Memento Mori, Chapter 21
Feb. 12th, 2012 03:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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memento_mori_11 I really should have waited until I’d learned the map better before I ran, Blink considered, for the eighth time in as many minutes, dithering at a junction and struggling to catch her bearings. She didn’t remember it being so hard to navigate back home, even in the more derelict parts of her home district – or to get so thoroughly lost, so easily, and after taking what she thought were fair precautions to study the map before deciding to run.
Concentrate, girl. Think logically. She cursed quietly under her breath, struggling to maintain a level head. Never again will I call Uncle Warp ‘stupid’. Way back when she was still tiny, one of Skydash’s uncles had impressed on the two friends the importance of knowing where you were at all times, especially in unfriendly territory. Although they’d giggled at the time, and joked about how he was biased, ‘maps is all he’s good at so he acts like it’s a big deal’... she’d never forgotten his lessons. And now here she was, stuck at a crossroads, out of breath with a stitch clawing into her flank, desperately lost and increasingly scared, wishing she’d actually used what he’d taught. If only she’d stopped to consider before running that a quick glance at an old map might not be good enough to fully update those wet, squishy biological processors!
Although she had an approximate idea of where she should be going, actually navigating her way to where she wanted to be wasn’t easy when half her options took her further away, and half of the remainder were blocked by fallen masonry. Not to mention, the tidy, precisely-drawn roads on the map didn’t look much like the overgrown streets of the real world.
You don’t have time to dawdle like this, girl! she scolded herself. All the streets look equally impassable and you can’t exactly go back the way you came. Just... pick one and be done with it. You’re all out of second chances, and there’s no time to hide. Your only hope is to keep on running.
Blink took the left option, hoping it would take her back towards the seashore. Sprawling masses of thorny vine turned the street into an obstacle course, their long branches whipping around her legs and tearing the thin fabric of her trousers, almost taking her feet right out from under her several occasions, but she pushed on through. If it was slowing her down, maybe it would slow them down, too?
Yeah, Bee. That’s some good logic there. It’s not like you’re cutting a path for them to follow or anything. As if her scent-trail wasn’t emblazoned across the landscape widely enough for the blights to easily follow it already, fleeing wildlife insisted on screaming out warnings to each other as they ran.
Through gaps in the buildings, aided by gusts of wind, she could hear her pursuers advancing on her. Distant, still, but unwaveringly following. I’m not going to make it. Her lungs already felt raw, as though she’d sat inhaling sparks off the firepit, and her dry throat burned with effort, but she couldn’t let herself stop. The threatening yells lent her an unnatural strength, forcing her to run harder, faster... but deep down inside she knew they’d catch up with her eventually.
Somewhere deep down inside, she knew she was going to be caught. Even if she got back to the Library, there was no way Tevak was going to leave her alone, not after the effort he’d gone to thus far – after all, if he’d abducted her once, what was the chance he wouldn’t increase his violence to get her back? That thought alone almost convinced her to stop and just wait for them to catch up – but hope, slim and faltering though it was, kept her running.
The derelict streets all had a sameness about them that increased her growing disorientation. Nigh on twenty years of storms and absence of care had crumbled facades and shop-fronts, wearing away signage and sending slabs of fancy masonry falling into the streets, blending all the buildings together into faceless, featureless shells. I’m sure I’ve run past that shop once before. Maybe twice. Am I going in circles?
The instant she sprinted bravely past a side-street, something grabbed Blink around the ankles, painfully, and jerked her off her feet.
“-ah!” She couldn’t even bring her feet forwards to catch herself – she threw out her hands to break the fall, and the impact gouged bright, bleeding lines through the fleshy heel of both hands. Pain exploded up through her chest as she went sprawling, the full force of the impact going straight into her small breasts and knocking the wind clean out of her, spreading her over the gravelly, weed-choked road so hard, it was as though she’d been knocked down by a moving vehicle.
Augh-! Sweetest mother of Primus how could something like this hurt so badly?! For an instant, she felt trapped in a bubble, aware of nothing but pain, hot and electric like she’d been dipped in boiling metal, convinced that she’d broken every fragile bone in that soft, organic frame. Even something as simple as breathing felt too difficult. Her lips opened in a soundless scream into the dirt as she convulsively arched off the ground, eyes screwed closed, reflexively trying to curl up in pain, too startled and too breathless to cry out.
...and the thing that had brought her down was still clinging to her ankles! She battled through the pain, in spite of the tears that immediately sprang to her eyes as she moved, oh sweet mother my whole chest is smashed forever, rolling herself onto her back to try and kick it away-
Instead she found a length of supple rope wrapped a dozen times around her legs, both ends tied with rocks. Not a creature, as she’d expected, but a weapon, thrown with the sole aim of stopping her running.
It meant only one thing. They had caught her up. He was here. Her breath hitched in her throat, as though a big hand had closed around her windpipe. Get up, get up NOW. Run!
Even as she fought frantically to unwrap the cable that had tangled her legs – succeeding in nothing but getting the cable even more hopelessly wound around her – she could see Tevak advancing. No longer running, now he was content she was down, meaningfully pushing back his short sleeves.
Get up, get away.
The giant bore silently down on her, an expression of thunderous anger creasing his face into a hideous grimace. Not yelling, not snarling, just total infuriated silence. And those fists, curling and clenching at his sides.
Get up! Get away! Blink could feel her insides contracting up in fear. It felt as though her stomach was trying to creep all the way up her throat and out of her mouth. Her fingers fumbled at the ropes, untwist that one and pass it under the other, how had it got so tangled, she couldn’t concentrate. Was that her imagination, or could she really feel the floor shuddering with each of his massive footsteps?
Tevak’s fingers laced into the front of her shirt, pulling her up towards him, and even as she put up her hands in an ineffectual effort to ward him off, he delivered two swift punches square in her face, from a fist so hard it felt like it had been carved of marble.
It felt like standing too close to a firework, the way agonising, blinding stars exploded in her vision... but the world went blissfully dark a microsecond later.
* * * * *
“...find anything yet?”
Sarmis glanced back down the street, to where Rae was working his way along the fence, and shook his head. “Nothing,” he replied, glumly. “I think the only way we’re going to get proof she’s with Tevak is to go and take a look around, and hope they don’t spot us too quick.”
Rae pursed his lips. “Odati’ll never agree to it. I don’t wanna get you guys in trouble again.”
“I know.” The white spur rubbed the back of his neck and stretched his shoulders, and sighed. “But I guess we’ve gotta go look eventually. I don’t really want to go behind Odati’s back, not after everything she’s done for our little group, but I don’t want to abandon your friend, either.”
“She’s your friend too, Sam,” Rae reminded, quietly. “Unless there is something you’re not telling me.”
Sarmis’ lips quirked into a reluctant smile. “Well, I don’t like to assume.” He gestured with one hand, fingers spread and palm up in a sort of shrug. “She might not like me. Seems... presumptuous, to call her a friend.”
Rae nodded, allowing himself to believe him. While Sadie’s barely-hyperbolic assertion that perhaps Sarmis had been responsible for Blink’s disappearance had introduced a new note of caution into Rae’s behaviour, and the spur’s previous comment wasn’t exactly helping matters, Rae was content – well, mostly content – that the other male was honest, clueless, and just as worried as everyone else.
Sarmis cast a critical look at the sky. and the sun that hung about halfway between its zenith and the horizon. “We ought to head back, y’know. Sun’s gonna be starting to set, soon.”
“Library’s not that far away.”
“No, but it’s far enough. I could do without having a bunch of hungry blights snapping at my legs on the way home.”
As if on cue, something rustled above their heads, somewhere towards the roof of the building next to them, and both spurs took a very large automatic step sideways, alarmed.
“Did you hear that?” Rae wondered, unnecessarily. “What was it?”
