by Zara Starr
Again.
The two of them began to fight and it was a blur. For a creature that large, Morga moved incredibly fast. Tanya could see why he had been chosen as her personal bodyguard. She realized that she would never have been able to slip away from him, even if she had planned it. She hadn’t known what he was capable of.
Now, he was a worthy match for Mal. They moved around each other, attempting kicks and punches, both of them fighting with beautiful, graceful style.
Tanya knew that this fight was the decider – this was where she would either go free or remained a slave for the rest of her life. The beauty of the fight was lost on her.
She was terrified.
For a while, it looked like Mal and Morga were perfectly matched. Despite the difference in size. Mal was a big man – alien – but Morga was bigger still. Tanya was worried.
The wound in Mal’s side was starting to get to him. She could see that his movements were becoming sluggish. Not so much that it was obvious, but his movements were slightly delayed. When he had to parry, he almost didn’t manage to block the punches. And when he punched, Morga dodged it more easily.
She was worried that the huge bodyguard would actually win.
Tanya glanced at Slinin and realized that the insect wasn’t paying attention to her. In fact, he was so caught up in the fight that he wasn’t paying attention to anything else.
She looked in disgust as the monster seemed to enjoy the fight, knowing full well that someone was about to die on his expensive dining room carpet.
He didn’t care, did he? He didn’t care about anything he owned, because it could be replaced. Just like that.
It was how he saw her too. As a thing, an object to collect in his fancy penthouse. Maybe she wasn’t quite as common as a carpet that could be replaced, but she knew that she wasn’t irreplaceable to him. If something happened to her, he would just find another human female to buy.
A moment later, guards rushed into the dining room. They had guns with them. Some of them had bruises on their faces, blood trickling from their noses or mouths. It was strange to see an insect bleed.
Clearly, they had already been bested by Mal, who had made it past them and into the building. What did Slinin think knowing that his security wasn’t nearly as good as he had thought? Hadn’t he just told her how safe they were?
“No!” Slinin barked as the guards tried to seize Mal. “Let them finish!”
The guards looked unsure, they were there to protect their Master, and now their Master was forbidding them from doing the only thing they knew how. But they knew to obey him, and they left the room again. All but one, who stayed behind to watch the show. And perhaps, to step in if something went wrong.
He leaned casually against the wall close to Tanya, his gun hanging loosely in his hand.
At first, Tanya didn’t think about doing anything herself. Mal was there to rescue her, he was the fighter, he was the one who knew what to do.
But he was engaged in battle. And he was doing worse and worse. Whatever his injury was, it wasn’t healing the way it should. It seemed to be dragging him down instead.
Tanya was just about done being helpless. She had wanted to escape from the moment she had woken up in the strange room, taken from her own home and her own life to be a slave to someone else. Well, now was her chance. Mal was there, fighting for her. He was doing everything in his power.
She was going to do the same. She would not sit back and watch him die.
Because that was what would happen if she didn’t do anything.
Tanya prepared herself. The key was to catch everyone off guard. If she made any movement and it failed, if they stopped her, her chance would be gone.
But Slinin was completely caught up in the fight. He clapped his clawed hands in glee every time Morga hit Mal and hurt him further.
The guard was intrigued, as well, although he didn’t seem to enjoy the pain as much as his Master did.
Tanya was tense, every muscle ready, twitching. She just had to wait for her chance.
When the two men who were watching let out a cry of excitement, the battle becoming closer and closer to an end, Tanya saw her opportunity. She jumped up, moving as fast as she could. She had made sure that there would be nothing in her way, she had counted the steps in her head. She had planned it all. And now, she was putting it into motion.
Two long steps and she was right in front of the guard, his surprised face staring at her. She grabbed the gun before he could do anything – speed was the key.
She spun around while everyone was still in shock, aimed roughly, and pulled the trigger.
A loud bang turned the entire room into chaos. Tanya’s ears rang, the gun jerked back, yanking her arm back painfully, and there were cries in the room. But Tanya couldn’t tell through the ringing in her ears who it was that had cried out.
It took Tanya only a moment to right herself, to pull herself back together. After all, she was in a fight now too. She wasn’t a warrior or a fighter of any kind, but she knew that she had to be ready. For what? She didn’t know yet.
The ringing in her ears started to die down. Somewhere, an alarm was blaring, taking over.
The guard that stood close to her was frozen, staring at her with an open mouth. She gripped the gun tighter, ready to lift it and point at him if he tried to confront her.
But he didn’t. He seemed frozen.
Morga was frozen too. He and Mal weren’t fighting anymore. Everyone stood, staring at the dining room table where Slinin had sat.
And where he wasn’t sitting anymore.
Tanya had never fired a gun before. But the insect lay on the floor, a mess of blood and body parts. And his head was gone.
Tanya had blown it clean off. Even though she hadn’t even aimed properly. She gaped, shocked at what she had achieved. It seemed almost surreal. But nothing on this planet, since the moment she had been abducted, had seemed normal or real.
“I can’t believe it,” the guard said.
