Caged With the Beast

by Aline Ash

  She sighs. “Kon, you are a man who always tries to do the right thing,” she starts, her voice gentle. “I see it. You’ve been acting like a total asshole for the last couple of weeks, but I know you’re a good man who tries to always do the right thing.”

  “No, I try to do the smart thing,” I correct her. “And in here, those two concepts, right and smart, are not often the same thing.”

  I understand her impulse to care for Tara. And in other circumstances, I would appreciate it. I would encourage it. But this is a matter of life and death, and Marissa does not seem to understand that simple fact.

  “I am trying to help you,” I tell her. “I am trying to keep you from facing your certain death in the arena. Do you not understand this?”

  She sighs and looks away. “Yes, of course I understand,” she replies. “But I would rather die knowing I did the right thing than live knowing I let somebody I could have helped suffer and die. This is not the kind of life I would want anyway.”

  “This is not what I am trying to tell you, Marissa. Tara is going to die regardless of what you do,” I press. “Nothing you do can change that. It is an unalterable fact. But you have a good chance to avoid her fate.”

  “Maybe. But at the same time, I’m going to die in here anyway,” she fires back. “And rather than spend the rest of my life being a coward, I’d rather live in peace with myself or just be done with this quicker. This place is a shithole anyway.”

  I open my mouth to reply but close it again as what she said strikes me hard. And now I can start to understand why she is so intransigent about this issue. She cares about staying committed to her true self more then she cares about her life in this hopeless place. That’s why she is so stubborn about helping Tara even at the potential cost to her. She’s resigned herself to spending the rest of her life here and would rather die sooner than spend the next several decades living this way.

  It makes me think about the plan I have for the night of the Culling. My soldiers and I will be getting out of here. She won’t. I never really stopped to think about what that might look like or what that might mean for her. I’ve been so focused on getting out of here and starting the war to reclaim Tabia that I never gave serious thought to what Marissa’s life would be like once I’m gone.

  “Do not speak that way—”

  “Why not? It’s reality. It’s the truth. I’m on another fucking planet, Kon. I’m never getting back to Earth. I’m never going home again. And I am stuck in this living hell to which you expect me to adapt,” she snaps. “Why should I care to survive here? Why would I choose to spend the next fifty years in this fucking jail?”

  I scrub my face with my hands, my pity for her growing as thick as my frustration with her. I’m suddenly weary and I do not wish to continue this conversation. There will be nothing I can say or do that will change her mind or make her stop behaving so recklessly. If she seeks to end her life, I don’t know if I can do anything to change it. I have no right to change it, since I am planning to go and she will stay here.

  And would an honorable death not be more preferable than being killed by some Gargolian coward in a dark corner of the prison? In her place, I would probably rather choose my own manner of death as well. I would rather die with a blade in my hand than rotting away in a cell or being jumped and murdered in the middle of the night.

  But I can’t continue with this conversation. She’s a very intelligent female and I have a feeling the more I say, the more she’ll intuit the plan I have to break out. And then she’ll know that she can’t be the part of that plan and is going to be left behind. I have feelings for her. Feelings that I don’t understand, but I know they are deep and profound. And knowing that, I do not think I can bear the look of betrayal I know I would see on her face. And I know it might make me weak when I need to be at my strongest.

  Not knowing what else to say, not thinking there is anything I can say, I do the only thing left open to me. Getting to my feet, I leave the cell.

  Chapter Twenty

  Marissa

  I let out a deep breath and pace the cell. I can’t believe Kon walked out on me like that. I can’t believe he just left in the middle of our conversation. The rage in me is so deep and so thick that I want to scream. I want to punch something. Or more realistically, I want to punch something while screaming.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  I grab the cup I’ve been drinking out of and hurl it at the wall. It hits with a loud ping and bounces off, hitting the ground and rolls to a dark corner. Not nearly as dramatic as Kon flinging a chair with ease and definitely not as satisfying since nothing was broken or damaged in any way that I can see.