Sarmis peered up at the old ledge above them, backing away in an attempt to see a little better, but lush green weeds thickly filled the gutter between the edge and the wall. “Not sure. Could just be an animal. I can’t see anything up there, but it’s well pretty overgrown, and anything could be hiding in there. You might wanna move away just in case...”
A small white object rolled out of the vegetation growing on the building, and tumbled off the edge, landing with a wet crack on the overgrown stones below. Rae edged closer, to find a mess of broken shell and pale liquid slowly oozing through the plant stems.
“...is that an egg?” Rae wondered, looking down at the broken object; Sarmis inched closer and frowned at it, too. “Eggs don’t just jump off things, around here, do-”
Something spiny with lots of claws landed heavily on Rae’s back and drove him to his knees with an oof! of surprise. He managed to recover his balance a split second before he got a faceful of egg, but before he could react any further – before he could even think to question what was happening – pain like a white-hot icicle flashed into his shoulder, tearing an involuntary yell of fright and anger free of his lips.
Rae hurled himself to his feet and backwards into the wall, hoping to dislodge whatever had grabbed him; something soft yielded to the blow, giving its own startled noise of hurt, and the teeth shifted, almost chewing in an effort to get a better grip. He shoved back harder, eyes wide and frantic, fully intending to crush the thing to death if he could-
From somewhere behind came a little squeak of hurt and alarm. Claws detached, and the icicle yanked free, and the weight dropped away. He felt something dart away from him through the grass, knocking into the back of his knees and dropping him painfully back to the ground.
“-paksha-!” Rae gritted the expletive out through clenched teeth, clamping his palm down over the wound.
Sarmis ignored him for a second, lunging after the fleeing creature. If it was just an animal, Rae would be fine. In pain and with a septic bite, perhaps, but fine otherwise... The creature lunged up out of the vegetation and at the wall, trying to climb back to its ledge, but its claws scrabbled uselessly over the rough stone and it fell back into the long grass.
Long and sinuous, somewhat reptilian, but barely five feet long including the barbed tail, the pale spur recognised it as once having been yil, and his heart sank. Not an animal, but a blight, aggressive and infected. Unusual for this species to have jumped them, because yil preferred to laze on rooftops and steal the content of nests, hunting small game instead of attacking creatures so much larger than themselves. Sarmis guessed his friend’s unprotected back had been just too tempting.
Unable to scale the wall, the small blight backed up, its spine so arched it was almost a semicircle, snarling and hissing by turns, flashing its colourful crest. Rae’s blood stained the lethal tusks projecting down from its upper jaw an ugly plum colour.
“Ease up, there, little guy,” Sarmis soothed, backing off, hoping that if he made it obvious he was going away, he might just escape having it attack his ankles. “I know there’s not much brain left in that little head, any more, but you can see me leaving, not gonna hurt you, leaving you in peace, right...?”
His soft words failed to relax the agitated creature – if anything, it made it worse, perhaps aggravated by the ‘ghost’ talking to it, perhaps made bolder by the way the ghost was backing off. The harsh little barks got louder, the tail lashed harder-
Sarmis snatched up a broken branch and just managed to get it between him and their assailant before the sharp little tusks could tear into him, too, when it lunged for him. The blight snapped its frustration and clawed at the wood, its voice a shiver of sound like someone walking on broken glass.
“Sorry, little feller,” Sarmis sighed. “I know it’s not really your fault, and all, but you’re not giving me a whole lot of choice, here...”
The makeshift club made short work of the damaged creature. Sarmis winced as the heavy end crunched into the small head, bones breaking like the eggs it had been eating earlier, even as it snapped and tried again to bite him. It tried to stand, but its front legs wobbled out from under it and it flopped onto its broken face in the dirt, kicking only once more before going still.
“Rae...?” He turned to the huddled figure in the dirt, and leapt into startled action, not realising until now how badly hurt the other male was. “Oh, skeida. Rae!”
The darker spur hadn’t yet managed to get up from where he’d collapsed, curled over on his knees, trembling. A lake of blood so deep a purple it looked almost black had spread down the front of his shirt, running down his arm and beginning to drip off his fingertips.
“It bit me,” Rae stammered, by way of explanation. He couldn’t quite believe it. “It bit me!” Repeating it didn’t help drive the fact home.
“Rae?” Sarmis held him by the upper arms, trying to keep him stable. “Come on, keep with me, here. We need to get you to safety before anything worse sniffs you out, all right? Can you stand?”
The spur’s dark eyes looked unfocused; barely able to concentrate on Sarmis’ words. He tried woodenly to do as told, but Sarmis had to resort to mostly carrying him back to the Library, one arm around his waist with his friend’s uninjured arm stretched across his shoulders.
Rae left a trail of blood-drops and smeary footprints all the way to the bathroom. Aron scurried about behind them in a frenzy of cleaning, hoping to wipe up the blood before anyone (well, mainly Odati) could catch wind of what had happened and grill the bleeding spur for information before they’d got him cleaned up and comfortable, while Jak sprinted off to find Sadie.
Sarmis had moved outside and stood guarding the door, by the time the little nyen arrived.
“How is he?” she wondered, as he moved aside to let her slip past him through the door. “How bad is it?”
“Got a yil’s tusks in his right shoulder.” Sarmis kept his voice low, trying to keep Rae from hearing. “Missed all his major arteries, but chewed him up pretty bad.”
“Ah, damn,” Sadie groaned. “So the poor bastard’s infected, I guess?”
Rae had curled up in the corner of the room, at the centre of a circle of smears of blood, still shaking. “It bit me. Oh, god, it bit me.” He didn’t seem capable of saying much else.
Sadie crouched down next to him, and gave him a quick visual appraisal; the yil’s defensive tusks had driven two deep punctures in his shoulder. At least the bleeding had grown sluggish. “Hey. Hey, hon? Calm down. Look at me?” She waved a hand in front of his face and he finally glanced around at her. “I’m gonna get you cleaned up, all right? But you need to calm down so I can work.”
“It bit me, Sadie. I’m going to get sick, go crazy, and die, in a few months, may-maybe even just a few weeks. And you’re telling me to calm down?” He stared at her, beseechingly. “How is that supposed to work?”
“Well, let’s put it this way. If you don’t calm down at let me take a look at that shoulder, you’ll get septicaemia and die in a few days. Please, love.” She picked up his bloodied right hand and squeezed his fingers, gently. “Just lemme take a look, all right?”
Rae dropped his gaze, and nodded.
“What’s the chance that he caught whatever it was made Blink immune?” Jak wondered, in a hushed little voice, standing next to Sarmis in the doorway. “I mean, if it did it once, maybe it coulda done it again?”
Rae heard the murmur, and shook his head. “I wasn’t there when it happened. By the time I found Blink, she was already laima, and the creature that did it to her had died. I’m just a normal laima, born from normal laima parents, like pretty much every other laima in this whole galaxy.” He began to rock, again. “She’s my friend, but I don’t have Blink’s fancy immunity. I wasn’t even there, when it turned her into one of us. I haven’t caught her immune system from travelling with her-!”
“Hey, hey... calm down.” Sadie squeezed his fingers again. “It’s all right. Jak wasn’t saying it to make fun of you, he just ain’t a scientist and was making a guess. Not a very good guess, sure, but he wasn’t trying to be mean...” As gently as she could manage, she carefully peeled the shreds of fabric out of the partially-clotted blood, triggering another minor gush of ugly purple.
Rae winced and clenched his fingers into a fist. “How bad is it?”
“I’m sorry. It’s gone quite deep,” she acknowledged, quietly. “You’ll need antibiotics – and you’ll need it cleaning out before I stitch it, or it’ll go septic. Feck, it’ll go septic whatever I do, but it won’t be so bad if I wash it out, and you laima heal quick anyway. All right?”
“Do what you’ve got to do,” Rae agreed, hollowly. “Whatever gives me the best chance of rescuing my friend before I lose my mind.” He glanced unhappily up at the little audience in the doorway. “You... you won’t kick me out just yet, will you? Lemme find Blink first?”
