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Anger burst through Caro when she entered a cell she didn’t recognize. They’d fitted a bed and mattress to a bulkhead, her blanket folded at the foot end. A mini-cleansing room sat in the corner. She wasn’t delighted at this supposed boon. It was a slap in the face, a bribery of sorts.
How dare she? Caro curled her fingers into fists, fighting to calm the fire blazing through her mind and veins. She glanced past Ayetz to Bezu. “Get me Imarri.”
“I do not obey you, Caro, and to summon Imarri will cost me much.” His black eyes pleaded with her to understand. “I thought these would please you.” He gestured to the cell. “They do not?”
Relief skirted her senses, but she hesitated to let go of her anger. “Is this your doing, or did Imarri order it?” If Bezu had risked his life for these luxuries, she’d thank him for his kindness.
“She ordered it.” He lowered his gaze. “I shall take your request to my superior.”
The door closed.
Caro paced, ranting to herself about the bitch’s audacity. The shower had been incredible. The stickiness of her unwashed limbs and dank hair had eroded her humanity. But at what cost? What would Imarri demand in return?
The door opened to Naal with his lip curling in derision, exposing a sabretooth. He lived to inflict pain on others.
Caro trembled with anger winning over self-preservation. “Get me Imarri, or I’ll kill myself.”
Naal scanned her body and hiss-laughed, sounding like a broken bandsaw. “With what? You have no weapon.”
She stared at him with morbid fascination. His mouth widened, revealing both fangs pressing on his bottom lip, and with his eyes tilting upwards, he appeared demonic.
She snapped out of the daze and forced a laugh. “You fool. You don’t know Earthian physiology. I can cut off air and suffocate to death.” She kept her voice even, fighting the urge to roll her eyes at her stupidity.
Naal’s laughter dwindled. “You can do this?” He spun on a heel, the door closing behind him.
She didn’t know whether he’d taken her threat to heart. Although, how she’d make herself hyperventilate was beyond her. A glance at the bed renewed her anger and determination. However she needed to faint, she’d do it.
‘I want your stay to be pleasant’ that yellow-skinned witch had said.
“Pleasant?” Caro spat the word. The bed had to go, the damned mattress, as well. She was being unreasonable, but to succumb to this was to forgive Imarri for the abduction, the bullet wound, and the entire debacle. Caro wasn’t ready to do that. She was spiting herself by sacrificing niceties, but it was the principle of it. A blanket was courtesy, food and water, a necessity if the death of the prisoner wasn’t the intention.
Why didn’t Imarri just move her into an officer’s quarters? She might as well give her free reign on the ship. Hell, how about introducing her to all the sharks on board. They could hold tea parties and braid each other’s tentacles.
By the time the door swished open, Caro had riled herself into a frenzy with regular sightings of her bed spurring her on. Black circled her vision, more to do with the air she sucked in and spewed out in great gulps.
“What nonsense is this? Death by suffocation without a weapon?” Imarri leaned a shoulder on the door frame.
“You don’t know Earthian physiology?” Caro arched a brow, mocking her. Go big or go home, right? “That.” She pointed at the bed, her fingers trembling. “I am your prisoner, not your damn friend.” She swung a forefinger at Imarri. “You took me from Malo. Nothing you can do or say will change what you’ve done, will save you from his retribution.” Her breathing came in ragged gasps, tearing from her throat and discordant with her heaving bosom. At this rate, she just might faint.
Imarri sighed. “Ayetz.”
The Yithian raised his blaster. Pain of another sort shot through Caro, stiffening her limbs, and ripping a scream from her.
She collapsed to the floor, her head bouncing off the metal panel as black circled her vision again. “I hate you,” she whispered before the darkness claimed her.
~*~
Caro awoke in a puddle of drool and frozen limbs. She ached, having been in the same position for who knew how long. Strapped to the bed, she couldn’t move, and of course, her nose itched.
When she tried to scratch it on her shoulder, a pinging headache reared to life. Pain originated from the spot that had connected with the floor. She whimpered.