  With a growl of frustration, I head out of the cell and head for the main chamber. A conversation with Tara will do me some good. She has a natural way about her that calms me down, and I can really use that right about now. The second I step into the chamber, though, I know something is amiss. I see G’rin standing off to the side of the chamber with a couple of large Gargolian thugs. I see them look at me as I step in, and the expressions on their faces shift, suddenly look more predatory, and it sends a cold chill sweeping through me.

  Doing my best to ignore them, I hustle across the chamber to find Tara sitting in a corner near the waterfall. She’s tucked herself behind a large stone outcropping so that she’s barely visible. If I hadn’t found her there once before, I might have spent a while looking for her.

  “Hey, are you okay? I ask.

  She looks at me, and I can see the tightness in her face. She’s afraid.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Tara shakes her head. “It is G’rin. He is up to something,” she says. “He and the two Gargolians with him.”

  “What is it?” I ask. “What are they—”

  “There you are Tara.” G’rin appears behind my back. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  Tara presses herself back against the wall and grimaces as she draws her knees up to her chest, doing her best to make herself smaller. But G’rin and the two Gargolians press closer, the expressions on their faces feral. The air all around us is suddenly charged with violence, and from the corner of my eye, I catch sight of a couple of camera drones moving in above us.

  “The Tabiean is yours, boys,” G’rin growls. “Have some fun with her.”

  “No!” I shout.

  I move to stand in front of Tara, but one of the Gargolians reaches out and grabs me. His hand is like an iron vice around my upper arm, and I let out a yelp of pain when he squeezes it tight. There’s a hungry, almost frenzied light in his eyes as he stares at Tara that chills me to the core and tells me what they have planned for her.

  I struggle in his grasp, but he throws me as if I weigh nothing at all. I go sailing like a tossed ragdoll and grunt when I hit the ground hard. I’m back on my feet in an instant as the two Gargolians close in on her. The cameras move in, positioning themselves to get the shot as Tara screams. I see G’rin talking into some device before barking orders at the Gargolians. It’s almost as if he’s getting direction on how the production team wants to see Tara raped.

  I let out a scream as I rush the two Gargolians. I slam into the one who threw me and he staggers forward, slamming his head into the rock wall, and rebounds with a loud grunt. I hear G’rin chuckle and step out of the way as the second Gargolian rounds on me, snarling and spitting in fury. He rushes at me, but he’s large and lumbering, and I’m able to sidestep him with ease.

  The first one recovers quickly, and though he’s got a gash on his forehead and his dark blood is flowing down his face, he charges me again. I move to dodge him, but he lashes out with his foot and catches me in the stomach. The air is driven from my lungs with an explosive gasp, but I manage to keep my feet and dart away when he tries to grab me.

  Tara’s cry draws my attention, and I watch as the second Gargolian is driving his fist into her face with one hand and tearing at her tunic with the other. Grabbing a rock as big as my fist, I c
harge at him and bring it down on the back of his head. He roars in pain but doesn’t go down. Instead, he wheels around and punches me in the face. I feel something in my nose snap and my mouth is immediately filled with the coppery taste of my blood. I stagger back and fall flat on my ass

  With me down, the two Gargolians turn their attention back to Tara. They’ve torn her tunic off completely, and at G’rin’s direction, they bend her over the rock she’d been hiding behind. She struggles and writhes in their grasp but can’t break free. G’rin is staring at me, amusement flickering across his lips, as if he’s enjoying my anger. As if this whole thing is being staged for me. Like he’s trying to get at me through somebody I care about. A howl of rage passing my lips, I pick up my rock again and rush back in, slamming it into the side of one Gargolian’s head. I hear a loud crunch, and he staggers away, falls heavily, and is still.

