if you cannot control her…”
“I will slit her pretty throat myself, Aunt,” Lassiter bowed
his head. He yanked Drea up to her feet. “You heard my Aunt,
woman. Some sedative for the little witch.”
Drea tried to fight, but Lassiter’s grasp on her arm was
punishing. She had to do as she was told at the moment and pray
the men would step in and help them. But her hopes died as she
was shoved out of the Infirmary to his men. People lay on the
ground all around the town and she hoped they were only asleep.
Anjela followed the direction of her eyes and assured her that the
town was merely resting.
“Can’t afford new livestock yet,” she laughed coldly. “The
beasts merely sleep.” She looked at her son who was carrying me
under his arm. “Put them in a cage and let’s be on our way.”
I woke up sitting against something hard. It pressed against
my spine as I tried to sit up and I looked over my shoulder to see a
large stone post. My wrists had been bound behind it and there was
a strap around my throat so I could not move. I was confused by
the situation. I had been sleeping in the Infirmary; so I should have
woken up there. I looked down to see my ankles had been shackled
down to the rocky ground I was seated on. I was still groggy from
whatever drug I had been given to get me here without protest. I
heard someone coming towards me from down a tunnel and looked
around the cave I realized I was in to see a young woman dressed
in a simple sleeveless shift bringing me something to eat and drink.
“She does not speak, witch,” Anjela’s cold voice spoke up
from behind me. I could not move my head to see her. “You will
be tended by her until the time of your chaining.”
I tried to speak and nothing came out of my throat. Anjela
laughed and I knew she had done something to my voice to render
me mute. I tried to call with my mind and my thoughts were dulled
and heavy. I could feel nothing beyond my own discomfort. I let
the girl help me eat and sat back with my eyes closed. This was a
dream, I told myself. I was going to wake up and be back in the
Infirmary with Maya; waiting for her father to arrive.
“I am certain you realize by now,” Anjela said as she came
around so I could see her; “that you will most probably be
destroyed.” I looked at her in shock. “As pretty as you are, little
witch; we will not let you live if my nephew cannot control you.
Your kind must be eradicated at every opportunity.” I shook my
head and she laughed at me. “You might not think you are a threat
to us, child; but we have learned better.” Her eyes were cold as she
remembered. “We came here to be free of creatures like you.”
I watched her leave, wondering how she could be so filled
with hatred. I tried once more to pull my wrists free but the
shackles held firm. I was trapped in this cave at the mercy of a
madwoman. I could feel the dullness increasing on my mind and
knew they meant to keep me drugged until they decided if I was
going to live or not. Drea came to check on me later that day and
looked at Anjela sharply. She was slapped for her defiance and
dragged off by one of the men. Lassiter came to speak to me later
and I did not need to read his mind to know what he was thinking.
“You have one chance to save your life, girl,” he said as he
straddled my bound legs. “You let me make you my pet, or you
die.” He reached towards my face and I bit him; drawing blood. He
slapped me across the face. “You little monster! I’ll teach you to
behave!” He freed my wrists and then my ankles. He yanked me
up to my feet and dragged me down a tunnel. “You’ll be more
compliant after you’ve spent some time in the hole.”
He took me to the edge of a hole in the floor of a tunnel and
I saw only darkness. I tried to back away as he put my hands in the
holes in an iron bar attached by chains that wound into a levering
mechanism. Lassiter laughed and shoved me. I could not help the
cry of pain as I dropped a foot and the bar and chain stopped me
short. I could still not see the bottom as Lassiter lowered me down.
I hit water before I hit bottom and I was terrified.
“We’ll start with a half hour,” Lassiter’s cold voice
sounded above me. “If you continue to be rebellious, the
punishment time will be increased until you either agree with my
request or you are dead.”
I could feel the chill beginning to settle in my body from
the water that was up around my body. My mind was not as
helpless as my body; however. Whatever had been holding it
captive weakened even as my body grew numb and I was
momentarily revived as Maya’s mind and another, far stronger;
surged into mine. Her father, I assumed. Maya’s family had arrived
early. I showed her where I was; as much as I knew and she helped
me find Drea’s mind. She was in a building above ground and she
was chained to a post in an Infirmary.
“We have her, Laura,” Maya assured me. “Don’t be afraid;
we’ll be there soon to help both of you.”
I sobbed in relief and let myself relax. I fell asleep and
woke as Lassiter pulled me up. Had it only been half an hour since
he put me in the hole? He saw the fire in my eyes, despite the fact
that I could not stop shivering from the cold and put me back
down. The next time I was so numb from the cold that he freed me
and carried me to Drea.
“Do what you can for the little witch,” Lassiter ordered. He
dropped me on a table. “I want her lucid enough to answer my
question.”
“What has that monster been doing to you?” Drea cried in
shock as she saw the readings. She tended the bruises and
lacerations on my wrists and ankles and wrapped me in blankets to
help stop the shudders.
“He-he wants to-to make me his-his,” I stammered, unable
to keep my teeth from chattering; “pet!” I looked up at Drea in
anguish. “I won’t do it, Drea!” I wailed as she rubbed my arms and
legs to get the blood circulating again. “I won’t.”
“I have my answer then,” Lassiter snarled. I found myself
lifted off the table as his hand clamped on my throat. I tried to
make him let go; but his arm was like steel. “Before you are
executed, little witch; I would have you in my bed.” He clamped
his lips on mine and I shuddered in revulsion. “So sweet!”
“Mick!” a man came running. “We’re being raided!”
“Set a guard on the doors,” Lassiter ordered as he glared at
me. “If it looks like they are getting close, have the man slit the
witch’s throat and get the doctor out.”
Lassiter set me on my feet and I collapsed; unable to stand
now. Drea came to my side and checked me over as the men left;
frowning at the bruises on my throat. She helped me to my feet and
made me sit down while she prepared a drug. I felt sensation
returning to my limbs once again.
“Drea!” I cried out the warning as I saw the old woman.
“Look out!” I shoved Drea aside and the knife meant for her back
struck me instead. “Oh!”
“Leave her, woman!” Anjela hissed as Drea tried to help
me. “She was meant to die!” She slapped Drea across the face and
watched the woman fall. “You are our slave,” she continued as she
beckoned to a man. “Take her. We are going now.”
“You can’t leave her like that,” Drea protested as the man
dragged her away. “She’ll bleed to death if someone doesn’t help
her.”
“She is supposed to die, slave,” Anjela laughed and looked
down at me as I lay on the floor; helpless. “Why would I want to
help her?”
I heard them dragging Drea off through the haze of pain
that had settled over my mind. I could see the knife hilt but the
amount of pain I was in kept me from trying to remove it. I
struggled to my knees and leaned up against the wall, shaking in
pain from the exertion. Please, my mind screamed out as I felt my
life flowing out of me with my blood; I don’t want to die! I was so
locked in my panic that I did not hear Maya’s mind reaching into
mine. I was nearly gone when Tadeus and Brad found me. Brad
did what he could to stabilize me, and then he and Tadeus rushed
me to the waiting shuttle.
I had survived my first mission, and my initial unrest
became a happy acceptance. I felt as if I had always been here on
the