by Lea Linnett
“You think we can’t take a few levekk?” Taz said through a sneer. “And mercenaries at that. How much do you pay these guys? How many humans do you have to torture to make enough credits to buy them?”
“Well, seeing as how you’re doing a remarkable job taking on Niro there, I don’t hold high hopes for whatever friends you have waiting for us,” Siikas said, his lip curling. “And might I remind you which species runs this planet now? It isn’t humans.”
Taz’s mouth turned down in a snarl, an enraged noise flying from her lips as she fought anew against Niro’s grasp. She didn’t care who’s side he was on—he was getting between her and Siikas and she couldn’t fucking stand it. Her struggling was ineffectual, however, and Siikas turned away.
“Looks like we’re almost there,” he said, too jovial for how close he was to getting a new set of scars. “Time to see your ambush up close.”
His mercenaries pushed through the door to the loading bay, flanking Siikas as he entered. The truck they’d brought in was gone, Taz was pleased to see, and the roller door had been left wide open, allowing a chilly breeze to blow in from outside. The room was silent, the cages lining the side wall sitting empty with their doors still hanging open.
Siikas frowned, turning to glance at Niro. “Isn’t this where you keep them?”
Niro had gone still against her back, and she imagined she could hear his heart thumping in his chest. She felt him shift as he nodded towards the cages. “Those are their cells.”
Siikas blinked at Niro, before his sharp eyes slowly widened. His face opened up in perfect panic as the situation dawned on him, and he whipped around to inspect the cages again.
“What?!”
His furious shout ripped through the quiet loading bay as he stepped forward, and his security scattered, splitting their focus between him and the open doors.
“Where are they?” he spat, rounding on Niro.
“I don’t know, sir. I’ll have to check the security footage. There should have been a patrol stationed here.”
“Well, why isn’t there?”
“I’ll investigate it immediately.”
“I should fucking hope so,” Siikas snapped. His green eyes blazed, his hands tensing in anger in a way that made his claws seem all the sharper. He cut a surprisingly intimidating figure, even without Kamanek or Niro’s bulk, and for a moment it reminded Taz of how he’d looked that day in the hub, standing over her sister. She’d been terrified then, running on adrenaline and the need to protect Cara. Now, though, all she felt was rage, and she tried once again to dislodge Niro’s grasp. “This is far from the first time our stock has gone missing under your watch, Niro, so if you don’t find it…”
“What about the girl?”
“What about her?” said Siikas. He turned to his mercenaries. “Two of you, head inside! Find out if we have any more unwanted guests. And you!” He pointed to another pair. “Get in a transport and search nearby for my merchandise.”
“Yes, sir!” yelled a few of them in unison, splitting up.
One pair disappeared into the compound while the other raced outside. Taz tried to keep her eye on the fifth, but soon her vision was filled with angry levekk again as Siikas leaned in close.
“Where are my humans?” he asked, glaring down at her.
She spat in his face, hitting him square across the front of his brow plate, and he recoiled with a yelp. She grinned, watching him frantically wipe at it with a sleeve, and dug her heels into the concrete when Niro hauled her backwards.
“Lock her inside somewhere!” Siikas spat. “And find out what happened to my cargo before I punish you for losing them.”
He turned away, barking orders at his last remaining mercenary, and Taz took the opportunity to bounce her heel off Niro’s clawed foot. He paused, looking down at her.
“There’s only one guard left,” she hissed, watching his eyes widen in understanding. “Please.”
For a moment, she feared he’d continue dragging her inside, his allegiance well and truly revealed, but then his strong grip loosened, his hands slipping from her wrists.
She barely saw him move, flashing across the loading bay and barreling into the mercenary. Siikas stood dumbfounded as the two levekk grappled, his jaw dropping. “Niro!”
Now, it was Taz’s turn.
“Hey, asshole,” she said, slipping her knife from her boot, and holding it up to the light. “Remember this?”
Siikas whipped around, narrowing his eyes at her. “Why would I? What the fuck is going on?” He then raised his voice, and it bounced off the concrete walls as he yelled, “Security!”
