by Ashley West
"I thought he would," Malachi said, smiling at the other three as he moved to follow the guard into the building.
Perhaps it had been a nice place once. There was a structure in the center of the ground floor that looked like it might have been a fountain of some kind, marble spheres in ascending sizes stretching up nearly to the ceiling. It was dry and cracked now, and the floor was littered with dust and rubble.
From what he'd seen from the outside, this building was huge. It stretched up several stories, and there had been letters on the front of it, proclaiming the name of the business that had operated out of the building, but they had been blasted off, and now it was just the home of the Alva.
Glass littered the floor from broken windows, and there was splintered wood and dented metal everywhere Malachi looked. The Alva loved destruction for destruction’s sake, and they had done a number on this place, turning it onto their compound and seat of power here on Earth.
Malachi was led up flight after flight of stairs, and he kept any complaints about the walk to himself, eyes darting around to see what there was to see.
There wasn't much in the stairwells but when they emerged out into a long hallway, Malachi wanted to recoil with disgust at what he saw.
Cages lined the wide hall, some of them empty, but most of them holding a prisoner. A human, curled in on themselves or staring at the wall, looking miserable and dirty, thin and neglected. Malachi wanted to run to each cage and set them all free, so violent was his horror when it came to things like this. How could anyone treat sentient beings like this? Like they were animals to be displayed and mistreated?
But, through a massive force of effort, he made himself keep following the guard and kept his eyes forward.
For the first stretch of the walk, none of them paid any attention to him, keeping their eyes focused on whatever had held their attention before he'd arrived. But about midway, Malachi felt a gaze on him, and he allowed his own to dart to the side quickly, taking in the sight of a young human woman in her cage. Her fingers were wrapped around the bars, and her eyes were large and green as she watched him walk, following his every movement.
There was very little expression on her face, but her eyes flared with something that seemed like an odd mixture of defiance and helplessness.
More than ever Malachi wanted to help.
He was led past her cage and past all the others to a door at the end of the hall. The guard gestured for him to go in.
"Our leader," he said, voice an irritated grunt.
Malachi pulled himself together and opened the door.
This looked like some kind of official room, a desk at one end of the room in front of a window, a chair behind it. Of course, the chair was broken and the desk had several gouges in it. Behind the desk stood someone Malachi was familiar with.
Like the Randoran, the Alva chose their leader from the strongest of them, and the Alvan leader was bigger than the others, thickly muscled and heavily scaled. Other than that, he looked like a very large version of a human, which was probably one of the reasons actual humans were so afraid of him.
"Randoran," the leader said, his voice a deep, harsh sound. "What brings you?"
Malachi glanced around pointedly and then back to the leader. "I think that's obvious."
"You want Earth?"
"No, we want you to leave the humans alone. They haven't done anything to deserve this treatment, and you know it."
The Alvan leader watched him for long seconds, and Malachi kept his posture loose and his hands by his sides. He wanted to reach for a weapon badly, knowing that even feeling the smooth hilt of his beam sword in his hand would do wonders for calming his nerves and soothing his anger. He also wanted to fly across the room and sink the energy blade of both of his weapons into the leader's belly for what he had led his people to do here. So much senseless slaughter and pain.
"We wanted. We take," the leader said, looking like he couldn't care less. "Not here to fight with you Randoran anymore."
That was surprising, and Malachi realized he'd been waiting for some kind of attack since he stepped foot in this building. His kind and the Alva didn't talk, they fought each other, and this was perhaps the first time their two races had been in the same place for more than five minutes without coming to death blows.
"You don't want to fight us anymore," Malachi repeated, and it wasn't a question. He didn't relax. The Alva weren't usually clever enough for things like traps and surprises. They were straightforward and cruel and would stab you in the front where you could see it. Still, unease prickled along the back of Malachi's neck and he wanted to turn around and look behind himself to make sure there was nothing and no one back there. But he kept himself facing forward. He had to show no fear here.
"No," the Alvan leader said, grinning wide and showing off an unnatural amount of sharp teeth. "We have kingdom now."
"This isn't your kingdom. This is a planet of people who were doing just fine before you and your kind showed up and brought this destruction upon them."
The leader laughed. "Humans," he scoffed, like it was a dirty word. "Vermin. They better now."
"Oh, yes," Malachi said, sarcasm heavy in his tone. "I'm so very sure they love being in cages away from their families and friends. I bet they begged for you to take them from their homes and bring them here. Didn't they?"
"You have interest?"
"In what?" he demanded. "Your slaves? Your human pets? Hardly." It was insulting to even think that he would keep someone like that. Even humans deserved better than to be kept in cages and treated like lowly animals.
The leader held up a hand and then tipped his head back, letting out a guttural growl that Malachi could feel all the way in his bones. After a moment, the door swung open and the guard from before stepped in.
Malachi had to work harder to keep himself from reaching for a weapon. Especially when the two of them broke into a conversation that didn't seem to have any words in it, just a litany of grunts and hand gestures.