  The second throws a vicious haymaker, but I duck and pop back up, driving my stone into his face. I feel his sharp, pointed teeth give way, and he stumbles away, his hand to his mouth as blood flows from between his fingers. He howls in pain and rage, and all of the sudden, half a dozen more Garolians are rushing at us. G’rin is laughing maniacally as he watches from a safe distance away, and the camera drones hover above us all, not missing a minute of the action.

  Still wielding my rock, I keep Tara behind me. The first Gargolian rushes in and I cock my arm back. As he draws close, I slam my stone into his face. As he rebounds with blood flowing down his face, the others all rush in at once. I swing my rock wildly but there are too many and I can’t keep them all at bay. As they reach for me, their sharp claws digging shallow furrows into my skin that burn like hell, I cry out, and they knock the stone out of my hands. With no weapon, I just swing my fists and punch, bite, kick, and do everything I can to fight them off. But this looks hopeless.

  I hear Kon’s rage-filled roar, and a moment later I see Gargolians being tossed aside like the pieces of trash they are. And then he’s standing beside me, his eyes narrowed to slits as he stares at the pack of Gargolians, his mere gaze keeping them at bay when all of my fighting could not.

  Slowly, the Gargolians drift away, muttering curses under their breath as they go. I turn to Kon as I try to catch my breath again and give him a grateful smile. I’m a mass of small cuts and slices, and blood is flowing down my body, but I’m alive. And so is Tara.

  A howl of outrage sounds to my right, and when I turn, I see G’rin rushing in. There is a look of absolute rage on his face, and before either Kon or I can think to stop him, he drives the blade in his hand into Kon’s side. I let out a blood-curdling scream as Kon backhands G’rin with a mighty roar and sends him flying.

  I rush to Kon’s side and grab the hilt of the knife, pulling it out as gently as I can. My eyes grow wide as I watch the blood pouring out of the wound. I try to staunch it with my hands, but it squeezes between my fingers, thick and warm. I look up at him, my hands trembling, fear coursing through my body, paralyzing me.

  “Kon?”

  There’s so much blood.

  Too much.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Marissa

  “Stop squirming,” I tell him irritably. “You’re making this difficult.”

  “I told you, it is nothing,” Kon replies. “It will heal up just fine on its own. Tabieans have a remarkable capacity for healing.”

  Before I became a cop, I’d entertained the notion of being an EMT and had taken a few field medical courses to help prepare me for the training. I learned how to do some basic medical work: splinting a broken limb, applying a tourniquet, and even how to stitch wounds. Before I signed up, though, I’d decided that I wanted to be a cop more and went that route. But I’m glad I have those skills in times like these. It took a couple of moments to realize which first aid stuff to buy, but Tara helped me, and here we are now, in our cell, where I try to stitch Kon’s wound after applying a disinfectant. I just hope this stuff will work okay. Gorgolians are technically advanced, so the stitching is probably not the way their medics heal the wounds. I bet this is something they keep here on purpose, a more spectacular way to treat wounds to help the ratings.

  “You need not trouble yourself with this,” Kon says. “I told you that I will be fine. It will just take a little time.”

  “Be that as it may, your healing superpower is not going to get a chance to work if you bleed out,” I grumble. “I need to stitch your damn wound, so quit squirming.”

  Kon sighs and relaxes. Or at least he stops squirming as much, which is good enough for now.

  “It is not a superpower,” he mutters under his breath. “I don’t even know what that is.”

  I arch my eyebrow at him. “If you don’t know what it is, how do you know it’s not a superpower?” I ask.

  “Fine. What is a superpower, then?”

  I flash him a grin. “See, back on Earth, we tell stories about great heroes and warriors who have special powers. Unique abilities that nobody else has that helps them defend the planet and the people,” I tell him. “Some of them can turn invisible. Others have lasers that shoot from their eyes, others the power of flight, super strength, even super healing.”

  “Yes, this is not that. This is a simple matter of physiology and body chemistry unique to the Tabiean people. All the Tabiean people,” he says flatly. “I heal quickly, not instantly. Your great warriors and heroes sound preposterous.”

