But Jason’s not here to save me now.
And suddenly I have an answer to the question of whether I do as I’m told and live or die.
I’d rather die.
I slam my head back against the man’s chin, hitting it so hard I see stars for a moment. The kidnapper roars in pain, releasing me. I dash for the pipe and my fingers brush against its smooth surface…
Then he’s got me again, dragging me through corridors, my body scraping along the rough floor. I don’t pay any attention to where we’re going, just fight and kick and scream and struggle, until I’m being thrown into the middle of a huge, cavernous room. The force of my body crashing into the floor knocks the air and the fight out of me. I lie there a moment, coughing, trying to scrape some air back into my lungs.
“This one needs teaching some manners,” the kidnapper says, and his voice sounds a little funny, like he’s talking round a fat lip. It makes me smile for a wonderful second.
Eyes still blurred from the pain, I try to push myself upright, but don’t quite manage, sinking back into the embrace of the stone floor. When my eyes do focus, it’s on my hand in front of me, my acrylics starting to look chipped and and battered. The sight of them brings me close to tears again.
I just want to go home.
Please, I pray to anyone who might be listening. Please let me go home.
“What sort of lesson do you think she needs?”
The second speaker has a rich, smooth voice. I look up. There are several other kidnappers in the room, five that I can count, possibly more behind me. The speaker is sitting in a chair and I guess he’s the leader. All the others are looking to him.
“She needs to know who’s in charge,” fat-lipped kidnapper says. “What happens when she tries to fight back.”
“Fighting back, hm?” the leader says. “Too much spirit. Well, this is the haunted mountain. Perhaps we can scare it out of her.”
A whisper goes round the room, loud enough for me to detect a tone of excitement. My heart sinks, and I press myself close to the floor, as if I can find some comfort in the stones.
The leader rises out of his chair, approaching me. I make a poor attempt to shuffle away from him, but his hand lands on my hip, pinning me down before I can gain any sort of momentum. He seems preternaturally strong, able to hold me in place with just one hand. Or maybe I’m just weak.
He kneels behind me, rolling me onto my side, one knee pressed against the small of my back, the other at the base of my neck. He smooths my hair back, almost a caress, then holds my head down with his hand. My mind is racing, trying to figure out what he’s going to do, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t touch me except where he already has hold of me. My hip, the side of my head. He’s holding me in place, and I wonder for what. Then he lets out a shrill, piercing whistle, and from the shadows on the far side of the room, something comes.
It doesn’t have legs, but tentacles. Many of them. I can’t count them. They write and pulse in a motion somewhere between a slither and a walk, its two eyes fixed on me, unblinking. As it gets closer, it starts reaching two of its front tentacles out towards me. I try to move, but the leader still has me pinned down, his hands unmoving.
“Hold still now,” he says, as if I have any other choice.
I don’t know whether it will be worse to close my eyes or keep them open. Open, I decide, watching the creature’s slow approach. Its front tentacles strain forwards, one landing on my chin, the other on my forehead. Slime and heat. I press my mouth shut, wishing I could do the same with my nose and ears, but the tentacles mostly just quest over my face, feeling each part of me, before settling on my forehead. They press down, softly at first, then the pressure building rapidly until it feels like the creature is trying to push its way through my skull. And then..
Images.
They flash through my mind, a barrage of memories, none of them pleasant. Every embarrassment, every hurt, every scraped knee, every argument, all of them playing through, rapid and endlessly repeating. Every fear, every rejection, every jealousy, every dark part of my life that has ever happened. Things that had no consequence years after the fact, but are made in my mind to feel brand new again.
Every time I flinched as my father raised his voice.
My mother telling me I’d never amount to anything.
Every time a guy picked Tammy or one of my other friends, and I felt an ugly stab of jealousy.
My father telling me I’m a waste of space.
Every time I was afraid of something in the dark.
My father raising a clenched fist.
And Jason laughing at me.