Although Jak fidgeted, awkwardly, Sarmis managed a tired smile and shook his head. “No-one’s gonna be asking anyone to leave.”
“But Oda-”
“I’ll speak to her. If she could be lenient with Blink, you’ve got no worries. All right?”
“All right...”
“Besides, you might not be immune, but you are laima. You’ve got good strong genes and you’ve got a better chance of surviving this than more.”
“And,” Sadie waved a finger for emphasis, “when we find Blink, we’re gonna get into the Institute, isolate some antibodies, and cure you – before you start climbing the walls.” She produced a tense but optimistic smile. “Now sit tight while I get this cleaned up...”
Holding still for the exquisitely painful procedure proved impossible, even pre-dosed with the best painkillers Sadie could find in her workbox. Sam and Jak had to pin Rae down so his flailing limbs didn’t clip her while Sadie worked, flushing the wound out with lukewarm water that she’d boiled until it was sterile, earlier. Rae ground his teeth into a wad of fabric, biting down so hard that his jaw would ache for hours afterwards, tears of hurt squeezing out from the corners of his closed eyes.
The aftermath of the wound-cleaning-and-stitching left Rae groggy and dazed. Sarmis helped him hobble up the stairs and along the hall to his room, and pulled the curtains shut against the fierce late-afternoon sunlight while Sadie helped the injured male into bed. They left him to get some sleep, with a sand-timer, a glass of water and a bowl containing half a dozen bright antibiotic capsules, and instructions to take two of the capsules whenever he woke up, so long as the sand in the timer had stopped falling.
With his shoulder hurting too much to get to sleep, Rae just lay with his eyes closed for a long time, trying not to move. It felt like if he twitched his arm even just a fraction, there’d be a series of horrible pops and all Sadie’s stitches would explode open.
“Rae?”
He cracked open one eye and registered a short figure in the doorway. “Don’t want visitors.”
“I know.” Halli limped into the room anyway, holding out a stout clay mug. “I brought you some tea.”
“I really wish people would stop pretending that stupid drink is a panacea for all ills.” He pulled the blanket up over his head. “Right now I’d be better if I could sleep.”
“All right, so the tea might not be a panacea, but I brought you some painkillers to go with it.”
Rae’s bloodshot eye reappeared at the rim of the blanket. “What?”
The zaar kept her hand out. Two fat little red capsules sat in her palm.
“What are they?” Rae wondered, suspiciously.
Halli managed a little smile, perching on the edge of the mattress. “Strong.”
With a grunt, Rae sat up, stiffly, more closely inspecting the offering, before narrowing his eyes and taking them. “Where did you get ’em from?”
Halli sighed. “My grandmother had Matz’s syndrome.” At his puzzled look, she elaborated; “it’s a painful, degenerative bone disease. My genes gave me a small chance of developing it myself, and I didn’t want to be stuck without something to keep me mobile for a little longer. Although that was before I caught heff.” She glanced at the doorway, and lowered her voice a little. “I know I shouldn’t have, but I kept the painkillers after Oma died. I’ve got a small supply hidden in my room. I... well, I guessed you’d need them more than me.”
“...thanks.” Rae swallowed the two capsules together, with a single mouthful of tea. “With any luck, they might help me sleep, too.”
“Probably.” Halli smiled. “I’ll have to come back and wake you up when it’s time for your antibiotics.”
They just sat quietly together, for a little while, with neither able to really think of anything light to talk about. The painkillers kicked in quite quickly, at least; Rae’s breathing grew heavy, and he began to slump in a doze where he sat.
Halli noticed him sliding. “Feeling any better?”
“...yeah.” The painkillers left him numb, but pleasantly foggy. Everything had a soft, warm tinge to it. Even the tea hadn’t tasted quite as bitter as normal. “Pain’s gone.”
“Think you’ll be able to sleep now?”
“Sure.” He slithered down his mattress and let her tuck the blankets back around him, careful not to touch his injured shoulder. “Thanks, Hal.”
She let her forehead rest against his, for just a moment. “I’m sorry. Thank you.”
“What for?”
“You didn’t have to go out. I’m sorry I’ve been causing trouble.”
He managed a drowsy smile. “Of course I had to go. Bee’s in trouble.” He nudged cheeks with her, rubbing noses. “I’m gonna find her, save her, and take her home to her family if it kills me.”
Halli stood and watched him for a while, and listened as his breathing deepened into sleep. “I know. That’s what I’m worried about.”
* * * * *
When Blink finally began to come around, it was to a strange heaviness, like there was a great weight suspended on all her limbs, and eerie swaying sensation. Paying attention to it was difficult, though; her face throbbed where Tevak had punched her, her right eye swollen all the way closed, the left shooting with painful flashes of light when she tried to open it. She could feel every single heartbeat as the blood pulsed through the injury, hot like molten lead moving through her face. She managed to swallow most of the whimpered grunt of pain, concentrating on trying to regain her bearings.
At last she managed to unscrew the clenched lids on the left eye, to find dark had begun to descend. The landscape burned with the rich crimson-orange glow of the sinking sun, intense shadows stretching out like long, thin fingers all around her, reaching for her.
As her thoughts continued to straighten out, she worked out the reason for the tension making her shoulders sore and her back ache, the horrible force pulling up through her arms and legs. The weight... was her own. Like one of the hooting deer, they carried her like prey – her wrists and ankles bound to a pole slung between the shoulders of two of the burlier males. She guessed ‘prey’ wasn’t far off the mark, really.
At least – it was a small blessing, but a blessing nonetheless – they’d also looped her hair up and around the pole, so her long neck didn’t sag backward and her head didn’t dangle in midair, saving her from an agonising crick in the neck. She doubted she’d have even been able to lift her head for herself, after being carried along like that for so long.
What was most troubling was the discovery that they’d used the bulk of her outer clothing to make the bonds that secured her limbs to the pole. Flimsy underwear still clung around her hips, but she felt somehow more naked because of it. Her stomach tightened, awkwardly, the heat rising painfully in her cheeks.
Nudity was such a strange new taboo. Back home, no-one wore clothes. Clothes didn’t exist. There was nothing needing protecting, nothing that needed hiding... But here? The sniggers and murmurs of speech that she could hear at the limits of her hearing, as they approached the old police station, made her cringe inside. Everyone is looking and everyone is laughing. You know that’s why they didn’t just use the rope they took with them, right? To ensure you were suitably punished, suitably humiliated.
Tevak strode along beside her, what was left of her trousers slung over his broad shoulder like some kind of trophy. He caught her looking at him, and shot her a glare – might have been for only the briefest of seconds, but it didn’t hide the disgust fairly dripping from every pore. “So. You’re awake.”
“I-... yes. Y-you can let me down now, if you want,” Blink rasped, softly.
“Oh, no. You’re not going anywhere, under your own power. You decided you wanted to act like a dumb animal, so fine,” he snapped, not looking at her. “We’re treating you like a dumb animal.”
“I was... just-... scared-” she stammered.
“No. You thought I was an idiot. You thought I was too stupid to know you were playing games with me. Well, guess what,” he hissed, softly, close enough to her face that she could feel the heat of his breath on her skin, “You have made fun of me once too many.”
Blink flinched her face away from him. The throbbing pain in her cheek felt like it was getting worse.
“I gave you a chance to join this society peacefully. I gave you a chance to be treated well, with respect, and asked for only one thing in return, and how do you treat me? With lies, with deceit, and by throwing it all back in my face. Well, you had your chance. No more nice Tevak. If I have to starve some fucking manners into you, I will.”
He reached up, making her flinch in anticipation of a blow, but instead cut through the bonds at her ankles, miraculously avoiding nicking her skin in the process. Unable to do anything but obey gravity, her feet dropped like lead to the cracked stone ground. A little yelp of pain escaped her lips at the impact; yet more bruises would be flowering on the soles of her feet by the following morning.