  I roll my eyes and shake my head. I tend to forget that Kon takes things so literally sometimes. But it’s part of that unique charm that makes him who he is. And it’s one of the reasons I am so utterly drawn to him. But as I think about it, I recall how the last couple of weeks have been with him, and the warmth I’m feeling right now begins to fade.

  He’s been so cold and distant from me. He hasn’t tried to touch me again. Not once. That lack of physical contact has led to an emotional void between us. And the bitch of it is, I don’t know that he even notices. That he even cares. It’s like he’s had me and now I can be discarded like a piece of trash.

  As all of these dark and negative thoughts roll through my mind, Tara’s voice echoes in that space as well. I hear her telling me not to listen to his words but to see his actions. That Tabiean men are notoriously closed off emotionally, but they betray their true feelings by what they do.

  “Why did you come for me?” I ask. “Why did you put your life at risk to save me? To save Tara?”

  “I did it for you. I did not try to save Tara. That was just a byproduct,” Kon replies. “My feelings about her have not changed.”

  “Fine,” I sigh. “Why did you come back for me?”

  I see a momentary flicker of uncertainty on his face followed by an inscrutable expression as he starts to close down on me again. Reaching down, I grip his hand and squeeze it hard.

  “Talk to me, Kon. Don’t keep shutting me out like this,” I urge. “I actually thought that I meant something to you.”

  Kon sighs heavily and purses his lips. He looks away from me, staring at some far-off point that only he can see. The expression on his face is neutral and betrays nothing, but behind his eyes, I can see his thoughts swirling like crazy. But I know if I don’t break through that wall inside him, he’s going to close down completely.

  “Did I ever mean anything to you?” I ask, trying to chip away at his defenses. “Was this thing between us just part of your plan to survive in here? Because I really thought you cared about me and—”

  “I do,” he says, finally leveling those vibrant blue eyes on me. “I care about you very much, Marissa. But this is not easy for me.”

  “What isn’t easy for you?” I ask, feeling a spark of hope blossom inside of me. “Because this has been downright hellish on me, Kon.”

  Kon shifts in his seat and wrings his hands, clearly uncomfortable with opening up and sharing his feelings. He is obviously not a man given to dealing with emotions or sharing those intimate parts of himself. But I think it’s time for him to
learn.

  “The night we…” His voice trails off, and he looks down at his hands again, seeming to be on uncertain footing and trying to navigate his way through. So I try to throw him a lifeline.

  “The night we had sex,” I say. “What about it?”

  He lets out a long breath. “I realized that night just how special you might become to me. I realized how precious you are and how deeply my feelings for you can actually run.”

  “Oh, so is that why you’ve been ignoring me? Freezing me out?” I scoff. “The way you’ve been so closed off has made me feel like a piece of absolute garbage, Kon.”

  “Marissa, I am sorry for that. I just…tried to stay focused,” he says, his tone conciliatory. “And it was not easy given how I feel about you. I had to fight myself every night we went to sleep in the same bed. I had to know better—this battle was lost from the first time I saw you.”

  I look down at my hands this time and absorb his words. And I can’t deny that I hear the ring of truth and sincerity in them, as frustrating as that is. He flinches as I pull the needle through, adding another stitch. Though it’s not deep and couldn’t have hit any vital organs, the wound bled quite a lot. I pull another stitch through, drawing a soft hiss from him.

  “Sorry,” I say. “So you came in and broke up the fight because you care about me?”

  He nods. “Yes, Marissa. I care about you a great deal,” he says softly. “More than I probably should given the circumstances and the dangers those feelings present.”

  Hearing those words come out of his mouth makes my heart turn somersaults in my chest, and a smile creeps across my face before I can stop it. It’s what I’ve been longing to hear this whole time I look at him, and he seems incredibly unsettled. I can tell that laying himself bare and allowing himself to be vulnerable with me is rattling him very deeply. I put down my needle and thread and take his hand, giving it a tight squeeze.