“You should remember it, but maybe it makes sense that you don’t,” Taz said, stepping forward. Behind Siikas, Niro and the mercenary were still scuffling, and a sharp crack rent the air as the mercenary’s rifle was dropped to the ground and kicked away. “I’d want to forget things, too,” she went on, ignoring the disturbance, “if I did even half the awful things you do on a daily basis.”
Siikas sneered at her, backing away. “I’m in the business of chasing high profits. It isn’t my fault that the most lucrative goods on the market happen to be humans like you.”
“How can you say that so easily?” Taz said, baring her teeth. “About living people? Those humans—”She flung her hand out in the direction of the empty cages. “They had lives, and dreams, and families before you stole them away. We have thoughts and feelings. How can you ignore all of that?”
“Because unfortunately your feelings don’t earn me credits.” Siikas stepped forward, and even though he wasn’t as large as Kamanek or Niro, he was still tall. He stooped over Taz, keeping just out of reach of the knife as it glinted in the light of the fluorescents overhead. “I don’t know or care what your people accomplish in their short little lives, but I know what other species will pay for your soft, weak, warm bodies. It’s about time you learned your fucking place.”
Taz saw red, launching forward with her knife in a swipe that missed Siikas by inches as he jerked clumsily out of the way. “Don’t you dare talk about them that way!”
Siikas backed up, the sneer still infuriatingly stuck to his face. “You think you’re helping them, but they’ll be back in brothels across the continent in no time. It’s where they belong.”
“You think this whole planet is just one big brothel, don’t you?” she said as she stepped towards him, her knuckles turning white where they gripped the knife. Her world had narrowed down to Siikas and the red tinging her vision. She could hear vague grunts and the sound of blows being landed somewhere across the room, but that might as well have been a world away. “You think we’re all just here for you to sample at your leisure.”
“Are you not?” Siikas jabbed, and when Taz lunged at him again he upended a cart in her path, spilling tools all around them. She stalked towards him, barely slowed.
“But you didn’t get to have everyone, did you?” she said. “You were forced to run away with your tail between your legs at least once, right?” She brandished the knife, catching his eye. “Do you remember how you got that scar? Or did you forget that, too?”
Siikas stopped in his tracks, his eyes going wide, and she saw his pupils contract into needle-thin lines as he looked her up and down once more. “You…” he murmured.
Taz grinned, but there was no humor in it. She flipped her hair back from her face, showing off the three jagged lines adorning her cheek. “Yeah. Me. I let you leave with just an injury last time, but I promised myself that if I ever saw you again, I’d finish the job.”
“You little…” Anger contorted the levekk’s face as he brought a hand up to touch his scar. He jerked forward, reaching for her with sharp talons, but Taz dodged low. She snagged his sleeve with her knife, ripping it up his arm as she spun around him. But when she stepped back and checked the blade for blood, she found it disappointingly absent.
Siikas was still less than pleased.
“Do you know how much pain y
ou caused me, you bitch?” he asked, advancing on her. “Do you know how long this took to heal?”
“Not long enough!” She had her back to the roller door now, and she could see Niro grappling with the mercenary across the room. He had the other levekk in a headlock, cutting off his air, but the merc was still moving, thumping him in the shoulder.
“You said you wanted to kill me?” Siikas said, his voice gaining a sharper edge. “Well, I’ve had time to think about how to repay you, as well. And trust me, killing you is the least of it.”
She gripped the blade tighter in her fist. “If you think you’re gonna do anything to me, you’re sorely mistaken.”
Siikas grinned. “It’s endearing how delusional your people can be. Do you really think you’re strong enough to take down a levekk? Have you ever managed it before? Because to me, you look small,” he said, stepping closer, ignoring the knife that she raised between them. “Your skin is soft, your skull fragile. You’re no different from the rest of your kind, when it comes down to it, and I think we already established what their bodies are made for.”