Tanya looked at the guard, who backed away from her and the gun. He ran out of the room before she could do anything. Well, that was one less creature to worry about.
Tanya looked at Morga. The bodyguard raised his arms, shaking his head.
“Look, I just worked for the guy. He was an asshole from the start. I’m glad he’s dead.”
So, the creature talked. Tanya was almost surprised. But these days, she didn’t know what to expect anymore and took it all in strides.
“I’m glad he’s dead too,” Tanya agreed.
Morga lowered his arms slowly. They were all on the same side.
“Am I free to go?” he asked.
Tanya nodded. “You are.”
Morga looked at Slinin’s lifeless body. “Free,” he said slowly as if the word was entirely foreign to him. And maybe it was.
Then, he turned around and left the room. Tanya didn’t know where he was going, but she hoped it was somewhere beautiful.
She ran to Mal, dropping the gun halfway. She threw her arms around his neck, carefully avoiding his spines.
“I am so glad you came,” Tanya said.
Mal closed his arms around her and held onto her, tightly.
“Yeah, me too. You saved the day.”
“I did, didn’t I?” Tanya said with a giggle. “But I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t know that you were alive. Do you have any idea how happy I am?”
“You and me both,” Mal said with a smile, but his face twisted with a grimace.
“Are you in a lot of pain?” Tanya asked.
Mal shook his head. “It’s just frustrating. My body won’t heal as long as the bullet is in my side.”
Tanya’s eyes widened. “Bullet?” She pieced it all together. “The shots downstairs… That was you?”
“A ridiculous gang shooting that I shouldn’t have been a part of. Wrong place, wrong time. As soon as we get the bullet out, I’ll be fine.”
“Where do we go?” Tanya
asked.
Mal shook his head. “Not yet. We have to get out of here before this alarm–” He pointed up, referring to the incessant ringing that surrounded them. “–brings more guards that will drag us away to another prison. We can worry about my wound later. My body is trying to heal itself all the time, it gets better and then it gets worse again. But I will survive. We have somewhere else we need to go, first.”
“Where?” Tanya asked.
“I’ll explain on the way,” Mal said. He looked around the room. There was a beautiful display of rare artifacts on the shelf opposite the dining room table. Tanya had noticed it when she had come in, but since these objects were like her in a way – bought for a high price and probably replaceable – she hadn’t thought much of them.
Mal took a few of them and carefully tucked them into his arms.
“How do we get out of here?” he finally asked.
“There is a spacecraft on the roof,” Tanya said. “It’s probably better than going downstairs.”
Mal nodded. “I came that way, it was hard work.” He chuckled.
Tanya smiled at the humor he could find in this strange time – when he was injured and they were on the run for their lives. She told him to follow her and led the way out of the building and onto the roof, the way that she had come down, initially.
She had planned to escape this way, she just hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. Or so easily.
She was more than relieved to leave the large, dark building behind.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mal
There was a spacecraft on the roof. Mal had never flown a spacecraft before, but he had watched it a couple of times, and he figured that he could work it out. How difficult could it be? The private spacecraft were all roughly the same, and not very complicated. They were only meant for short-distance travel.
He was just glad that they had managed to escape. It was all thanks to Tanya too. If she hadn’t known how to wield that gun… For a moment, after she had grabbed it, Mal had worried that she wouldn’t be able to fire the thing. Technically, she shouldn’t have been able to – the guns were all assigned to a biological signature.
But she had grabbed it away from the guard so quickly and pulled the trigger, the gun hadn’t had time to register that there was a different finger on the trigger.
And it had worked. She had essentially set them free. If Mal had been left to fight it out with the bodyguard, he knew that he would have lost. The wound in his side just didn’t allow him to fight at full capacity. And it had been the third fight for the day – his energy had been depleted.
Mal opened the door of the spacecraft and climbed in, strapping himself into the pilot’s seat before attempting to press any of the buttons. He watched Tanya do the same next to him, trusting him with her life, but at least thinking of her safety.
God, he was crazy about this woman.
Mal concentrated, trying to figure out what he had to do. He couldn’t read the labels below the dials and buttons, but it all seemed fairly straightforward. Switch it on, make sure all engines were firing at the same capacity, lift the craft into the air.
At first, it was a little bumpy. The spacecraft scraped across the top of the building, nearly hitting the stairwell that had risen from the roof and was still standing. He managed to avoid it though. When he swung the spacecraft in the other direction, they nearly toppled off the edge of the building.
Next to him, Tanya was perfectly quiet, not crying out in fear or telling Mal that he was a terrible pilot.
And just like that, he got the hang of it. It had just taken him a moment or two – it was amazing what near-death experiences could teach you.
As soon as Mal had the spacecraft in the air, he pressed a button that seemed logical to be autopilot. He hoped that it was right. The computer screen asked for an address. Luckily, Mal didn’t need to be able to read or write to input address – he merely chose a location on a map of the city that popped up.
“What are you doing?” Tanya asked. “That is very close to the gladiator dome.”