Hate Imarri? Caro loathed her. She cleared her throat, her tongue swollen. If she could get her hands on Ayetz, she’d neuter him. If he had balls, that is. Small dick syndrome wasn’t reserved for humans. Skirting sanity, she swallowed a giggle.
The familiar stench of urine wrinkled her nose. The stun must have done that, and her cell remained the same, bed, mattress, and cleansing unit. Her display of anger had been for nothing.
Tears welled and slipped down her cheeks, adding to the pain squeezing her heart and an unhappy refilled bladder. The moment she realized she might have to wet the bed had her sobbing, sending shudders through her aching body. There wasn’t a light at the end of this tunnel. Malo wouldn’t find her. She’d die under Imarri’s thumb. Caro might as well suffocate herself now and have done with this.
Her giggles turned into wails, and she succumbed to a pity-party, wanting to wallow in her helplessness for a bit. When her tears subsided, she huffed, now a blubbering, snot-infested mess lying in a puddle of her doing.
The door swished open, and Bezu’s face appeared above her. Concern furrowed his silver forehead, and his three-fingered hand hovered. He wanted to help her but didn’t know where to touch her.
“Are you well, Caro?” He unstrapped one hand, then another before sliding his arm across her shoulders to help her sit.
She groaned, pain lancing through her, ricocheting in her brain at the abuse her body had endured. A tremble swept over her. Not from the cold because the cell’s temperature was fine, dewing his forehead.
“Thank you,” she rasped. “Tell me, Bezu, are there other humans on board?”
“Only you, Caro.”
The warmth of relief flooded her, that Izzy wasn’t in the same situation. Now all she had to do was endure, to survive this. She pinched her lips, refusing to speak another word.
Only Bezu would hear her voice during their chats. The rest of the aliens on this ship could go fuck themselves.
~*~
Since the stun incident, Caro had maintained her silence, sleeping on the floor with her blanket like a good little pet, practicing with Vinnie, and enduring whatever Imarri threw at her. Each ‘morning’ loomed, that this would be the day she’d demand dancing lessons.
Training continued with the witch adding intricate techniques, inflicting more pain, but no matter what she said or did, Caro bit her tongue. Imarri attempted to garner a reaction from her with a few slaps given by her or Ayetz. Stunned again, beaten, or tortured only solidified Caro’s silence.
Running her fingers over her inner arm, she winced at the cuts in her skin made during one of those sessions. Naal and Ayetz had taken turns crisscrossing a blade along her arms, threatening to mar her cheeks. Blood had dripped onto the metal flooring. She had managed to remain firm, with but a few whimpers escaping her gritted teeth. Ayetz had scanned her, healing her in an instant, only to repeat the process. They had yet to heal her after the last incident.
They starved her and denied her the use of a cleansing unit. They spiked or dropped the temperature of her cell. None of that mattered. She was a prisoner, and she demanded they treat her as such. No more nice-Caro with her eagerness to earn privileges vanishing, especially when she understood how she sold pieces of her soul.
To accept any kindness was to forgive, and she struggled with that. When Malo’s arms engulfed her in a hug, maybe then.
Bezu was her saving grace. His regular chats brought laughter into her life. His twitching sharknose had her using the shower despite her best intentions. And when she’d yelled that she was clean, he’d showed her the laundry closet, where she could place her uniform and wake up to it dry-cleaned. He anchored her determination when he mentioned he’d snuck a message out days ago, that Malo would find her soon.
Caro could’ve kissed the poor Yithian.
Time slowed. Days blurred. And just that ‘morning,’ Bezu had revealed that they approached Argaxx.
She wasn’t afforded the opportunity to watch the spaceship descend as it broke through Maloid’s atmosphere with the barest of shuddering. Bezu escorted her from the confines of her cell to the shuttle then strapped her to a chair. The cockpit had side-to-side screens through which she caught glimpses of lilac lightning bouncing off the planet’s rocky surface. The shuttle’s shields absorbed a few strikes powerful enough to rattle the craft.
