Warning: This chapter has graphic depiction of violence so if anyone has aversion to as such, please take precautions.
The mont finally passed. I stayed hunched over the cold permacrete for maybe another thirty seconds, forehead pressed against the grimy floor, just letting it all pour out. Every muscle in my body was tight, wired to the edge. But the sobs slowed, turned into sharp breaths, and then into a weird, hollow silence.
Then, my brain snapped back into focus.
She's alive.
But that wasn't enough.
They'd taken her.
I sat up fast, a new wave of adrenaline surging through like a jolt from a faulty power coupling. Okay. Think. Think. From what I saw, it couldn't have been long ago-maybe half an hour, tops. That was good. Real good. They wouldn't be out of Capital City yet, probably still funneling her through one of the outer holding zones. Or staging sowhere.
I can still catch them.
I pushed up off the floor but the second I put my full weight on my feet, the whole warehouse spun sideways.
A sharp bolt of dizziness shot through my skull like a blaster bolt. My knees just folded. I hit the floor hard, landing on my side with a grunt that got knocked right out of .
"The kriff...?" I blinked fast, confused, trying to shove the nausea down. My hands were shaking as I pushed myself back up, slow this ti.
That's when I felt it. My face was wet. Inside the helt.
I fumbled with the seal, my fingers feeling thick and clumsy, and pulled the thing off.
The second it ca free, a wave of cool air hit my skin, and I could feel it, a thick, warm wetness leaking from my nose, dripping down past my lips. I touched my fingers to my face, pulled them back... and just stared.
Blood.
A lot of it.
I was bleeding from my nose. My upper lip was slick with it. My... my eyes?
I turned my helt in my hands, angling the curved interior to catch a dim reflection.
My face looked like a ss. Crimson streaks trailed down from both nostrils, and a slow, steady trickle of red was crawling from the corner of my left eye, cutting a path through the gri on my cheek.
Then I felt my vision start to narrow. A creeping black tunnel closing in from the edges, fast.
No. No. No. No no no no-
"This can't be happening," I rasped, shaking my head like that would clear it. It just made the dizziness worse. "Co on. Not now, not kriffing NOW."
I gritted my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to force the dizziness away, *willing* my brain to stay online. *I can't black out. Not now. She's out there, she needs . I can still reach her. I just have to-I just-*
The nausea swelled again, a deafening roar in my ears, and my fingers went completely numb.
Goddammit.
I slapped my palm against the cold floor, the sting a tiny, useless anchor. "Co ON!" I shouted, my voice raw and cracking. "Get up! Get UP-!"
But it wasn't up to anymore.
My body had decided, with no warning and zero permission from .
Everything was shutting down-way too fast, like soone had yanked the main power conduit. The darkness wasn't at the edges anymore; it was blooming right in the center of my vision, swallowing everything.
I hit the ground again, face-first this ti. My breath ca in shallow, ragged pulls.
*Please... not yet. Just a few more minutes... Just let -*
The last thing I managed to see before the world just blinked out was my own ssy reflection in the blood-sared curve of my helt- eyes wide, terrified, and finally, going blank.
Unknown amount of ti later....
The first thing I was aware of was the cold. A deep, bone-aching chill that had seeped into from the permacrete floor. Then ca the throbbing in my head, a dull, heavy pound that made thinking feel like wading through mud.
My eyes blinked open to utter darkness. For a few disorienting seconds, I had no idea where I was. The air was stale, slling of dust and... blood. I could sll the coppery tang of it on my face.
My right hand clenched instinctively, and I felt the familiar, solid weight of the Gauss gun. The cool tal against my palm was the key that unlocked everything.
The warehouse. The vision. Vasha.
The mories slamd into all at once, a tidal wave of panic that
cut through the fog in my head. I shoved myself up, my body screaming in protest. Every muscle felt like wet clay, weak and uncoordinated. The world tilted violently, and I had to throw a hand out to steady myself against the floor, my head spinning.
I stumbled toward where the door should be, my legs barely cooperating. I half-ran, half-fell through the darkness, my breath coming in ragged gasps. I hit the release chanism, and the door
groaned open.
I spilled out into the alley, desperate for a sign, for any clue that it had only been minutes.
What I saw made my stomach drop straight through the floor.