“Now I’ve gotta somehow find someplace to keep you, for the next few days,” he growled, annoyed, grasping both her untidy bunches in the same giant fist while he sliced through the remaining bonds at her wrists and her hair. “You give me the slip just once more, and I swear, I will break both your damn legs.” He bared his teeth. “I might do if you keep on pissing me off, too. Not like you need ’em.” Keeping his fist tight on her hair, he dragged her bodily up the steps behind him and into the building, past the small crowd of sniggering onlookers.
“P-please, you don’t need-... I’ll walk, I can walk-!” she pleaded, staggering behind him, unable to catch her balance as he marched her along. “Ow, please- ah!”
“I gave you plenty of chances, you stupid cointe, and your actions spoke plenty louder than words.” He strode down the stairs to the poorly-lit basement, very nearly carrying her along by her hair. He paused by a gaping hole in the wall – it had probably once been a doorway, but all that was now left was the frame – then swung his arm, hurling her over the threshold.
Blink staggered, tripped, and collided painfully shoulder-first with the wall. Huh. Another cupboard, she noticed, despairingly. Well, it could have been worse – not to mention, he could have followed her in.
“All right, you useless bunch of idiots.” Tevak turned on the small crowd of underlings that had followed him, and even they all cringed back away from him. “She stays in here until Zinovy has her collar fixed. If she escapes again? Whichever one of you useless idiots lets her out is gonna feel the full force of my anger. So you better freaking police each other better this time!”
Someone at the back of the crowd spoke up, bold but shaky. “But Boss-... we can’t stay down here-!”
Tevak leaned down close to the speaker. “Well, I guess unless you can find and fit a whole new door?” he growled, darkly. “You’re just gonna have to. I am not having some freaking... sex-toy with legs... make me look any more of an idiot than it has done already!”
The small cluster milled uneasily in the corridor for some time after Tevak had vanished, arguing quietly among themselves on the best course of action.
“Suppose we better draw up a rota or something,” the only zaar in the group suggested, quietly. “I don’t mind havin’ to take it in turns down here.”
Metu snorted down his long nose. “Yeah, what, and risk someone falling asleep? Come on, you know what’ll happen if she legs it.” The ondras gestured through the door, then waved his hand at the others in the group. “I’m not getting a punching from the boss because one of you lot can’t stay awake and she sneaks out.”
“Well, we’ll have to do it in shifts,” the vul explained, gruffly. “Together, I mean. In pairs. One can keep the other awake, or something.”
“You guys like making work for yourselves, or something?” an oily voice spoke up from the back of the hallway; everyone turned to face the speaker. Zinovy smirked back at them, his head cocked to one side. “Boss only said we had to make sure she didn’t escape, right?”
“Right. What are you getting at?”
The small group clustered in the doorway, letting Zinovy alone go into the cupboard. “We don’t even have to watch her if we make sure she can’t leave the room – and she brought her own bonds with her, see?” He flicked one of her bunches with a stiffened finger. “We just tie her to the pipe, and we’re done.”
Blink cringed away from him. “Leave me alone,” she whispered, uneasily, tucking her hands up to her chest as though that would somehow save her from the unwanted attention. The hart made her almost as uneasy as Tevak, the way he kept on looking at her with those sharp, hungry little beady eyes.
Zinovy smiled, and licked his lips. “I don’t think you’re in any position to go making demands from us, sweetie.” He pinned her against the wall, pressing her injured cheek against the rough stone to keep her compliant; she whimpered, but it hurt too much to wriggle. Once he was satisfied she was behaving, he untied the bow on one of the ribbons, and carefully unwound it from where it was wrapped around the base of one of her bunches.
Getting her to just put her hands where he wanted them was impossible, though. The fessine was in no mood to make it easy, for her tormentor, pulling back away from him, and sitting on her hands. “If you think I’m going to help you-...”
A light flurry of sniggers rose from the group in the doorway, watching Zinovy struggle to regain the upper hand.
“Look, is one of you useless bunch gonna actually come help me, here?” The nyen shot a glance back over his shoulder. “Or are you just gonna gawp? I mean, I don’t know, mebbe you don’t mind sitting guard every night for the next god-knows-how-long? But I’ve got other things the boss needs me to do. I don’t mind jumping ship and leaving you morons to babysit!”
Metu pushed between them. “Yeah, I know I’ve got better things to do than just sit guard and try not to go to sleep. Plus, I don’t trust anyone else not to doze, and I’ll be damned if I let one of that lot set me up for a flogging,” he agreed, walking over. “What do you want me to do?”
Zinovy pointed at the short length of pipe that emerged from the stone, a third of the way along the rear wall, then bent downwards and disappeared into the cement floor. “Hold her arms against that,” he instructed. “While I tie her down.”
Forced to kneel, Blink thrashed in the ondras’ grasp; in spite of her small stature, it was rather more like trying to pin an eel. Metu eventually had to use Zinovy’s trick of touching her injury to maintain her obedience, pressing her up against the wall, and the nyen quickly bound her wrists in place, wrapping them over and over in the ribbon he’d stolen off her hair.
“Perfect,” Zinovy sniggered.
Blink didn’t spare him a glance, closing her hands into fists and yanking feverishly at the ribbons, but her forearms might as well have been glued in place, for all the good it did. Frustrated tears stung her eyes.
“Come on; that’s never gonna hold her,” Tun protested, watching as their captive growled and thrashed, trying the tear the fabric. “Flippy, flimsy little bit of ribbon like that?”
“It’s as good as a bit of string,” Metu argued, watching their prisoner struggle. “Better, I’d wager, as it’s properly woven. And she’s not exactly a pillar of strength, there, is she?”
“Maybe we should try calm her down, anyway.” Zinovy knelt behind her, setting his chin on her shoulder; Blink stiffened, fearfully. “I mean... We could have some fun, while the boss is away,” he purred. “That’ll soothe those rankled little nerves, huh?”
“Don’t touch me,” she whispered, feeling her skin crawl under his touch, trying to shrink away from him. “Keep your hands away. I don’t want to have to fight you, but I will-!”
Tun laughed, and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Zin, she might tell the boss that you, ah, ‘deflowered her’ before he got the chance to.”
Zinovy sniggered. “Oh, I’m sure I can persuade her to keep her trap shut.” His hand meandered around her side, cupped one small breast. “Can’t I, sweets?” He gave his prize a tender squeeze, tweaking at the exposed nipple.
Alarmed, Blink moved instinctually; she threw her head back, and felt the back of her skull impact the delicate bones of Zinovy’s nose. The crunch and outraged wail of pain was eerily satisfying; he dropped her so quickly, an onlooker could have been forgiven for thinking she was red hot. The rest of the crowd fell about, erupting with gales of laughter.
“You-you fucking cointe, oh, fuck ow!” Zinovy swore and fell away from her, blood gushing from his nose. “Oh, fuck! You broke my nose-!”
“Oh, grow up, Zin,” one of the vuls scolded, around his sniggers. “It ain’t broken. If you keep on goading people into punching it, of course the blood vessels in yer nose are gonna be rubbish.”
Zinovy swore under his breath, splattering bright crimson blood over his shirt. “Well you guys can just freakin’ shut up. Fuck, argh.” He jammed a wadded piece of cloth over the injury, but it soon ended up stained almost as brightly crimson as his shirt.
Even the sullen Metu was grinning. “Well mebbe you shouldn’t have been molesting the girl. She told you not to touch her.”
“Well, she didn’t have to attack me either.” Zinovy flounced dramatically out of the cupboard and away down the corridor, looking for some first aid. “Swear, I’ll get her back for that. I swear...”
Now their prisoner had been suitably restrained, the interest the others had in the cupboard waned very quickly. Metu was first to leave, followed by Tun, and slowly all the rest of the voices departed down the corridor, leaving Blink alone in the gloom, her knees already hurting where they pressed into the hard floor.