The rage was back, seeping into Taz’s muscles and lighting them with the fire of adrenaline. She was sick of hearing him speak, sick of listening to the crap that left his mouth. He was wrong. She could take him.
She shifted her weight, sliding her foot back for purchase, and pounced.
He was expecting the knife to the gut, so the punch to the side of his head sent him reeling. She landed the hit in his fleshy, vulnerable ear, and he staggered backwards. Taking advantage of the slip in his defense, she kicked his knee sideways so he crumpled, but she didn’t stop there. A kick to the shoulder sent him sprawling backwards onto his ass on the ground, and Taz glared down at him. He’d landed near the overturned cart in a pile of trash and equipment, holding his head in his hands.
“That was a lot of tough talk for a weakling,” she said with a smirk, allowing herself to enjoy the moment as she stood over him. She turned the knife in her fingers, unsure where she wanted to start with him. That had almost been easier than she expected. Kamanek and Niro had set too high a standard. “Do you have any ideas for where we should start?”
She leaned down to inspect his face, reaching for his jaw just as he’d reached for hers earlier. The metal tools clinked under his weight as he leaned away from her, but she ignored it.
“How about a matching scar for the other cheek?” she asked, smiling.
The heavy wrench hit her in the side of the head with a sickening thud, one so loud that it made the two levekk across the room pause in their fighting. The noise rang through Taz’s head like heavy rain pounding on a roof and fireworks blasting off in her skull all at once. When she opened her eyes, she found herself sprawled on the floor, and the transports swinging in and out of her vision had doubled in number.
“Fuck…” she mumbled, blinking through the vibrations. It didn’t hurt yet, not with her brain still struggling to catch up with what had happened.
“What was that about tough talk?” Siikas’ voice filtered through the buzzing in her skull, but she couldn’t work out how close or far away he was.
Claws pierced her foot, and she jerked away. Her ankle twisted, flaring with pain, and she heard herself scream as if from far away. There was a clang as Siikas dropped his wrench to the ground that made her jump, and she cringed away from the large body shifting above her.
“You know, I was going to just sell you,” he went on, his voice suddenly much closer, hissing in her ear. “Recoup some of the profits you’ve taken from me tonight. But now that I remember you, I think I might keep you for myself for a while.”
A hand landed in her hair, claws digging into her scalp.
“And you know, I have plenty planned for you, but I don’t think you need to be strictly in one piece for me to enjoy it. You’ve got scars already, I think you’re pretty used to being dented and scratched.” He tugged on her hair, wrenching her face up to look at him. “So why don’t I give you a scar to match. A real one, this time. Then we’ll feel that much closer.”
Her head felt heavy when the hand dropped it, but she fought to keep it steady. She blinked through the pain as it radiated out from the side of her skull, and clenched her hands into loose fists. She refused to cower for him. She fought the ripples in her vision as she watched his arm pull back, claws tensed and extended like the weapons they were supposed to be. She couldn’t even push herself away, her ankle now burning as if it’d been dipped into a searing fire.
But at the last second, her eyes and head grew too heavy, and she felt them loll towards the ground despite her. She waited for the blow, her heart calm.
32
A blow which never came.
Taz heard a shout from across the room, the thunder of heavy feet and sharp claws on metal, all of it adding to the cacophony in her head. She squeezed her eyes shut against the storm, but rather than the thud of sudden impact or the white hot pain of claws against skin, she felt nothing.
A wet, tearing sound reached her ears, and then the loading bay went still.
Taz peered up after a moment, her brain feeling like it was lolling in the opposite direction. What she found made her senses sharpen to a razor point, her vision tunneling to the huge body standing over hers.
There was no longer just one levekk, but two.
Kamanek staggered, still reeling from the force of the blow that he’d taken for her. His foot slid back, holding his weight, while Siikas backed away.
“What the fuck are you—?”
He didn’t get to finish his sentence. Kamanek rocketed back toward him, led by a well-aimed fist that caught him across the jaw. Siikas howled in pain, falling to the ground at the other levekk’s feet, and Taz could do little but look on wide-eyed as Kamanek stepped over him, grabbing him by the throat.