You wouldn’t last five minutes in a supermarket.
I know you’re a bit thick, love.
I’ve got to clean up the mess you made today.
And then it’s not like a memory anymore. It’s like real life. I’m in my bridesmaids dress, sneaking a quick puff on one of the older relative’s vapes outside. I’m alone, bored witless by the shitty party and all the awful people attending. I try to be happy for Nat, I do, but…
Then Mark is there. He’s bigger than me, pinning me in. There’s no one nearby and I can try to shout for help but the cheesy disco music is turned up so loud, no one is going to hear me. Besides, his hand on my leg, pushing up my skirts, has frozen my tongue in my mouth.
You want me, don’t you? Always parading that sweet little ass of yours in front of me. Dressing like that to provoke me. I can’t help myself around you, Charlie. You’re making me do this.
His hot breath on my neck. And this is the point where Jason appears, drags Mark back, tells him to fuck off back to his wife and leave me alone. Puts his arm round my shoulder and makes it all okay.
Except this isn’t that memory. This is the story I tortured myself imagining so many nights afterwards. The one where Jason wasn’t there, where Mark did what he set out to do. And I could do nothing to stop him as he violated me.
No.
No.
I push my mind away from that awful track. I can’t go there. I can’t live through that nightmare again. It didn’t happen. It didn’t. Jason saved me. Jason is good. Jason is kind. Jason…
I’m five again, hiding in the space under the stairs, sitting on the shoes, leaning back against the coats. I can hear my parents’ raised voices, my father shouting obscenities at my mother. Mother shouting something back, and then the sound of skin meeting skin. The slap of palm against cheek. I jam my hands over my ears, pinching my eyes shut, hoping and praying it will stop.
When I dare to lift my hands from my ears, crack my eyes open a fraction and peer round into the kitchen, ugly sobs echo into the hallway. Mother is hidden by the doorframe, only my father visible, hands on his face as he cries.
You know I don’t mean it.
I just lose my temper.
I love you, you know that.
You make me so mad and I just snap.
I don’t want to do it. I’ll never do it again. I swear it this time.
You know you’re the most important person to me.
You know who you are.
You’re my princess.
My princess.
My princess.
Chapter 13
Dhakhar
It’s maybe another half an hour before we see the last of the sand, the ground fully rocky beneath out feet. Another ten minutes and a short climb later and Ness is indicating an entrance into the mountain. I peer into the gloom. No lights, no immediate indicators that this is one of the tunnels used by the hostiles. But given that technology doesn’t work out here, there wouldn’t necessarily be anything. We have to trust the shedreion’s nose.
Jax unhooks a bayonet from his belt, then removes the visor from his face, clipping it to his belt where the bayonet was. Maratin eyes are very sensitive - on their homeworld, they live predominantly in underground cavern systems, where it’s much darker than the majority of species are accustomed to. Jax’s night vision is one of the things t
hat made him such a useful person to have on your side during the war. I take out my own knife and follow him and Ness into the gloom, treading as lightly as I can. We have our guns - the old fashioned propulsion ones that rely on small explosions to fire their bullets, but they’re loud. We’ve agreed to rely on stealth until it isn’t possible to any more.
It’s not long before both Ness and I are starting to struggle. The beast’s eyes are better than mine, but neither of us can see much once we turn a corner and leave the last of the daylight behind us. Ness lets out a low whimper, and Jaxran moves. I can’t see what he does, exactly, but the creature calms and we continue walking.
“Slight decline coming,” Jax murmurs. “No steps, but watch your feet.”
I put my feet down carefully for the next few steps, feeling the shift of the ground elevation. It’s already colder in here than it was outside, but it feels as though it gets colder still as we keep walking downwards. I can see absolutely nothing now, utterly dependent on Jaxran. I train my ears on his footsteps, listen for any change in his pace.