Trembling, she let her forehead sag against her bound hands, trying (and mostly failing) to rock her weight back onto her feet. Obviously some higher power didn’t like her tempting fate by saying “things could have been worse”, because now it was, incomprehensibly so.
She groaned softly to herself. How in all that is good and honest about the world are you ever going to get out of this one, Bee?
98965 ♥ 100000
Concentrate, girl. Think logically. She cursed quietly under her breath, struggling to maintain a level head. Never again will I call Uncle Warp ‘stupid’. Way back when she was still tiny, one of Skydash’s uncles had impressed on the two friends the importance of knowing where you were at all times, especially in unfriendly territory. Although they’d giggled at the time, and joked about how he was biased, ‘maps is all he’s good at so he acts like it’s a big deal’... she’d never forgotten his lessons. And now here she was, stuck at a crossroads, out of breath with a stitch clawing into her flank, desperately lost and increasingly scared, wishing she’d actually used what he’d taught. If only she’d stopped to consider before running that a quick glance at an old map might not be good enough to fully update those wet, squishy biological processors!
Although she had an approximate idea of where she should be going, actually navigating her way to where she wanted to be wasn’t easy when half her options took her further away, and half of the remainder were blocked by fallen masonry. Not to mention, the tidy, precisely-drawn roads on the map didn’t look much like the overgrown streets of the real world.
You don’t have time to dawdle like this, girl! she scolded herself. All the streets look equally impassable and you can’t exactly go back the way you came. Just... pick one and be done with it. You’re all out of second chances, and there’s no time to hide. Your only hope is to keep on running.
Blink took the left option, hoping it would take her back towards the seashore. Sprawling masses of thorny vine turned the street into an obstacle course, their long branches whipping around her legs and tearing the thin fabric of her trousers, almost taking her feet right out from under her several occasions, but she pushed on through. If it was slowing her down, maybe it would slow them down, too?
Yeah, Bee. That’s some good logic there. It’s not like you’re cutting a path for them to follow or anything. As if her scent-trail wasn’t emblazoned across the landscape widely enough for the blights to easily follow it already, fleeing wildlife insisted on screaming out warnings to each other as they ran.
Through gaps in the buildings, aided by gusts of wind, she could hear her pursuers advancing on her. Distant, still, but unwaveringly following. I’m not going to make it. Her lungs already felt raw, as though she’d sat inhaling sparks off the firepit, and her dry throat burned with effort, but she couldn’t let herself stop. The threatening yells lent her an unnatural strength, forcing her to run harder, faster... but deep down inside she knew they’d catch up with her eventually.
Somewhere deep down inside, she knew she was going to be caught. Even if she got back to the Library, there was no way Tevak was going to leave her alone, not after the effort he’d gone to thus far – after all, if he’d abducted her once, what was the chance he wouldn’t increase his violence to get her back? That thought alone almost convinced her to stop and just wait for them to catch up – but hope, slim and faltering though it was, kept her running.
The derelict streets all had a sameness about them that increased her growing disorientation. Nigh on twenty years of storms and absence of care had crumbled facades and shop-fronts, wearing away signage and sending slabs of fancy masonry falling into the streets, blending all the buildings together into faceless, featureless shells. I’m sure I’ve run past that shop once before. Maybe twice. Am I going in circles?
The instant she sprinted bravely past a side-street, something grabbed Blink around the ankles, painfully, and jerked her off her feet.
“-ah!” She couldn’t even bring her feet forwards to catch herself – she threw out her hands to break the fall, and the impact gouged bright, bleeding lines through the fleshy heel of both hands. Pain exploded up through her chest as she went sprawling, the full force of the impact going straight into her small breasts and knocking the wind clean out of her, spreading her over the gravelly, weed-choked road so hard, it was as though she’d been knocked down by a moving vehicle.
Augh-! Sweetest mother of Primus how could something like this hurt so badly?! For an instant, she felt trapped in a bubble, aware of nothing but pain, hot and electric like she’d been dipped in boiling metal, convinced that she’d broken every fragile bone in that soft, organic frame. Even something as simple as breathing felt too difficult. Her lips opened in a soundless scream into the dirt as she convulsively arched off the ground, eyes screwed closed, reflexively trying to curl up in pain, too startled and too breathless to cry out.
...and the thing that had brought her down was still clinging to her ankles! She battled through the pain, in spite of the tears that immediately sprang to her eyes as she moved, oh sweet mother my whole chest is smashed forever, rolling herself onto her back to try and kick it away-
Instead she found a length of supple rope wrapped a dozen times around her legs, both ends tied with rocks. Not a creature, as she’d expected, but a weapon, thrown with the sole aim of stopping her running.
It meant only one thing. They had caught her up. He was here. Her breath hitched in her throat, as though a big hand had closed around her windpipe. Get up, get up NOW. Run!
Even as she fought frantically to unwrap the cable that had tangled her legs – succeeding in nothing but getting the cable even more hopelessly wound around her – she could see Tevak advancing. No longer running, now he was content she was down, meaningfully pushing back his short sleeves.
Get up, get away.
The giant bore silently down on her, an expression of thunderous anger creasing his face into a hideous grimace. Not yelling, not snarling, just total infuriated silence. And those fists, curling and clenching at his sides.
Get up! Get away! Blink could feel her insides contracting up in fear. It felt as though her stomach was trying to creep all the way up her throat and out of her mouth. Her fingers fumbled at the ropes, untwist that one and pass it under the other, how had it got so tangled, she couldn’t concentrate. Was that her imagination, or could she really feel the floor shuddering with each of his massive footsteps?
Tevak’s fingers laced into the front of her shirt, pulling her up towards him, and even as she put up her hands in an ineffectual effort to ward him off, he delivered two swift punches square in her face, from a fist so hard it felt like it had been carved of marble.
It felt like standing too close to a firework, the way agonising, blinding stars exploded in her vision... but the world went blissfully dark a microsecond later.
“...find anything yet?”
Sarmis glanced back down the street, to where Rae was working his way along the fence, and shook his head. “Nothing,” he replied, glumly. “I think the only way we’re going to get proof she’s with Tevak is to go and take a look around, and hope they don’t spot us too quick.”
Rae pursed his lips. “Odati’ll never agree to it. I don’t wanna get you guys in trouble again.”
“I know.” The white spur rubbed the back of his neck and stretched his shoulders, and sighed. “But I guess we’ve gotta go look eventually. I don’t really want to go behind Odati’s back, not after everything she’s done for our little group, but I don’t want to abandon your friend, either.”
“She’s your friend too, Sam,” Rae reminded, quietly. “Unless there is something you’re not telling me.”
Sarmis’ lips quirked into a reluctant smile. “Well, I don’t like to assume.” He gestured with one hand, fingers spread and palm up in a sort of shrug. “She might not like me. Seems... presumptuous, to call her a friend.”
Rae nodded, allowing himself to believe him. While Sadie’s barely-hyperbolic assertion that perhaps Sarmis had been responsible for Blink’s disappearance had introduced a new note of caution into Rae’s behaviour, and the spur’s previous comment wasn’t exactly helping matters, Rae was content – well, mostly content – that the other male was honest, clueless, and just as worried as everyone else.
Sarmis cast a critical look at the sky. and the sun that hung about halfway between its zenith and the horizon. “We ought to head back, y’know. Sun’s gonna be starting to set, soon.”
“Library’s not that far away.”
“No, but it’s far enough. I could do without having a bunch of hungry blights snapping at my legs on the way home.”
As if on cue, something rustled above their heads, somewhere towards the roof of the building next to them, and both spurs took a very large automatic step sideways, alarmed.
“Did you hear that?” Rae wondered, unnecessarily. “What was it?”
Sarmis peered up at the old ledge above them, backing away in an attempt to see a little better, but lush green weeds thickly filled the gutter between the edge and the wall. “Not sure. Could just be an animal. I can’t see anything up there, but it’s well pretty overgrown, and anything could be hiding in there. You might wanna move away just in case...”