They plummeted with too much speed, blurring the scenery. Just as a scream bubbled up her throat, they jerked to a crawl while falling through a crevice. Swallowing past her heart in her throat, she gripped the armrests, so grateful to be strapped to the side of a death-trap.
Orange, blue, and red fungi grew on the crevice walls. A few Maloidians hung down the sides, farming the plants, scooping yellow jelly into hovering carts or barrows.
The shuttle touched down with the door sliding open. Bezu unclipped her, and she rose on unsteady legs, taking a moment to study the blue-black rock while the ramp lowered. The air pouring into the shuttle’s compartment was rich with organic life, but the heat of it hit her, coating her skin like a wet blanket. Her lungs constricted. Unable to breathe through the damp warmth, she gasped for air.
She scanned the crevice—the height of a mega building. The walls shimmered. Lilac flashed against the black sky, too high to be a threat.
Imarri faced Naal. “I consider your debt paid.”
“As expected. A transport is on its way.” Naal gestured to his males.
Bezu hesitated, handed Caro her katac, then with a slow curl of his upper lip, trailed his superior.
“This way.” Imarri disappeared down a tunnel.
Caro hesitated. Off the jagged edges of the platform was a molten silver river, tumbling and gurgling. A glance up showed no escape either. She settled on the cave entrance through which Imarri had disappeared and hurried to follow. The organic smell intensified. Caro brushed her hand along the walls, her fingers coming away wet. Rubbing the tips together revealed it to be water.
Where the tunnels merged, a tree hung upside down from the cave’s ceiling. It swayed and arched its fronds.
“A tewaa.” Imarri stroked the bark, and it slumped, its movements calming.
She strode past it. Caro circled the tree, keeping close to the walls. Why would her nickname be that of a tree? Since she’d taken a vow of silence, she couldn’t ask.
It was cooler in a large cavern they entered. To the left was a rock-hewn dais. More tunnels led off the room. The stone floor was smoother than expected with one section set aside for sparring where females in red uniforms worked through familiar techniques. Matching red sashes hid their faces, and a few raised yellow faces from where they sat at tables to the left, bowls of yellow goop before them.
“They are Kayarra in training.” Imarri gestured. “Like you.”
Caro met her black gaze. She. Was. Not. In. Training. And in no way a Kayarra.
“This day, we will see how you handle a katac with a blade.” She sighed at Caro’s continued silence. She marched down a tunnel with many doors cut into the stone. A glimpse inside when she passed showed beds carved out of stone and niches in the rock as shelves.
“Your room.”
The air in her room was cooler but stale. Against one wall was a small rehydrator and replicator.
“Cleansing is at the end of the tunnel with heated rock pools.” Imarri hesitated, pinching her lips. “All Kayarra receive such a room, and we adhere to a strict training schedule.” She smirked. “You will remain here.”
Caro snapped at the silly alien then croaked, “Until Malo arrives.”
“Fool.” Imarri huffed. “Very well. Until he arrives, you will train and consider yourself a member of the Kayarra. I will not tolerate any more trouble from you.”
“Why don’t you just lock me in another cell? Why bother to train me at all?” Despite her raspy voice, Caro glared at her and sucked in calming breaths. “Why this false civility?”
“Malo is not coming for you, Caro. None of my sources know of his whereabouts.” The expression on Imarri’s face was smug.
Caro grinned, her faith in Malo unwavering, especially after what Bezu had shared with her. “He’s that good.”
Granny’s nipples, she missed him. She ached to have his arms around her. Some nights, she’d jerk awake with the phantom sensation of his body beside her, his fingers feathering along her skin.
Imarri led her down the tunnel into the cavern. “Regardless, you will train.”
“Fine.” Caro twirled Vinnie with confidence. “As long as I can keep this katac.”
“Silly, Earthian.” Imarri muttered something under her breath. “Dessa.”
A Maloidian female broke away from those at the tables. She pressed clasped hands to her chest in greeting.
“This is Caro. See that she learns the life of a Kayarra.” Without another word, Imarri sauntered off.
Caro watched her leave. Justice was hovering, on the cusp, at the edge. Soon, Malo would storm this cavern, her knight in black armor.
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