Anomaly

By Nicolina Martin

On H-666 the only thing more dangerous than love is hope…

 

The All Lights Celebration isn't for me. I have nothing to celebrate.

 

I'll spend my last night of freedom drinking my misery away. Then I'll submit to forced labor in the mines, where my body and spirit will be broken, and the toxic fumes will destroy my mind. It's my lot in life, and if I want to spare my sister the same fate, I must accept it.

 

I wasn't expecting to meet him, though.

 

Reece is…different. Stronger. More dangerous. His mesmerizing eyes see everything. I should run away, but instead, I run to him.

He needs my help to get to Earth—and in return, he thinks he can save me. I know better. There's no hope for me. I'll die here. But I can't let that happen to him. He deserves better than this place.

 

Better than me.

 

So, while I can give him my body, I can never give him my heart. Because in this place, love is an anomaly. It can't be trusted.

I can only pray I have the strength to let him go when the time comes…

 

*Intended for an 18+ audience*

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dark Heart Pen Publications
• Release date: Dec 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201628925

Nicolina Martin

Nicolina Martin is a Swedish author whose passion for the written word began during her teenage years. While she is deeply influenced by Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Jodi Picoult, and many more, she doesn’t limit herself to just one genre, and dabbles in dark, steamy romance, suspense, erotica shorts, and contemporary fiction. Nicolina enjoys singing, practicing martial arts, and gardening. She is also a music enthusiast, movie fanatic, and bibliophile. Above all, she loves spending quality time with her three beautiful daughters and three feline fur-babies. To Nicolina, life is far too short for regrets, and she is a firm believer in looking forward no matter what to avoid repeating past mistakes. She also believes in thoroughly enjoying each and every moment as it comes because tomorrow is never guaranteed.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Gemini - not born, but created - have been called home by a force that transcends time and space.

Feared across the galaxy, they seek to destroy their human twin, the source of their existence.

They weren’t built to feel anything but rage.

However, that’s changing.

The call has made them vulnerable, and… maybe it doesn’t matter where you come from, only where you’re going?

1

Ailee

Iclose my eyes for a moment, my eyelids too heavy to stay open, and sleep pours over me like a dark wall filled with nightmares. Claustrophobic tunnels and dust-filled, toxic air swarms my mind. I choke. My eyes ache. My helmet, supposed to protect me, feels like it crushes my skull.

My head nods forward, and the sudden jerk kicks me awake. I rub my eyes, then the rest of my face while I stare at absolutely nothing for a few moments, trying to ban the thoughts of my future from this last night of freedom. Tonight, I’ll drink myself into oblivion. Tomorrow is tomorrow’s concern.

The lights for the All Lights Celebration, a mish-mash of old December traditions from Earth, decorate both the exterior and interior. We exchange gifts—the few anyone can afford. We hang tacky strings of lights in the shape of silver stars to commemorate how our ancestors traveled across the night sky to get to this dump. The lights have made it even into this shabby shack of a bar, where they glimmer cold, swaying so low over my head I could reach up, flip them, and send them swinging. Or tear them down. But I have no reason to be mean to Ghim only because life is mean to me. I don’t need to take out my misery on the bar owner.

December doesn’t mean much else here. I have heard of something called snow. A cold, white layer of fluff that can be shaped into things. Snowballs. Snow… men. I can’t imagine it. Our planet doesn’t have anything but either rain or droughts. We make do with what we have, though. The women struggle to make something extra tasty out of the same old protein lumps, the weekly ration of Ushkar meat, and the few vegetables that grow in this soil. The planet has life, but a lot of the natural vegetation is inedible. We grow that which can endure the high levels of molybdenum.

And there’s beer. Lots and lots of beer. The day after tomorrow everyone wakes late and with the mother of all headaches. But not me. I won’t be around.

Tomorrow is our one great festive event, and my last day on the surface with my sanity intact.

I don’t want to sleep.

I can sleep when I’m dead.

The loud clatter, followed by the crash from a bottle breaking against the dark concrete floor, makes me flinch and look up.

The bar is pretty much dead this hour of the night, and the music is low, so the shock of the shattered bottle is even more jarring.

I take in the shards of silvery-gray ceramics with its growing puddle of Miner’s beer, the local brew, and then the heavy black boots, the leather-clad legs, and the thick dark duster that hides most of the hulking figure standing by the mess.

I brace myself, expecting a fight. There are always fights. The fumes from the mines drill holes in the miners’ brains, and with the early-onset dementia, people lose their inhibitions. What remains when the thin veneer of civility falls away, when the primal caveman mind is all that’s left?

Sex and violence. That’s all there is.

Sorry man, sorry, drawls the stranger by the bar, holding out his hands in the universal sign for peace.

I narrow my eyes as I take him in. I don’t recognize the accent.

A little cleaning droid scurries in from the side room, buzzing and hiccuping as it starts sucking up the liquid, its maintenance clearly long overdue. There are cracks in the floor that no one has bothered to mend, and the little droid struggles to get past them.

The bartender throws a towel over his shoulder and looks at the mess on the floor, some of it already dripping over the edges of the damaged surface to get sucked up by the ground instead. I’m sure a lot of beer has disappeared there over the years.

You’re paying for that, he barks out.

The patron, an unusually tall, broad-shouldered man, pats his pockets with increasing fervor, coming up with nothing.

I’m—

I’ll take care of it, I shout across the room.

I’m not sure why I intervene. Maybe because something exciting and new just crossed my path and I want it to last a little while longer? Maybe because I have absolutely nothing else to spend my credits on anymore? I pull up my pad from my chest pocket and let the bartender scan it from across the room, pulling a credit for the beer.

And two more of that one. I nod toward my empty bottle.

The blue beam blips my pad two more times. The stranger hasn’t turned, and he seems tense, his shoulders somehow even broader.

Walking up to the bar, I give my interesting find a once-over. The men on this planet are short. Us women are even shorter. It’s the gravity. The heavy metal we mine is what makes the planet’s core so dense. They make ships out of it, and space stations. What is it like out there, closer to the stars? Does he have some stories