Chapter 5

Josephine wasn't entirely sure how many days had passed since she and Simon had been brought aboard the ship before they, along with several other humans, were brought into what looked like a makeshift throne room. Starscream watched them with an eager glint to his eyes while lounging on his chair. Several other Decepticons were scattered throughout the room, Thundercracker and the purple one, who, she had learned from scattered conversations with the other humans on their walk here, was named Skywarp were both flanking Starscream.

She allowed herself to observe the three and now that her adrenaline had worn off, she immediately noticed the similarities among them, the only difference she could find (beyond their personalities) was their color schemes.

As Josephine glanced around the room, she felt the stares that landed on her briefly before shifting to another one of the humans in their group. Every now and then she would meet a pair of those red eyes and would quickly look away from the hate-filled or curious stares.

Simon lightly squeezed her hand, grounding her. Josephine squeezed his hand in return, briefly catching his eye. They'd had hours to converse and plan for what they could only imagine they might face in the coming weeks and months, concluding that goal number one was to survive by any means necessary. Goal number two, which Josephine had argued was the same as the first one, was to stay alive. Goal number three, look for any way out and potentially a way to free more than just themselves. And finally, goal number four, protect each other.

It had given her a purpose and a goal to preoccupy and prevent her mind from wandering into bleak thoughts and worries that would do nothing good for her.

Josephine was jarred from her thoughts by the Decepticon that had herded them into the room barking at them to kneel before Starscream. Every instinct in Josephine warred against the request. Goals for surviving suddenly left her mind at the humiliating demand, and had it not been for Simon pulling her down as he got to his knees, Josephine was certain she would have either been killed on the spot or given over to Knock Out.

At that thought, her eyes found Knock Out who smirked as his own gaze met hers as if in promise. Josephine fought a shiver that trailed down her spine.

"Well, aren't you all a pathetic looking lot."

Starscream's voice grated on every single nerve, making Josephine wish she could cover her ears.

His comment was met with some laughter as the rest of the Decepticons took in their new group of slaves.

"Perhaps not all of you are completely useless though," Starscream sighed, resting his chin on a fist as he looked the humans over.

Seconds ticked past in silence, and Josephine could feel the collective breath being held by every single human.

"You there," he pointed a finger toward a cowering woman just to the right of Josephine, "Stand up and look at me."

The woman hesitated, clearly shaking from fear. And the hesitation seemed to do two things at once to Starscream. He looked clearly annoyed at her lack of immediacy, yet somehow seemed thrilled about it too. He waved a hand to the Decepticon that had marched them into the room.

If Josephine had blinked then she would have missed it. Out of nowhere, a male human appeared right beside the woman, gripping her arm hard enough that Josephine winced. He hauled her toward Starscream, a few strangled pleas for help escaping the woman's lips as she was unceremoniously flung to the floor at the Decepticon's feet. And as quickly as the man appeared, he disappeared, the black and white Decepticon behind them shaking his head slightly as if to reorient himself.

Josephine wasn't able to dwell on it though as Starscream pulled attention back to himself.

"Look at me, I will not ask you again."

The order reverberated around the room and the woman recoiled but managed to tilt her head up.

Starscream snorted, "I have no use for humans who fail to follow simple tasks at my first request. You will make an excellent example to your fellow humans."

His eyes snapped back to the group of humans, daring them to look away as he spoke again, "Barricade."

Starscream nodded at the Decepticon behind them and before anyone realized what was happening, Barricade's arm transformed into what looked like a canon, whirring to life in less than a second and firing right over their heads at the woman before Starscream.

Josephine couldn't look away. Her heart raced as the smell of charred flesh reached her nostrils, nausea building in her gut. Someone was gripping her shoulders, shaking her, yelling her name, but Josephine couldn't hear it over the screaming that would not stop.

Finally, the ringing in her ears died and she realized it was her that was screaming. Josephine's eyes locked onto the person clutching her shoulders, blinking Simon into focus before looking around her. It was pure chaos.