A small white object rolled out of the vegetation growing on the building, and tumbled off the edge, landing with a wet crack on the overgrown stones below. Rae edged closer, to find a mess of broken shell and pale liquid slowly oozing through the plant stems.
“...is that an egg?” Rae wondered, looking down at the broken object; Sarmis inched closer and frowned at it, too. “Eggs don’t just jump off things, around here, do-”
Something spiny with lots of claws landed heavily on Rae’s back and drove him to his knees with an oof! of surprise. He managed to recover his balance a split second before he got a faceful of egg, but before he could react any further – before he could even think to question what was happening – pain like a white-hot icicle flashed into his shoulder, tearing an involuntary yell of fright and anger free of his lips.
Rae hurled himself to his feet and backwards into the wall, hoping to dislodge whatever had grabbed him; something soft yielded to the blow, giving its own startled noise of hurt, and the teeth shifted, almost chewing in an effort to get a better grip. He shoved back harder, eyes wide and frantic, fully intending to crush the thing to death if he could-
From somewhere behind came a little squeak of hurt and alarm. Claws detached, and the icicle yanked free, and the weight dropped away. He felt something dart away from him through the grass, knocking into the back of his knees and dropping him painfully back to the ground.
“-paksha-!” Rae gritted the expletive out through clenched teeth, clamping his palm down over the wound.
Sarmis ignored him for a second, lunging after the fleeing creature. If it was just an animal, Rae would be fine. In pain and with a septic bite, perhaps, but fine otherwise... The creature lunged up out of the vegetation and at the wall, trying to climb back to its ledge, but its claws scrabbled uselessly over the rough stone and it fell back into the long grass.
Long and sinuous, somewhat reptilian, but barely five feet long including the barbed tail, the pale spur recognised it as once having been yil, and his heart sank. Not an animal, but a blight, aggressive and infected. Unusual for this species to have jumped them, because yil preferred to laze on rooftops and steal the content of nests, hunting small game instead of attacking creatures so much larger than themselves. Sarmis guessed his friend’s unprotected back had been just too tempting.
Unable to scale the wall, the small blight backed up, its spine so arched it was almost a semicircle, snarling and hissing by turns, flashing its colourful crest. Rae’s blood stained the lethal tusks projecting down from its upper jaw an ugly plum colour.
“Ease up, there, little guy,” Sarmis soothed, backing off, hoping that if he made it obvious he was going away, he might just escape having it attack his ankles. “I know there’s not much brain left in that little head, any more, but you can see me leaving, not gonna hurt you, leaving you in peace, right...?”
His soft words failed to relax the agitated creature – if anything, it made it worse, perhaps aggravated by the ‘ghost’ talking to it, perhaps made bolder by the way the ghost was backing off. The harsh little barks got louder, the tail lashed harder-
Sarmis snatched up a broken branch and just managed to get it between him and their assailant before the sharp little tusks could tear into him, too, when it lunged for him. The blight snapped its frustration and clawed at the wood, its voice a shiver of sound like someone walking on broken glass.
“Sorry, little feller,” Sarmis sighed. “I know it’s not really your fault, and all, but you’re not giving me a whole lot of choice, here...”
The makeshift club made short work of the damaged creature. Sarmis winced as the heavy end crunched into the small head, bones breaking like the eggs it had been eating earlier, even as it snapped and tried again to bite him. It tried to stand, but its front legs wobbled out from under it and it flopped onto its broken face in the dirt, kicking only once more before going still.
“Rae...?” He turned to the huddled figure in the dirt, and leapt into startled action, not realising until now how badly hurt the other male was. “Oh, skeida. Rae!”
The darker spur hadn’t yet managed to get up from where he’d collapsed, curled over on his knees, trembling. A lake of blood so deep a purple it looked almost black had spread down the front of his shirt, running down his arm and beginning to drip off his fingertips.
“It bit me,” Rae stammered, by way of explanation. He couldn’t quite believe it. “It bit me!” Repeating it didn’t help drive the fact home.
“Rae?” Sarmis held him by the upper arms, trying to keep him stable. “Come on, keep with me, here. We need to get you to safety before anything worse sniffs you out, all right? Can you stand?”
The spur’s dark eyes looked unfocused; barely able to concentrate on Sarmis’ words. He tried woodenly to do as told, but Sarmis had to resort to mostly carrying him back to the Library, one arm around his waist with his friend’s uninjured arm stretched across his shoulders.
Rae left a trail of blood-drops and smeary footprints all the way to the bathroom. Aron scurried about behind them in a frenzy of cleaning, hoping to wipe up the blood before anyone (well, mainly Odati) could catch wind of what had happened and grill the bleeding spur for information before they’d got him cleaned up and comfortable, while Jak sprinted off to find Sadie.
Sarmis had moved outside and stood guarding the door, by the time the little nyen arrived.
“How is he?” she wondered, as he moved aside to let her slip past him through the door. “How bad is it?”
“Got a yil’s tusks in his right shoulder.” Sarmis kept his voice low, trying to keep Rae from hearing. “Missed all his major arteries, but chewed him up pretty bad.”
“Ah, damn,” Sadie groaned. “So the poor bastard’s infected, I guess?”
Rae had curled up in the corner of the room, at the centre of a circle of smears of blood, still shaking. “It bit me. Oh, god, it bit me.” He didn’t seem capable of saying much else.
Sadie crouched down next to him, and gave him a quick visual appraisal; the yil’s defensive tusks had driven two deep punctures in his shoulder. At least the bleeding had grown sluggish. “Hey. Hey, hon? Calm down. Look at me?” She waved a hand in front of his face and he finally glanced around at her. “I’m gonna get you cleaned up, all right? But you need to calm down so I can work.”
“It bit me, Sadie. I’m going to get sick, go crazy, and die, in a few months, may-maybe even just a few weeks. And you’re telling me to calm down?” He stared at her, beseechingly. “How is that supposed to work?”
“Well, let’s put it this way. If you don’t calm down at let me take a look at that shoulder, you’ll get septicaemia and die in a few days. Please, love.” She picked up his bloodied right hand and squeezed his fingers, gently. “Just lemme take a look, all right?”
Rae dropped his gaze, and nodded.
“What’s the chance that he caught whatever it was made Blink immune?” Jak wondered, in a hushed little voice, standing next to Sarmis in the doorway. “I mean, if it did it once, maybe it coulda done it again?”
Rae heard the murmur, and shook his head. “I wasn’t there when it happened. By the time I found Blink, she was already laima, and the creature that did it to her had died. I’m just a normal laima, born from normal laima parents, like pretty much every other laima in this whole galaxy.” He began to rock, again. “She’s my friend, but I don’t have Blink’s fancy immunity. I wasn’t even there, when it turned her into one of us. I haven’t caught her immune system from travelling with her-!”
“Hey, hey... calm down.” Sadie squeezed his fingers again. “It’s all right. Jak wasn’t saying it to make fun of you, he just ain’t a scientist and was making a guess. Not a very good guess, sure, but he wasn’t trying to be mean...” As gently as she could manage, she carefully peeled the shreds of fabric out of the partially-clotted blood, triggering another minor gush of ugly purple.
Rae winced and clenched his fingers into a fist. “How bad is it?”
“I’m sorry. It’s gone quite deep,” she acknowledged, quietly. “You’ll need antibiotics – and you’ll need it cleaning out before I stitch it, or it’ll go septic. Feck, it’ll go septic whatever I do, but it won’t be so bad if I wash it out, and you laima heal quick anyway. All right?”
“Do what you’ve got to do,” Rae agreed, hollowly. “Whatever gives me the best chance of rescuing my friend before I lose my mind.” He glanced unhappily up at the little audience in the doorway. “You... you won’t kick me out just yet, will you? Lemme find Blink first?”
Although Jak fidgeted, awkwardly, Sarmis managed a tired smile and shook his head. “No-one’s gonna be asking anyone to leave.”
“But Oda-”
“I’ll speak to her. If she could be lenient with Blink, you’ve got no worries. All right?”