“Don’t you touch her,” he said, and all of the teasing lightness that Taz was so used to hearing in his voice had vanished. Instead, his voice was ragged at the edges, strained with pain, and a shudder ran down her spine when she noticed thick globs of red blood dropping down onto Siikas’ chest.
Kamanek is injured, her brain screamed, and for a moment she almost forgot about the aching in her skull and the hot throbbing of her ankle. She pulled herself up on one knee.
“You,” Siikas snarled, uncaring of the sharp claws squeezing the sides of his neck. “I should have known you’d be here. On CL-32. Cheats and trash are always drawn together.”
Kamanek roared, hauling the smaller levekk up by his neck and making him yelp just as Taz shuffled to a rest at their feet. “I can’t believe I ever ran from you,” he said in a disconcertingly low growl. “I should have had the strength to crush you from the start.”
Taz grabbed Kamanek’s leg for support, her fingers hooking into his bony joints as she pulled herself up. Her head throbbed, and her ankle burned, but she refused to confront Siikas from the floor. Standing, she planted one hand on Kamanek’s stomach, the other on his back, and felt a protective arm snake around her shoulders.
Siikas squirmed in Kamanek’s one-handed grip and spat, “I should have known the first thing a slippery asshole like you would find on CL-32 was an equally slippery cun—”
Kamanek’s fingers tightened, turning the levekk’s scales a sickening gray color as his sharp eyes threatened to pop.
Taz clung to him, determined to stare Siikas down. But then she felt a shudder run through Kamanek, a wavering that was so slight she wouldn’t have noticed it if she wasn’t pressed so close that the movement jostled her sore ankle. She winced and frowned at him, gasping when she pulled her hand from his stomach and it came away covered in blood. “Kamanek…”
“Stop!”
The three of them stilled, and Taz looked up to find Cara standing a few feet away. Niro stood over the levekk mercenary behind her, who lay unconscious at his feet. Cara’s eyes were on Kamanek, wide and stern, and Taz hugged him closer.
“He’s Cara’s kill,” she whi
spered to him. She didn’t know if he would listen. She didn’t know if she would have listened, were she in his position. But now she just wanted to make sure he was all right. Nothing else seemed quite as important anymore.
Reluctantly, Kamanek released the levekk, throwing him to the metal floor. Siikas landed in a heap, his gasps for breath overly loud in the large room. Kamanek didn’t sag against her, but he did lean in, and Taz supported him as much as she could on her screaming ankle. Her hand pressed against his stomach, trying to apply pressure to a wound she couldn’t even see.
Cara approached quietly, holding her gun firmly at her side. She circled Siikas as he hacked and spat on the ground, clawing air back into his abused lungs. He stilled when she stood over him. There was a long moment of silence as the two studied each other, and Taz looked on, clueless as to what would happen next. If it were her or Kamanek, Siikas would be lying still from a bullet to the skull already, but with Cara…
“What do you want?” Siikas asked, scowling at her, and Cara’s eyebrows rose in surprise. Her hand clenched the gun a little tighter, and then relaxed.
She flicked her gaze over to Niro. “Tie him up with something. We’ll leave him and Shinik here for the enforcers to find.”
Siikas made to sit up. “Enforcers?!”
Cara smiled, just a small tug at the corners of her mouth. “I know you’ve probably paid someone off to keep you out of trouble, but that won’t do much when there’s human DNA all over those cages and logs of all your transactions on the computers here. They’ll destroy everything you’ve built. You won’t be getting out of this one.”
Niro approached, winding a long, thick cord made out of some kind of synthetic fiber around his hands. Siikas, still holding his jaw, looked wildly between him and Cara.
“You think you can get away with this?” he cried, voice pitching high with genuine fear. “I have more security than the Sek Vorek Council. They’ll have you restrained in—”
Cara slammed her gun into his soft, unplated ear with a wet thud. He crumpled to the floor, boneless.