Some people must have attempted to run because a few bodies lay scattered on the ground while the rest of the group were split between crying, screaming, or vomiting. Nausea rolled in her gut, horror at what had just happened consuming her.

Every thought about surviving eddied out of her head as she looked to the fallen humans surrounding them. Simon shook her shoulders violently, finally drawing her attention back to him. Blood was lightly spattered across his face and his brown eyes were wide with his own unspoken terror at what had just happened. Simon's grip only tightened on her.

"Breathe," he whispered, but Josephine wasn't sure if he was talking to her or himself.

Their brief moment was broken by sharp laughter and a voice filled with glee, "Apparently, this group of humans wasn't quite as…clever as I had hoped. But we at least have a few who seem to be worth the trouble."

Josephine could feel his gaze zero in on them and both she and Simon tensed.

"Ah, the female that Thundercracker spared. You seemed to have learned your lesson well," he paused, before ordering, "come here."

And despite the fear that threatened to consume her, Josephine somehow found the strength to stand and walk toward the murderer.

She trembled even as her chin lifted and looked the Decepticon in the eye.

"So, this one's the defiant one then." He glanced over to Thundercracker, who looked so disinterested Josephine would never have guessed he'd just witnessed multiple lives taken in front of him. Thundercracker only dipped his chin in acknowledgement of the question.

"Well, we can't have that now, can we?" Starscream looked back at her, and Josephine wasn't sure whether the question was meant for her, so she settled on barely shaking her head in response, not wanting to chance what would happen to her if she failed to respond at all.

Starscream laughed again along with the rest of the Decepticons, "She agrees then!" He grinned at her, "What is your designation, human?"

Josephine flicked her eyes to Thundercracker, confirming this was a time to verbally answer the question.

"J-Josephine," she stated.

"You will address me, Josephine, as lord," his voice growled.

She nodded vehemently and when he appeared to wait for her to correct it, she bit back a retort and did as Starscream requested, "My name is Josephine, lord Starscream."

The effect of her stating his title was immediate. He relaxed back into his chair, eyeing her with pure satisfaction.

Josephine held his stare defiantly, not backing down even as she was distantly aware of the blood that was beginning to soak through the fabric of her shoes. The realization made her break eye contact as she instead glanced at the human remains in front of her. Her hands shook and nausea returned full force.

Unable to quell the nausea, Josephine expelled her stomach's contents onto the ground in front of her and onto Starscream's feet. He immediately recoiled, a sound of disgust coming from his mouth as Skywarp boomed with laughter.

Josephine shook as she collapsed onto the floor, hands and knees becoming bloodied as she purged the rest of her system.

She heard Starscream call for Knock Out to run a scan on her body, and she felt a tingling sensation as a blue light pulsed over her. Whatever Knock Out said seemed to appease Starscream only somewhat.

Once she'd recovered herself, managing to stand back up, Josephine prepared for her life to be ended by her stomach's unfortunate timing.

Starscream's fingers wrapped around her and pulled her near to his face, "You dare to spew your human filth onto me again and I won't hesitate to terminate you on the spot. Knock Out informed me that this is not a…preventable bodily reaction, so I will let you live as I do actually want to have some slaves left alive after today." His fingers loosened somewhat, allowing her to breathe from the vise-like grip he'd held her in, "However, since you're the only living slave alive who also contributed to the mess in my throne room, you, my dear Josephine, will be the one to clean it."

She blinked, "But—"

"Did I not make myself clear enough for you?" his hand squeezed her tighter once more. "You will dispose of the bodies and clean the floors until there are no more human fluids to be found. You will also rid my feet of your own fluids."

Josephine blinked back tears as Starscream dumped her onto the ground and began speaking in some language that Josephine did not recognize.

A Decepticon left and reappeared with two large buckets and what looked like a thin bed sheet and dropped them beside her. Barricade then ushered the remaining humans out of the door, Simon's eyes finding hers for a moment, seeming to try to convey something, but before Josephine could decipher the expression, he was gone. And she was very alone in a room filled with huge robots that also happened to be murderers.