It was dark. Not just a little dark. Fully, completely night. The sky above the narrow alley was a deep, star-flecked black, the twin moons of Lothal casting long, cold shadows. The sounds of the city were different-quieter, the dayti bustle replaced by the distant, occasional whine of a speeder and the low hum of nightlife several blocks over.
No.
It wasn't possible. It couldn't have been that long. It felt like I'd only just closed my eyes.
My earlier, desperate hope-that it had only been half an hour, that I could still catch them-was fucking ripped to shreds. It was gone. Because my stupid, fucking weak body couldn't handle a look into the
past without shutting down for hours.
Hours.
Where was she now? A detention block? Already on a transport off-world? Was she awake? Hurt? Thinking I wasn't coming because I
didn't care?
The air suddenly felt too thin.My chest tightened. I couldn't breathe. I realized I was hyperventilating, useless gasps that didn't bring any
oxygen, just a rising tide of sheer, undiluted terror.
Fuck, was I was going to pass out again?
No. No. Stop it.
I bent over, hands on my knees, and forced the air out of my lungs.
"Breathe," I snarled at myself, as if ordering the body verbally would
help. "Just fucking breathe."
Surprisingly it did.
The burning in my eyes was a dull throb now. I could feel the dried,
flaky blood on my face. Small rcies, at least it had stopped.
But my mind was still a ss.
They wanted her skills. They'd ntioned contracts, official work.
They wouldn't hurt her. Not yet. Not until they got what they wanted.
Right?
But she killed that commander. Tevan covered it up, but what if soone else found out? What if they decided she was more trouble than she was worth? What if...
I couldn't know. That was the worst part. I had no kriffing idea.
"Dammit." I slamd my fist against the cold wall of the alley. The impact jarred up my arm, a solid, real feeling in a world that was
spinning away. "Dammit, dammit, DAMMIT!"
I fucked up. Again.
All those months... for what? Preparing for so hypothetical
Inquisitor, training, modifying weapons... and I'd been completely blind to the most obvious possibility. How the fuck did I not see this
coming?
I thought we were too small to notice. Just another repair shop. Nothing special.
But we'd grown. Clients ca from further away, brought rarer tech,
paid better. And I'd been too stupid to see that we'd outgrown our
anonymity. Vasha was just trying to make a living. She didn't know what the Empire really was.
But I knew. I knew exactly what happened to people the Empire decided they needed.
And I'd let it happen anyway.
From further down the alley, a sound cut through my spiral. A clumsy
shuffle, the clatter of a kicked-over bottle. Mumbling. Drunken, slurry curses aid at no one.
"...frackin' whore... piece of shit...thinksss she is so prinzess..slut..."
The voice faded in and out. I didn't even look up. It was just noise. Background static to the disaster screaming inside my own head. So drunkard stumbling ho, his problems so small, so aningless compared to mine.
I should have done better. I should have protected her.
But I heard the sounds of steps coming closer to , and the mumbling getting louder
A figure stumbled out from a deeper shadow, swaying on his feet. A human male, maybe mid-forties, but a hard life had carved extra years into his face. Greasy hair, stained clothes, and the glazed, stupid look
of soone who'd been mainlining rotgut all day.
He spotted hunched against the wall and his face cracked into a
loose, ugly grin. "Well, well. What've we got here? Little lost tooka-kitten?" The air in the alley shifted, a new wave of cheap alcohol and
unwashed body odor cutting through the sll of my own blood. But the words were just noise. Annoying, distant buzzing. My head was a bomb about to go off, every throb a reminder of the hours I'd
lost, of how far away she was getting. I didn't even look up. "Piss off. I've got nothing for you."
"Hey! I'm talking to you, boy!" His voice grated, trying to find a
purchase in my brain. It couldn't. All I could see was her face. The shock on it when the officer dropped. Too much charge. My modifications. My fault.
The drunk's boots scuffed closer. "You deaf or sothing? Look at
."
"Go away," I mumbled, the words tasting like copper. Where would they take her? Not the main garrison. Sowhere quiet.
A black site. The soldiers would know. I had to find one. I had to make
one tell . The plan was a fragile, desperate thing forming in the wreckage of my thoughts.
The drunk laughed, a wet, choking sound. "Nah, I don't think I will. See, you're sitting in my spot. That ans you owe a toll." My fault. All my fault. I'd been so obsessed with hiding from a future
threat, I'd let the present one walk right up and take her. I was a fucking idiot.