But the guard nodded eventually, and tapped his fist over his heart before withdrawing from the room.
"Was that for my benefit?" Malachi asked, turning back to the leader.
"You see."
Well, that was completely unhelpful, and Malachi was beginning to wonder if coming here on his own had been the best idea, considering he wanted to fly into a rage and kill this creature already. His patience was being tested, especially since the leader looked so placid. Like he could care less about what was happening. That wasn't the way he knew the Alva to be. Something didn't feel right.
Before he could put too much thought into it or demand that the leader stop toying with him, the door was opening again. The same guard came walking in, this time dragging someone with him.
When Malachi turned to look, he could see that it was the woman from the cage outside. The one with the green eyes that had followed him as he'd walked past. She was struggling against the tight hold on her arm, and Malachi could see the guard tightening his grip. She'd have bruises there in no time. He let out a steadying breath and looked back to the leader.
"What is the meaning of this?" he asked, making sure his voice carried.
"Peace offering," the leader replied, and Malachi's eyebrows hit his hairline.
"A peace offering? In what way?"
"You buy her."
He recoiled as if he'd been struck. "I will not."
"Then we keep her," the leader said, shrugging a shoulder like it didn't matter to him one bit. Clearly, it actually didn't matter to him, and Malachi didn't want to know what would happen if she went back in that cage.
He looked at her face, and that same mixture of determination and helplessness was still in those vivid eyes. She was looking at him like she was pleading for him to help her, and Malachi let his eyes travel over her as he thought about what he should do.
She was beautiful, there was no question about that. Even dirty and bruised as she was, she was lovely wit
h her fair skin and long hair. Those bright eyes stared out of a pretty face, her cheekbones high and striking. She was small compared to the guard who held her, and it was clear to see she was in pain from the way he was holding her arm. When she struggled, he looked like he might hit her.
It was a disgusting practice, selling people, and buying them was even worse, but he couldn’t just let her go back to that cage. There was no telling what would happen, and he couldn’t ignore that look in her eyes, the way she seemed to be saying that she trusted him to get her out of this. She was just one of the many people that the Alva had taken, but it was a start.
"Take her-"
"Wait," Malachi said, cutting the leader off. "How much?" It made him feel sick to say it, but he promised himself two things right then and there: that he would come back for the rest of the humans in captivity when this was all said and done, and that he would set this human woman free. It only helped a little, but it was something.
That terrifying grin was back, and the leader leaned forward, clearly enjoying this. “For you, Randoran, we make deal.”
The exchange went down smoothly, and that didn't do anything to make Malachi feel less like this was some kind of trick. For a handful of coin (the kind that was used universally in their quadrant), he had purchased a person.
The guard had shoved the young woman across the room with a jerk of his arm, sending her stumbling forward and into Malachi's arms. He'd steadied her, feeling how she trembled in his hold and how cold and clammy her skin was.
When he'd looked back up at the leader, the Alva had looked completely pleased with himself, that horrible grin stretching across his face. He'd clapped his hands and gestured for the guard to show them out.
"This isn't over," Malachi promised on the way out, trying not to look at the other humans in cages as they passed back through the hallway.
Part of him expected the woman he'd just...purchased, stars save him, to try to run away. When she stayed at his side, he figured it was because she didn't want to risk getting thrown back into her cage, which made sense. But then she didn't run when they were led outside or when Malachi stepped to his vehicle, ready to leave.
Instead she just stood there, head bowed, her hair hiding her face.
Night had fallen while they'd been inside, casting the building and the street in shadow.
"Is there somewhere I can take you?" Malachi asked, speaking slowly to make sure she would understand him.
She didn't even glance up.
"Your home, maybe? Back to your family?"
Nothing.
Wonderful, he thought, sighing and trying to decide what to do. He couldn't leave her here, and they couldn't just stand there all night either. Taking her back to the ship wasn't ideal, but it was the only thing he could think of at the moment. He had to go back and give a report to his team and then give another one to the General via comm link, and he was tired and cranky and really wanted to hit something.
But none of that was this woman's fault, so he just sighed. "Alright. You'll come with me, then."
That seemed to surprise her because she looked up quickly, and when he offered her a hand up into the vehicle, she took it and let him help her into it.
He climbed up next to her and started it up, heading back towards the ship. The guards at the door of the Alvan compound watched them until they were out of sight, and Malachi had a feeling that they would know exactly where the Randoran ship was in no time. But there wasn't anything he could do about that, and it wasn't like they were trying to hide anyway. If the Alva wanted to start something, they would be ready. Because he didn't believe for a second that they were done fighting.
"You did what?"
"I know what you're thinking, Thyrra, but what was I supposed to do?" Malachi replied to his second's incredulous exclamation. "I couldn't just leave her there."
