And then the soldier crushed his lips down onto hers. She stood completely trapped, trying to find air to scream. The two officers were just outside the door!

The force was bruising, almost to the degree of drawing blood. Romy screamed into his mouth as he bit hard on her lower lip. The sound was muted. She thrust her head to the side, hearing the snap of her hair ripping free.

It was no use. She was immobilised in his painful grasp.

She couldn’t do a thing.

He swept her legs from underneath her, and she landed on her back, with a cry, on the hard wooden floor. The relentless pull on her hair was gone, but he hadn’t let go of her arm until the last second and now it was trapped underneath her body. The shoulder shrieked at her to get the limb free and she rolled with a groan, easing her arm from behind her.

The brittle casing of her fear snapped and her breath came fast, eyes wide and trained on him as he lowered himself atop her, trapping both of her wrists with bruising force and pushing them above her head, pinning them to the floor with one hand.

She bucked side to side.

“Mmm,” he said. “I like that.”

She barely heard the words through her terror. His hand was working the button on the front of her shorts. It was something unlearnt, something in her makeup that told her the worst was coming. Because she had no experience, no idea what Lucas could truly do. But Romy’s instincts were telling her that she had to get out of there. She opened her mouth to scream—the sound never made it past the stinging slap from the soldier. Her head lolled to the side and his hand continued its downwards movement. He paused to study her, and Romy hated, hated that she was gasping in fear, hated that she couldn’t move. But at the same time there was nothing she could do to stop it. Her body was reacting beyond her control, fear holding the reins.

“I work outside of the law,” Lucas whispered into her chest. “If I want to ‘sexually assault’ you, no one will stop me.”

Horror flooded through her as she realised her grievous mistake. Lucas didn’t work for Tina. He worked for someone higher. Lucas worked for the Mandate!

He licked up the side of her face and bile threatened to spill from her mouth.

“We got incoming,” one of the officers called from the door.

They know what he’s doing and they aren’t doing anything to help, she realised.

Lucas’s expression was triumphant as he ran a finger across Romy’s collarbone, the sensation nearly painful. “You can make this go away if you tell me why you’re here. I don’t want to do these things. But I get a little . . . angry . . . when I don’t get answers.”