Mal nodded.
“Are you crazy? We can’t go back there. If they catch us, they will lock us up. Forever. And then we’ll never see each other again.”
Mal reached for Tanya, took her hand and squeezed it.
“It’s fine,” he said. “Trust me.”
Tanya hesitated and Mal could see the fear in her eyes. But she trusted him. She pursed her lips together and nodded. It only made him feel for her more. She had trusted him once and he had gotten her back to the prize quarters. Now, she was trusting him again.
He was going to buy their freedom.
The spacecraft launched forward, and Mal was elated to find out that it was indeed autopilot that he had managed to activate. The spacecraft turned in the air, heading toward the gladiator dome.
As they flew, Tanya and Mal both looked out over the city below.
“I won’t miss this place,” she finally said.
“Me neither,” Mal agreed.
Tanya looked at him. “Really? Didn’t you grow up here?”
Mal nodded. “I did. But not in the city. In the gladiator dome. In the arenas where I was trained. The city isn’t my home, it just happens to be around the prison that I had been kept in my entire life.”
Tanya’s face softened.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
Mal shook his head.
“Don’t be. I didn’t know any better. I didn’t have a bad life. It was all exactly as I had thought it should be. Until I met you. Until you showed me that there was more. Then, suddenly, it wasn’t good enough anymore. But until then, I wasn’t unhappy.”
“I’m sorry I ruined it for you,” Tanya said.
“Don’t be,” Mal said again. “I am glad you showed me a different way of life. I would have lived and died as a slave, fighting when I was told to fight, hurting when I was told to hurt. I don’t want to do that anymore. I’m glad I know something else now.”
“It might be hard to get away from that life though,” Tanya said grimly. “If we are brought here as slaves, how can we leave as freed people?”
“I have that covered,” Mal said.
They didn’t speak for the rest of the trip. It wasn’t very long – the spacecraft moved swiftly across the city. Slowly, it lowered into the back yard of a large mansion, a mansion that Mal had only seen once or twice at the beginning of his fighting career.
But he knew exactly what it was. And he knew that he was in the right place.
The door to the mansion opened and Esimin stormed out, furious.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. “How did you get out of the gladiator dome and where did you get this?”
“Stay here,” Mal said to Tanya, collecting artifacts he had taken from Slinin’s dining room.
He walked to Esimin. He was moving slowly, his injury prevented him from moving too fast with all the objects in his arms. But he knew that he wouldn’t have to protect himself here. Mal wouldn’t have to engage in fighting again, not now.
His former Master – or rather, his new Master again – wasn’t the type that had bodyguards around him. He was a lot less paranoid than Slinin had been.
Probably because he was not nearly as rich.
“Please, Master,” Mal said with respect. “I come bearing gifts. Hear me out, if you please.”
Esimin didn’t look like he wanted to let Mal speak, but his eyes traveled to the artifacts in Mal’s arms and Mal knew that his Master saw the value of it.
“I’ll hear you,” Esimin said. His curiosity won out over his anger and shock at the fact that his slave had escaped the gladiator dome and landed in his backyard in a spacecraft.
“I have brought you these artifacts,” Mal said. “I would like to give them to you in return for my freedom.”
“Really?” Esimin asked.
Mal nodded.
“Wait here,” his Master
said. He turned around and walked back into the house. A moment later, he returned with a scanner. It was to verify the authenticity of artifacts – they could very well have been fakes. After all, why would a slave like Mal have artifacts that were real... and expensive?
But when Esimin scanned the artifacts, his scanner confirmed that all the artifacts were real.
“These are not fake,” Esimin said, surprised.
Mal shook his head. “No, they are not. And you may have them. In return for my freedom.”
“Fine,” Esimin said without hesitating. “You have it.”
Mal blinked. Was it really as easy as that? He had never once considered buying his freedom, paying for himself as another Master would. But now that Esimin had agreed to take the artifacts in return for his freedom, Mal thought that it made a lot of sense.
And that, for the first time, he was completely free.
Esimin didn’t seem to worry too much about the fact that he had just lost a warrior. He would probably be able to afford five more with the artifacts that Mal had just given him. Nor did he seem to worry about where the artifacts had come from. He was a greedy bastard.
Mal turned around and walked back to the spacecraft where Tanya was waiting for him, an anxious expression on her face.
“Let’s go,” he said to her, climbing into the spacecraft.
“Just like that?” she asked.
Mal nodded. It had been that easy to gain his freedom, in the end.
Well, maybe not easy – he had fought his way through dozens of guards, he had nearly lost his life – twice. And he still had an injury that needed attending to.
But it had been a lot easier than he had thought. Before, he had thought that the only way to escape being a slave was to die.
Now, after everything, Mal was going to have the chance to really live.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tanya
In no time at all, the spacecraft was back in the atmosphere. Mal hadn’t keyed in another address – the truth was that neither of them knew where to go. It was strange, not having anywhere to belong. The freedom was amazing, but at the same time, Tanya felt disoriented. And it looked like Mal felt the same.
