WIP Wednesday - Clans of Europa: Tina

 

Our leading lady has a question.

Abruptly, she was set on her feet and released. She staggered a step forward, and a hand steadied her when her legs threatened to give out. She stared to see where they’d brought her.

It was a sleeping cell. Her sleeping cell. The colorful rag rug on the floor, the soaps and candles on the shelves—all things she’d made from leftover bits and pieces others saw as trash. Her private space, with its bed, hard mattress, her white aspirant dress and veil hung on the wall pegs. The place she’d called home for the last five years. The place she was to be unceremoniously evicted from within a week.

She whirled to confront her attackers. In the tiny cell, they appeared larger than ever, huge Goliaths whose heads nearly brushed the ceiling. She emitted a shriek and backed as far from them as possible—an entire foot.

One still held her arm, the Kalquorian who’d entered the dining hall in a merry mood. He knelt before her, his rich voice soothing. “Tina, please let us talk to you. We mean you no harm.”

Despite the gentle expression he wore—such a handsome man, and no horns as she’d seen on the propaganda vids—Tina’s panicked thoughts grew more chaotic. Should she talk to them? Would it be treason since she had no government secrets to confess? What would Sister Katherine do? More importantly, what would Sister Bernadette do?

She had no compass to guide her. Not when she was alone in her sleeping cell with three men.

“We’re tainted in the eyes of the Church and the Holy Father whether we’re violated or not.” Mary’s bitter, wretched voice spoke in her thoughts. “We’re as good as executed for lewdness.”

Was that what was about to happen? Was she about to become a sex slave, as the Holy Father had insisted?

“Matara—Tina—please. Speak to me.” He beseeched, as if only her acknowledgment could offer him comfort. A scene straight out of a movie, the misunderstood hero trying to make the leading lady see he was good beneath the bad-guy façade. All that was missing was the background soundtrack.

This isn’t a movie, stupid. There’s no script here, no happy ending. Wake up!

She could hardly believe it when actual words spilled from her lips. Scripted lines, spoken a hundred times before. “Why are you doing this? Why are you attacking us?”

Releasing December