Then Ness growls, low, quiet. Jax stops, reaching back to halt me with a hand against my chest. We stand in silence for a moment, our ears straining to pick up whatever Ness detected with his superior senses.
Then I hear it. Faint at first, but unmistakably the sound of echoing footsteps. Two sets, I think, two sets of boots ambling through the tunnels ahead of us. I know the difference between someone walking with purpose and the slow, aimless pace of the people down the corridor. Guard duty, I’d say. Patrolling the corridors they think no one would ever dare to come down. They’ll have weapons, maybe even the same old fashioned guns we carry, but there’s a good chance they’ll be complacent, lax in their attention. They’re talking, voices low, but every so often a word or two registers. Conversation about what they’re having for dinner. Yeah, definitely lax.
The approaching guards turn a corner and come in to view. They have a small oil lamp with them, casting a flickering orange glow that does little to push back the darkness. As it is, it makes them perfectly visible, but leaves me and Jax hidden by the shadows. We remain as still as we can, not wanting the light to pick out movement. The two guards only realise something is wrong when they’re almost on top of us, and Ness lets out a soft growl.
Me and Jax move as one. I press my hand over the guard’s mouth, muffling his cry of surprise, and slit his throat. Jax does the same, deftly hooking one hand through the handle of the oil lantern to prevent it crashing to the floor. As the bodies of the guards slump down, bleeding out, Jax opens the little door of the lantern and blows the flame out.
Quick and quiet. Our speciality.
We deal with two more groups of guards like this, and though we’ve not raised any alarms, it’s only a matter of time. The trail of bodies we leave behind us gets more and more likely to be discovered with every corpse we add to it. We’re running out of time.
Then I realise I can actually see a little bit, picking out Jaxran’s shape as he moves ahead of me. There must be an illuminated section of this tunnel somewhere ahead of us. We turn another corridor and find ourselves in a long, straight tunnel, wider than the previous ones. There are several heavy looking doors on either side, and oil lamps in brackets on the walls every few metres. The lamps cast a soft glow on the corridors, rendering everything full of moving shadows. If I put any stock in the idea of ghosts, I could believe this place is haunted.
Jax tries the first door. Locked. Manually locked, too, no electronic key codes or magnetic seals. Just solid metal doors and deadlocks.
Fortunately, Jaxran picked up some more unusual skills during his time in the army, ever keen to learn anything that might one day save his life. He drops down to his knees, pulling out a set of lock picks from his belt.
“Haven’t had to do this in a while,” he says, sliding them in to the lock.
“Just get on with it,” I say, my levels of anxiety growing with every moment that passes.
I have to find her. She has to be safe.
And not just because of concerns for my own neck. The thought of her alone, frightened, hurt… It makes me feel sick.
The first room contains a load of crates. I can tell Jax is itching to get them open, have a proper poke around and figure out exactly what this group’s capabilities are, what they’re planning to do. But I just need to find the princess.
The next two rooms are equally empty, but as I turn the key in the lock of the fourth one, I hear the rustle of movement and a whisper of hushed voices. Relief floods me, and I push the door open, grabbing one of the oil lamps from the wall and holding it up. The women squint, their eyes unaccustomed to the brightness after being locked in the windowless room for some time. I scan over their faces.
Jax steps up beside me, and while the women had looked warily at me, they know Jax, and all get to their feet in a rush. Jaxran gestures for them to be quiet and ushers them out into the corridor. I check each face as they pass but none of them are the one I’m looking for.
“Where is she?” I say, casting the light of the lamp round the now empty room.
I look to the other women. They shake their heads.
“The other girl caused trouble,” one says. “So they took her away.”
My heart sinks.
Why didn’t she keep quiet, wait. Trust that I would come for her.
Jaxran’s words come back to me. She’s alone in the Universe. She doesn’t know who to trust.
This is my fault. I should have been kinder to her, should have been more understanding. Less concerned about propriety and my fear that everything I’ve fought for, everything I’ve built in Xentra would be taken away from me. Should have seen her as a scared young woman who needed support.