“All right...”
“Besides, you might not be immune, but you are laima. You’ve got good strong genes and you’ve got a better chance of surviving this than more.”
“And,” Sadie waved a finger for emphasis, “when we find Blink, we’re gonna get into the Institute, isolate some antibodies, and cure you – before you start climbing the walls.” She produced a tense but optimistic smile. “Now sit tight while I get this cleaned up...”
Holding still for the exquisitely painful procedure proved impossible, even pre-dosed with the best painkillers Sadie could find in her workbox. Sam and Jak had to pin Rae down so his flailing limbs didn’t clip her while Sadie worked, flushing the wound out with lukewarm water that she’d boiled until it was sterile, earlier. Rae ground his teeth into a wad of fabric, biting down so hard that his jaw would ache for hours afterwards, tears of hurt squeezing out from the corners of his closed eyes.
The aftermath of the wound-cleaning-and-stitching left Rae groggy and dazed. Sarmis helped him hobble up the stairs and along the hall to his room, and pulled the curtains shut against the fierce late-afternoon sunlight while Sadie helped the injured male into bed. They left him to get some sleep, with a sand-timer, a glass of water and a bowl containing half a dozen bright antibiotic capsules, and instructions to take two of the capsules whenever he woke up, so long as the sand in the timer had stopped falling.
With his shoulder hurting too much to get to sleep, Rae just lay with his eyes closed for a long time, trying not to move. It felt like if he twitched his arm even just a fraction, there’d be a series of horrible pops and all Sadie’s stitches would explode open.
“Rae?”
He cracked open one eye and registered a short figure in the doorway. “Don’t want visitors.”
“I know.” Halli limped into the room anyway, holding out a stout clay mug. “I brought you some tea.”
“I really wish people would stop pretending that stupid drink is a panacea for all ills.” He pulled the blanket up over his head. “Right now I’d be better if I could sleep.”
“All right, so the tea might not be a panacea, but I brought you some painkillers to go with it.”
Rae’s bloodshot eye reappeared at the rim of the blanket. “What?”
The zaar kept her hand out. Two fat little red capsules sat in her palm.
“What are they?” Rae wondered, suspiciously.
Halli managed a little smile, perching on the edge of the mattress. “Strong.”
With a grunt, Rae sat up, stiffly, more closely inspecting the offering, before narrowing his eyes and taking them. “Where did you get ’em from?”
Halli sighed. “My grandmother had Matz’s syndrome.” At his puzzled look, she elaborated; “it’s a painful, degenerative bone disease. My genes gave me a small chance of developing it myself, and I didn’t want to be stuck without something to keep me mobile for a little longer. Although that was before I caught heff.” She glanced at the doorway, and lowered her voice a little. “I know I shouldn’t have, but I kept the painkillers after Oma died. I’ve got a small supply hidden in my room. I... well, I guessed you’d need them more than me.”
“...thanks.” Rae swallowed the two capsules together, with a single mouthful of tea. “With any luck, they might help me sleep, too.”
“Probably.” Halli smiled. “I’ll have to come back and wake you up when it’s time for your antibiotics.”
They just sat quietly together, for a little while, with neither able to really think of anything light to talk about. The painkillers kicked in quite quickly, at least; Rae’s breathing grew heavy, and he began to slump in a doze where he sat.
Halli noticed him sliding. “Feeling any better?”
“...yeah.” The painkillers left him numb, but pleasantly foggy. Everything had a soft, warm tinge to it. Even the tea hadn’t tasted quite as bitter as normal. “Pain’s gone.”
“Think you’ll be able to sleep now?”
“Sure.” He slithered down his mattress and let her tuck the blankets back around him, careful not to touch his injured shoulder. “Thanks, Hal.”
She let her forehead rest against his, for just a moment. “I’m sorry. Thank you.”
“What for?”
“You didn’t have to go out. I’m sorry I’ve been causing trouble.”
He managed a drowsy smile. “Of course I had to go. Bee’s in trouble.” He nudged cheeks with her, rubbing noses. “I’m gonna find her, save her, and take her home to her family if it kills me.”
Halli stood and watched him for a while, and listened as his breathing deepened into sleep. “I know. That’s what I’m worried about.”
When Blink finally began to come around, it was to a strange heaviness, like there was a great weight suspended on all her limbs, and eerie swaying sensation. Paying attention to it was difficult, though; her face throbbed where Tevak had punched her, her right eye swollen all the way closed, the left shooting with painful flashes of light when she tried to open it. She could feel every single heartbeat as the blood pulsed through the injury, hot like molten lead moving through her face. She managed to swallow most of the whimpered grunt of pain, concentrating on trying to regain her bearings.
At last she managed to unscrew the clenched lids on the left eye, to find dark had begun to descend. The landscape burned with the rich crimson-orange glow of the sinking sun, intense shadows stretching out like long, thin fingers all around her, reaching for her.
As her thoughts continued to straighten out, she worked out the reason for the tension making her shoulders sore and her back ache, the horrible force pulling up through her arms and legs. The weight... was her own. Like one of the hooting deer, they carried her like prey – her wrists and ankles bound to a pole slung between the shoulders of two of the burlier males. She guessed ‘prey’ wasn’t far off the mark, really.
At least – it was a small blessing, but a blessing nonetheless – they’d also looped her hair up and around the pole, so her long neck didn’t sag backward and her head didn’t dangle in midair, saving her from an agonising crick in the neck. She doubted she’d have even been able to lift her head for herself, after being carried along like that for so long.
What was most troubling was the discovery that they’d used the bulk of her outer clothing to make the bonds that secured her limbs to the pole. Flimsy underwear still clung around her hips, but she felt somehow more naked because of it. Her stomach tightened, awkwardly, the heat rising painfully in her cheeks.
Nudity was such a strange new taboo. Back home, no-one wore clothes. Clothes didn’t exist. There was nothing needing protecting, nothing that needed hiding... But here? The sniggers and murmurs of speech that she could hear at the limits of her hearing, as they approached the old police station, made her cringe inside. Everyone is looking and everyone is laughing. You know that’s why they didn’t just use the rope they took with them, right? To ensure you were suitably punished, suitably humiliated.
Tevak strode along beside her, what was left of her trousers slung over his broad shoulder like some kind of trophy. He caught her looking at him, and shot her a glare – might have been for only the briefest of seconds, but it didn’t hide the disgust fairly dripping from every pore. “So. You’re awake.”
“I-... yes. Y-you can let me down now, if you want,” Blink rasped, softly.
“Oh, no. You’re not going anywhere, under your own power. You decided you wanted to act like a dumb animal, so fine,” he snapped, not looking at her. “We’re treating you like a dumb animal.”
“I was... just-... scared-” she stammered.
“No. You thought I was an idiot. You thought I was too stupid to know you were playing games with me. Well, guess what,” he hissed, softly, close enough to her face that she could feel the heat of his breath on her skin, “You have made fun of me once too many.”
Blink flinched her face away from him. The throbbing pain in her cheek felt like it was getting worse.
“I gave you a chance to join this society peacefully. I gave you a chance to be treated well, with respect, and asked for only one thing in return, and how do you treat me? With lies, with deceit, and by throwing it all back in my face. Well, you had your chance. No more nice Tevak. If I have to starve some fucking manners into you, I will.”
He reached up, making her flinch in anticipation of a blow, but instead cut through the bonds at her ankles, miraculously avoiding nicking her skin in the process. Unable to do anything but obey gravity, her feet dropped like lead to the cracked stone ground. A little yelp of pain escaped her lips at the impact; yet more bruises would be flowering on the soles of her feet by the following morning.
“Now I’ve gotta somehow find someplace to keep you, for the next few days,” he growled, annoyed, grasping both her untidy bunches in the same giant fist while he sliced through the remaining bonds at her wrists and her hair. “You give me the slip just once more, and I swear, I will break both your damn legs.” He bared his teeth. “I might do if you keep on pissing me off, too. Not like you need ’em.” Keeping his fist tight on her hair, he dragged her bodily up the steps behind him and into the building, past the small crowd of sniggering onlookers.