"You listening to , pretty boy?" He was closer now, the stink of him overwhelming.
"Shit, look at you. All bloody and crying." A boot nudged my leg. "Soone already fucked you over? That why you're hiding here?"
I kept my head down, a fresh drop of blood splattering on the ground.
"I said, is that why you're hiding?" Another nudge, harder this ti. "Co on, pretty boy. Use your fucking mouth." "Leave alone." The voice that ca out wasn't mine. It was flat,
dead. "Such a pretty face under all that blood." He crouched down, his rancid breath hot on my cheek. I flinched back. "Bet you'd clean up real nice. Could make good money with a face like that. Always
wanted to feel how a little boy would feel. Bet you'd be tighter than those whores."
I pressed my palms into my eye sockets, seeing stars. Not now. Not
this.
"Not gonna answer? That's rude." His hand ca up, fingers grimy and calloused, reaching for my chin.
I jerked my head away. "Just. Fucking. Go,"
"Ooh, there's those eyes." His grin widened, a horrifying sight. "Yeah,
you'd do real well. Might even keep you for myself first, break you in
proper." Sothing cold and solid was in my hand. The Gauss pistol. I didn't rember drawing it.
"Where's your mama, pretty boy?" he slurred, rocking back on his heels. "Bet she's worried about you, all alone out here." The words hit a wall. They didn't register. Nothing did. "She must be a real looker, to make sothing as soft as you." He
licked his cracked lips. "Yeah, I bet she's pri at. Probably where you get it from."
Soft. The word echoed. Pri at.
"Tell you what," he continued, a world of vile promise in his tone. "You tell where she is, and maybe I'll go easy on you. After I'm done with her, of course. Bet she'd love a real man after whatever soft shit
spawned you. I'd show her a good ti, make her scream-" The world went white. Hot, silent, and utterly blank. There was no thought. No decision. There was only a pressure in my
head that needed to explode outward.
The sound of the Gauss pistol firing was more like a thunderclap than a blaster. A sharp, teeth-rattling CRACK that echoed down the alley and ca back on itself. The drunk's face exploded backward in a wet
spray, skull and skin tearing apart under the magnetic punch. His body folded like a puppet with the strings cut. And I kept pulling the trigger.
The next shot slamd into what was left of his head, frying the coil capacitor. Flesh and bone scattered, sizzling as the energy cooked it midair. The stench hit a heartbeat later-burnt iron and at,
heavy and suffocating.
The third shot was a blind spasm. The gun bucked hard, the recoil hamring into my wrist, but the blast still landed. Pieces of him
sprayed the wall. A sar of red painted across the stone in a
dripping fan. I should have stopped. The weapon was hot in my hand, screaming that it was at its limit, but my body didn't care. I was already moving, already on him. The pistol clattered from my grip as I threw myself at the twitching remains. My fists ca down. Again. Again. Each strike was a white flash behind my eyes, a rhythm I couldn't break.
The sound wasn't human anymore. It was at. Wet, heavy, splintering at under my knuckles. His face was gone after the first few hits. Then it was bone shattering, caving in. Then it was pulp. I could feel it give way, my hands sliding on the ss, skin tearing across sharp fragnts of teeth and jaw. I didn't stop. I couldn't. I scread sothing into the dark-wordless, raw, ripped out of . All of it poured into him. Vasha's na. The fear. The rage. The hours
I'd lost on that floor. Every second I hadn't been there to stop them. I broke it all against his body until it wasn't a body anymore. When my arms gave out, I collapsed on top of what was left. My breath ca in ragged, animal gasps. The world swam in red. The wall behind him was slick with it, running in crooked lines. The ground around us was a pool, sticky and warm against my knees. I dragged myself back, slipping in the blood. My hands were unrecognizable-coated to the wrists, chunks of flesh and bone caught under my nails. I stared at them like they belonged to soone else. The thing at my feet wasn't a man anymore. It wasn't even a body. Just
a broken, ruined shape spread out across the alley stones. My stomach heaved, bile burning up the back of my throat. I turned
and retched until nothing ca out, dry sobs shaking my ribs. Then silence.
The only sound was my own breathing, sharp and shallow. My knuckles throbbed. My arms felt hollow. I couldn't stop shaking.
I looked at him-what was left of him-and a cold, sick horror crawled
up my spine.