Veck.
“I need to get these women to safety,” Jax says to me, keeping his voice low.
“I know,” I say. “Go. Get them out of here.”
“I don’t like leaving you alone in here.”
“I know. But if I come with you now, they’ll discover the women gone, or the guards. We lose the element of surprise.”
“Dhak…”
“I can’t leave without her, Jax.”
He nods. “I know.”
He gestures, and Ness pads to his side. He meets my eyes in the gloom, a grim look on his face.
“I’ll be back with reinforcements as soon as I can,” he says. “Go find your girl.”
Chapter 14
Charlie
They leave me lying on the floor, curled in on myself. They don’t seem at all concerned that I’m going to get up and make a break for it, but then, when I even try to think about moving, I find I can’t. A blanket of despair has settled over me, pinning me to the floor, my head pounding in time with my racing heart. I don’t know if it’s just the memories, or the mental invasion that’s left me feeling so debilitated, but the kidnappers sitting round laughing as I suffer on the floor only make it worse.
Then, a clamour of noise, and someone stumbles into the room, blood all over their hands. He shouts at the others, but his words are garbled, or I can’t understand them. My head feels light, my consciousness drifting from one edge of my mind to the other. The floor starts to sway. I try to push myself upright but my muscles are limp and unresponsive.
When did my head get so heavy?
Gunshots. The kidnappers are firing at something. A new feeling bubbles up inside me. Terror. The spirits. The kidnappers have to be firing at the spirits. But you can’t kill the dead. The dead are coming to kill them.
Fear and adrenaline give me a boost of strength and I scramble from the middle of the room to one of the edges, tracking it round until I find a corridor. Hauling myself upright, I stumble into the corridor and away from the firing. Voices echo behind me. Until they don’t.
My legs don’t seem to entirely belong to me, but I stumble as far and as fast as I can, turning left and right in to new corridors at random, no clue where I am. My only thought is to
put as much distance between myself and that room, and not in a straight line.
I hear something behind me and dive into a side tunnel, pressing my back against the wall, hardly daring to look. My vision is shifting now, my eyes darting around as I try to focus on something, anything. The floor pitches and rolls like waves and the walls blister, warping out towards me. In a small corner of my mind, I know it isn’t real - just some side effect of getting up too soon after whatever that tentacled creature did to me. But I struggle to catch my breath enough to let that rational part of me override the panicking part.
Then something comes round the corner into the corridor with me. It’s a ghoulish, haunted thing, arms weighed down with chains, it’s twisted face lurching closer to me, mouth agape in a silent cry of anguish. I try to scream but all that comes out is a hoarse moan, my legs giving way beneath me. Cold fingers brush my arm and I flail with all my limbs, trying to repel it.
“Princess. Charlie. Charlie!”
It pins my hands over my head, its body pressing against mine to stop me fighting, body heat and a familiar voice cutting through the fog of terror and confusion.
“Captain?” I croak, my voice raw.
“It’s me,” he says, and he’s touching his hand to my cheek, his thumbs tracing over my skin. Warm and alive. I pinch my eyes shut, shaking my head a little, hoping to dislodge the hallucination. When I open my eyes again, it’s Dhakhar’s face in front of me, slightly dirty, sweat beading on his forehead, but unmistakably him.
And he’s touching me. His skin is against my skin and he’s not looking at me like he might catch something if he doesn’t stop soon. His hands are a little rough, his palms callused, just like when I shook his hand yesterday and a thousand years ago. The slight rasp of his skin over my face, my neck - it feels good. It shouldn’t. Pinned like I am, I should be reminded only of Mark, especially with that memory so fresh in my mind. But Dhakhar’s eyes only hold concern. He doesn’t look at me like I’m something he wants to use, and his touch is gentle. Almost tender. I don’t want him to stop touching me.
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