“P-please, you don’t need-... I’ll walk, I can walk-!” she pleaded, staggering behind him, unable to catch her balance as he marched her along. “Ow, please- ah!”
“I gave you plenty of chances, you stupid cointe, and your actions spoke plenty louder than words.” He strode down the stairs to the poorly-lit basement, very nearly carrying her along by her hair. He paused by a gaping hole in the wall – it had probably once been a doorway, but all that was now left was the frame – then swung his arm, hurling her over the threshold.
Blink staggered, tripped, and collided painfully shoulder-first with the wall. Huh. Another cupboard, she noticed, despairingly. Well, it could have been worse – not to mention, he could have followed her in.
“All right, you useless bunch of idiots.” Tevak turned on the small crowd of underlings that had followed him, and even they all cringed back away from him. “She stays in here until Zinovy has her collar fixed. If she escapes again? Whichever one of you useless idiots lets her out is gonna feel the full force of my anger. So you better freaking police each other better this time!”
Someone at the back of the crowd spoke up, bold but shaky. “But Boss-... we can’t stay down here-!”
Tevak leaned down close to the speaker. “Well, I guess unless you can find and fit a whole new door?” he growled, darkly. “You’re just gonna have to. I am not having some freaking... sex-toy with legs... make me look any more of an idiot than it has done already!”
The small cluster milled uneasily in the corridor for some time after Tevak had vanished, arguing quietly among themselves on the best course of action.
“Suppose we better draw up a rota or something,” the only zaar in the group suggested, quietly. “I don’t mind havin’ to take it in turns down here.”
Metu snorted down his long nose. “Yeah, what, and risk someone falling asleep? Come on, you know what’ll happen if she legs it.” The ondras gestured through the door, then waved his hand at the others in the group. “I’m not getting a punching from the boss because one of you lot can’t stay awake and she sneaks out.”
“Well, we’ll have to do it in shifts,” the vul explained, gruffly. “Together, I mean. In pairs. One can keep the other awake, or something.”
“You guys like making work for yourselves, or something?” an oily voice spoke up from the back of the hallway; everyone turned to face the speaker. Zinovy smirked back at them, his head cocked to one side. “Boss only said we had to make sure she didn’t escape, right?”
“Right. What are you getting at?”
The small group clustered in the doorway, letting Zinovy alone go into the cupboard. “We don’t even have to watch her if we make sure she can’t leave the room – and she brought her own bonds with her, see?” He flicked one of her bunches with a stiffened finger. “We just tie her to the pipe, and we’re done.”
Blink cringed away from him. “Leave me alone,” she whispered, uneasily, tucking her hands up to her chest as though that would somehow save her from the unwanted attention. The hart made her almost as uneasy as Tevak, the way he kept on looking at her with those sharp, hungry little beady eyes.
Zinovy smiled, and licked his lips. “I don’t think you’re in any position to go making demands from us, sweetie.” He pinned her against the wall, pressing her injured cheek against the rough stone to keep her compliant; she whimpered, but it hurt too much to wriggle. Once he was satisfied she was behaving, he untied the bow on one of the ribbons, and carefully unwound it from where it was wrapped around the base of one of her bunches.
Getting her to just put her hands where he wanted them was impossible, though. The fessine was in no mood to make it easy, for her tormentor, pulling back away from him, and sitting on her hands. “If you think I’m going to help you-...”
A light flurry of sniggers rose from the group in the doorway, watching Zinovy struggle to regain the upper hand.
“Look, is one of you useless bunch gonna actually come help me, here?” The nyen shot a glance back over his shoulder. “Or are you just gonna gawp? I mean, I don’t know, mebbe you don’t mind sitting guard every night for the next god-knows-how-long? But I’ve got other things the boss needs me to do. I don’t mind jumping ship and leaving you morons to babysit!”
Metu pushed between them. “Yeah, I know I’ve got better things to do than just sit guard and try not to go to sleep. Plus, I don’t trust anyone else not to doze, and I’ll be damned if I let one of that lot set me up for a flogging,” he agreed, walking over. “What do you want me to do?”
Zinovy pointed at the short length of pipe that emerged from the stone, a third of the way along the rear wall, then bent downwards and disappeared into the cement floor. “Hold her arms against that,” he instructed. “While I tie her down.”
Forced to kneel, Blink thrashed in the ondras’ grasp; in spite of her small stature, it was rather more like trying to pin an eel. Metu eventually had to use Zinovy’s trick of touching her injury to maintain her obedience, pressing her up against the wall, and the nyen quickly bound her wrists in place, wrapping them over and over in the ribbon he’d stolen off her hair.
“Perfect,” Zinovy sniggered.
Blink didn’t spare him a glance, closing her hands into fists and yanking feverishly at the ribbons, but her forearms might as well have been glued in place, for all the good it did. Frustrated tears stung her eyes.
“Come on; that’s never gonna hold her,” Tun protested, watching as their captive growled and thrashed, trying the tear the fabric. “Flippy, flimsy little bit of ribbon like that?”
“It’s as good as a bit of string,” Metu argued, watching their prisoner struggle. “Better, I’d wager, as it’s properly woven. And she’s not exactly a pillar of strength, there, is she?”
“Maybe we should try calm her down, anyway.” Zinovy knelt behind her, setting his chin on her shoulder; Blink stiffened, fearfully. “I mean... We could have some fun, while the boss is away,” he purred. “That’ll soothe those rankled little nerves, huh?”
“Don’t touch me,” she whispered, feeling her skin crawl under his touch, trying to shrink away from him. “Keep your hands away. I don’t want to have to fight you, but I will-!”
Tun laughed, and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Zin, she might tell the boss that you, ah, ‘deflowered her’ before he got the chance to.”
Zinovy sniggered. “Oh, I’m sure I can persuade her to keep her trap shut.” His hand meandered around her side, cupped one small breast. “Can’t I, sweets?” He gave his prize a tender squeeze, tweaking at the exposed nipple.
Alarmed, Blink moved instinctually; she threw her head back, and felt the back of her skull impact the delicate bones of Zinovy’s nose. The crunch and outraged wail of pain was eerily satisfying; he dropped her so quickly, an onlooker could have been forgiven for thinking she was red hot. The rest of the crowd fell about, erupting with gales of laughter.
“You-you fucking cointe, oh, fuck ow!” Zinovy swore and fell away from her, blood gushing from his nose. “Oh, fuck! You broke my nose-!”
“Oh, grow up, Zin,” one of the vuls scolded, around his sniggers. “It ain’t broken. If you keep on goading people into punching it, of course the blood vessels in yer nose are gonna be rubbish.”
Zinovy swore under his breath, splattering bright crimson blood over his shirt. “Well you guys can just freakin’ shut up. Fuck, argh.” He jammed a wadded piece of cloth over the injury, but it soon ended up stained almost as brightly crimson as his shirt.
Even the sullen Metu was grinning. “Well mebbe you shouldn’t have been molesting the girl. She told you not to touch her.”
“Well, she didn’t have to attack me either.” Zinovy flounced dramatically out of the cupboard and away down the corridor, looking for some first aid. “Swear, I’ll get her back for that. I swear...”
Now their prisoner had been suitably restrained, the interest the others had in the cupboard waned very quickly. Metu was first to leave, followed by Tun, and slowly all the rest of the voices departed down the corridor, leaving Blink alone in the gloom, her knees already hurting where they pressed into the hard floor.
Trembling, she let her forehead sag against her bound hands, trying (and mostly failing) to rock her weight back onto her feet. Obviously some higher power didn’t like her tempting fate by saying “things could have been worse”, because now it was, incomprehensibly so.
She groaned softly to herself. How in all that is good and honest about the world are you ever going to get out of this one, Bee?