I'd wanted him gone, but not... not like this. And yet, when I tried to imagine stopping earlier, letting him live, my
whole body locked up. No. That wasn't an option. He'd said those
things, painted those pictures. Sothing inside had snapped,
and this was what ca out. so i rewrote the last part of the scene. see it once: And yet, when I tried to imagine stopping earlier, letting him live, my
whole body locked up. No. That wasn't an option. He'd said those things, painted those pictures. Sothing inside had snapped,
and this was what ca out.
Yeah, this was his fault...not , I was just breaking down in silence,
not minding anyone...
I laughed at myself. Fucking hell, what am I, a fucking emo on his evil guy arc who blas everyone on the world? Get a fucking grip dammit...
I leaned back against the wall, blood drying tacky on my skin, and felt
the weight of it settle in my chest.
I looked from my bloody hands to the thing on the ground, then back
again.
A raw, shaky breath escaped . Was I crying? or was it blood on my
face dripping down?
The panic was gone. The fear was gone. Weirdly, because of what I'd
done, I felt the sa colors the rest of the world was wearing now: ugly and permanent. Murder ticked a box on the list. I hadn't planned it, but I couldn't find the mind to care about it.
I was going to kill anyways, be it now or in future. This world didn't allow an peaceful existense.
How funny, wasn't it? She killed when she didn't want to, while I killed because I wanted to.
I didn't feel cleansed. I didn't feel guilty in that soft, rom-com way where you cry and forgive yourself. There was a new cold in my chest, like a well had opened and I'd fallen in
I pushed off the wall. My knees scread. The alley was a sar of shadows and the remains that would make sure nobody thought kind things tonight. My long jacket slled like iron. My hands looked like sculptures made of red clay and broken teeth.
Ti was a problem. I'd slept through hours. Could be a day, could be longer. Whoever'd picked her up wasn't an idiot. They'd have moved fast once the troopers reported back. Transport, a secure holding, a private shuttle, the whole bureaucratic rot that turns people into property-gone.
I peeled at my face with fingers that trembled. The dried blood flaked off in ugly pieces. I wiped at my mouth and tasted copper. My throat tightened. I hated that my hands stayed steady when I flexed them. Wanted to test the edge of what I'd beco, and the muscles answered.
Tevan flashed through my head-slick smile, too-clean uniform, ISB stink all over him. No. Not yet. Going straight for him was suicide. ISB didn't play gas you walked away from.
The soldiers, though... the ones from earlier. Planetary garrison grunts. Green behind the ears, uniforms still stiff like they were fresh off the rack. They'd flinched when things got ssy. The kind of kids who'd follow orders but talk too much afterward. They'd know where she'd been taken. A detention block. A holding site. Sothing local.
And I knew their faces. I knew the garrison. Big, square, ugly thing squatting near the south platform, its walls all pretense and intimidation. By now those two had probably clocked off, washed the stink of fear from their skin, and crawled into whatever barracks hole they called ho. But tomorrow? They'd be back on shift. Predictable. That was my opening.
If luck didn't favor , there was always the networks. Their systems weren't perfect-nothing Imperial ever was, no matter how many black-booted bastards swore otherwise. I could dig through manifests, internal mos, detention logs. If I had to. But I'd rather avoid it. Digital footprints leave trails. People don't.
I flexed my bloody hands. They trembled, not from fear anymore but from the echo of what I'd done. The soldier boys didn't scare the sa way Tevan did. They were soft targets. Soft enough that I could corner them, ask the right questions, and if they got stubborn... well, I already knew I had it in .
I spat the taste of copper out onto the stones and turned away from the ss in the alley. The corpse wasn't my problem anymore. The trail to her was.
Tomorrow, those troopers were mine.
And if they didn't talk?
I'd make sure they did.
But first-practicalities. Boots left prints. My palms left prints. But lucky for , nobody is going to suspect that a child did this. I just needed to get out of here, fast.
The Gauss wasn't sothing you could holster in polite company after what it had just done. I slid my fingers over the grip, felt the heat. The pistol stank of burnt hair and luck.
I stomped through the ss, trying not to think about the shape I'd reduced a human being into, the way the ground had soaked and the way my knuckles had sung against bone. Didn't let myself look at the
wall where the splatter made a map of my unspooled fury.
Maybe I was late in saving her.. But force be damned, I wasn't done playing my hands yet...
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Also next chapter gonna bring in the start of the much awaited content from the synopsis
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