She breathed shakily and looked into the first bucket—it was empty, and her heart sunk at the realization that she would have to pile the bodies into it. The walls of the bucket were just barely shorter than her, which would mean getting a body into the container would not be an easy task. Making her way over to the next bucket, she saw a shimmering blue liquid within and knew that was what would be required for removing the blood from the floor.

Her breathing came in short, panicked bursts as she slowly looked at the carnage that surrounded her. Josephine couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't think…

"I would suggest starting on my pediforms before anything else," Starscream stomped his foot for emphasis and it jarred Josephine out of her momentary panic.

She quickly tore a piece of the bed sheet off to make it more manageable and dunked it into the liquid, swearing as soon as her skin came into contact with the chemical.

"I do no recall granting you permission to speak."

Josephine bit her tongue, shaking out her hand as the burning sensation remained. Examining it, she didn't find anything abnormal with her skin, but it had felt as though she had placed her hand in an open flame.

"Slave," Starscream's voice demanded her attention. "I chose you for this task because you responded immediately to my requests, so, I would suggest hurrying up," he snapped.

"My hand, I—that is…" she trailed off at the grin on his face, realizing he already must have known how her body would react and had planned this purposely. Josephine could feel tears building again, frustration boiling over as it became clear that despite not having purposely done anything wrong, Starscream was punishing her.

The sound of metal whirring made her bite the bullet and re-plunge the cloth back into the liquid. Josephine bit back a scream as she made her way to Starscream's foot, or pediform as he had called it, and began wiping at her bile as quickly as she could.

Hands burning, she fought back the scream that was building as the pain grew and was only made worse each time as she re-saturated the cloth with the chemical. A small whimper came from her mouth as she neared being completely finished, relief in her sights, even if it was only momentary.

"An energon concoction by our dear medic, we found that it seems to not mix well with organic lifeform shells, and it serves its purpose wonderfully, I must say."

Josephine couldn't tell if Starscream was speaking to her, so she chose to ignore him. Finally completing her first task and immediately drying off her hands with the unused sheet, they were still enflamed and regardless of the fact she'd removed the chemical from her hands, Josephine knew her skin had already been exposed to too much of it, no doubt already absorbing some of it too.

Her aching hands made trying to grab things that much harder, and Josephine plainly heard the laughter at her attempts to grab at a body, feet slipping in blood and gore while her fingers would hardly cooperate with her.

Time had never felt so slow. What Josephine wouldn't have given to go back to waiting to be sold off, when the least of her problems was a tattoo on her wrist that labeled her as just a number. She thought that entire process had felt never ending, but oh, how wrong she was. Now, as she fought to dispose of fallen humans who would never see their loved ones again, Josephine realized this was so much worse.

There were several times when she nearly threw up again but managed to fight it down. She had to force herself to think of anything else but what she was doing, for Josephine knew that if she thought too much about what she was doing she would lose it and then be next on Starscream's hitlist.

Her thoughts briefly drifted to the rest of the humans on the ship beyond the ones the Decepticons had just recently acquired. What manner of horrors had they each been subjected to? And how long had they been forced to endure said horrors? It made her that much more curious to talk to them. So far, however, the Decepticons had seemed to prefer keeping their humans isolated. And Josephine supposed that would make sense if they were afraid of a human actually escaping, but the likelihood of that seemed nearly impossible. She had to wonder why the Decepticons would need so many humans and why they acted as though their slaves were valuable, only to then kill some of them off. It didn't make much sense in her mind. As if there were a million pieces of a puzzle that she was trying to put together without knowing what the finished result actually looked like.

Soon, all that was left was the bloodied and soiled floor, and Josephine clutched her hands to her chest, wishing that perhaps they'd spare her this cruelty. Tentatively, she looked up at Starscream who was once again speaking in that peculiar language and was currently engaged in a conversation with multiple Decepticons. Heart sinking, Josephine knew there would be no mercy to be found. If they had no problem with taking slaves and killing them to make a point, then there was no way that her pain would cause them any grief.

Josephine slowly pulled off another piece of the cloth and got to work, biting back her screams as she dunked the cloth back into the chemical and got to work.