After speaking with his team, all of whom had been shocked to see him standing there with a human, he'd spoken with the General who had commended him on his handling of things thus far and told him to keep them informed. Basically now the goal was to find out if there was a way to remove the Alva from Earth without damaging the planet or the human race more than it already had been.
Priya, one of the female warriors on the ship, had taken the human woman somewhere, speaking to her in gentle tones and promising food and clean clothes. Malachi had left her to it. She was one of the ones who usually dealt with the refugees when they came in, so she knew what she was doing. And he most definitely did not.
His head had been spinning after everything, so he'd put a call through to Thyrra. She always knew how to talk him down from his obsessive worries, and she was the only one he'd told about the real way he'd acquired a human all of a sudden.
Her sigh was a crackle over the speakers, and he watched as she nodded. "Okay, that's fair. Leaving her there would have been worse. But what are you going to do with her?"
"What do you mean what am I going to do?” Malachi demanded, miffed that she even needed to ask. “I'm going to send her back to her family or wherever it is she belongs. Hopefully she'll tell Priya something, since she didn't want to talk to me. I'll ask her if she knows anything that could help us and then send her on her way."
"Alright, good," Thyrra said. "Is it really as bad as all that there?"
"Worse," Malachi admitted. "They have rows of humans in cages in their compound. The governor said the list of people missing keeps growing, and no one ever knows if their loved ones have been killed or taken. And I still don't know why they're doing this. The leader told me he didn't want to fight with us anymore because they have a kingdom here now."
Thyrra snorted. "I don't think I could have made it through that conversation with a straight face. Why Earth, though? I know it has resources, but there are plenty of other planets out there."
"I don't know yet," Malachi admitted. "Maybe the human can give us more information."
"Here's hoping," Thyrra agreed.
There was a knock at the door of the small room Malachi had claimed for himself on the ship, and he pressed the button on the wall to slide it open, expecting Priya or some of the other members of the crew to be there.
But it was the human woman, holding a plate of food in her hands and looking at the floor as she stood there. She looked better than she had before, cleaner, her hair untangled and out of her face, but the bruises were still stark against her pale skin, barely covered by the borrowed clothes she seemed to be swimming in.
Malachi blinked at her for a moment, unsure of what to say. Finally he cleared his throat. "Um. Can I help you?"
She fidgeted for a second and then stepped into the room, pushing the plate of food into his hands. When she looked up, her eyes were blazing. "You can't send me away."
Chapter Five: Acquisition
Emma could honestly say she hadn't been expecting to be let out of that cage. Sometimes she and the others would whisper about a chance to escape, about somehow overpowering their captors and heading for freedom, but they all knew that was probably never going to happen. It was just something to keep them going, to keep them from losing their minds in their captivity.
The cages were small and cramped, barely enough room to stretch out in, and definitely not enough room to stand up in. The bars weren't wide enough to stick a hand through, and even if they were, the locks weren't like anything any of them had ever seen before.
To make matters worse, even if they had somehow managed to get out of the cages, there were four floors between them and the exit, and each floor was filled with more of the creatures who were holding them captive. They had no hope of fighting them off, no hope of getting out alive.
No hope at all, really.
And then someone came to visit.
At first glance, he looked human enough. He was tall and muscular, without the scales and scary teeth that made their captors so odd looking. But there was something about the way he carried himself, about the way he looked out of plac
e that made Emma sure he wasn't a human.
But he wasn't one of the creatures, either, not if the way he didn't seem to be able to relax meant anything. Had he come to save them, then? Or was he here to make some kind of deal?
Emma watched him as he walked down the hallway, and she saw how he was trying not to look at them in their cages, as if that would make the sight go away.
He disappeared into the office at the end of the hall, and Emma sank back in the cage with a sigh. Nothing would come of it. It was stupid to get her hopes up. Just because he was a new face didn't mean he was going to care about humans and their plight. As they were all learning, these creatures from other planets didn't actually care about humans at all and saw them as lower than animals.
She tried to put it out of her mind.
And then something new happened. Emma was being taken out of her cage. She was being dragged into the office, and no matter how much she struggled, she couldn't get free. She didn't want to know what was happening, and yet... If they had decided to kill her, at least this whole mess would finally be over.
They didn't kill her.
They sold her instead.
It rankled, being bought and sold like cattle or property. The man (for lack of a better word) who bought her didn't seem to want her. He didn't seem to like the idea of buying people, and that was a good sign. Emma let herself be cautiously optimistic.
The man offered to take her home, but Emma didn't know what to say to that. Her home was gone, technically. She'd watched her house burn to the ground, glad that her parents were gone and didn't have to watch it or be in danger. She had been meant to follow them, but she'd missed her chance.
Emma didn't know where they'd gone and had no way to get in contact with them, really. And what would she say if she could find them, anyway?
'Hey, Mom and Dad, I know it's been a year since we've seen each other, but for the last ten months or so I've been a prisoner?'
That wasn't really a good opener.
So she didn't say anything when the strange man asked, and she fully expected to be left behind. Instead he took her with him.