Starlight and Candy

by K. T. Flores

“Go call Jayen. Something’s wrong!” someone else called.

  Thundering footsteps disappeared, and Tauri slammed the butt of her gun into the remaining guard’s head. She fumbled for a key in his pocket, then headed to the door.

  Tauri slapped the card against the lock, shoulders sagging with relief when the door opened.

  She had found Kira.

  “Kira!” she gasped, darting forward to the slumped body on the floor. She ran her hands across Kira’s body frantically. “Are you okay? Can you walk?”

  “T-Tauri? Holy shit, what are you doing here?”

  “No time. Can you walk? We needed to go like two minutes ago.”

  “The food they gave me was laced with some sort of candy. I stopped eating when I realized, but I can’t get very far. I’m not sure I can teleport us both. If I can do it, I’ll pass out and be more trouble—”

  Tauri shook her head before she’d even finished speaking. “Don’t worry about it. I won’t need you to teleport. We have to go down a room. Come on,” she huffed as she helped Kira to her feet.

  She leaned heavily against Tauri, head swaying. Together, they made it into the robot room.

  “Stop!” a voice commanded behind them.

  Tauri wildly searched for a weapon. Her hand made contact with an extra robot arm, and she chucked it at the door with all her might.

  The person howled, but Tauri didn’t dare turn around. “Go, Kira, go!” she commanded, pushing her forward.

  “Is that our exit?” she panted with a cursory gesture to the air vent.

  “Yes, we’re almost there.” Tauri would need her help to be pulled up, but they could make it.

  Kira’s limp arm around her neck tensed, and Tauri knew what she was about to do, but she couldn’t risk both of them being caught. She had come to save Kira, and that’s what she was going to do. Tauri jerked away from Kira a moment before she disappeared and reappeared in the vent. Her brow furrowed as her hold was met with emptiness.

  “Tauri!” Kira screeched, reaching out as someone latched onto Tauri’s jacket from behind. Her features pinched, and she stared intently at Tauri. She prepared to teleport again.

  “I can’t let you do that!” Tauri said, shooting the emergency security panel near the vent. Immediately, steel slid down all vents in the room and the door.

  Kira banged against the metal, screaming.

  The man holding Tauri’s jacket knocked her gun from her wrist and pushed her onto the ground. His knee dug into her back, and she wheezed.

  “You’re going to die for that.”

  She craned her neck, giving him a dazzling smile. “So are you. I can’t believe you let the asset escape. Fili is going to be furious.”

  “You bitch,” he snarled, snapping a fist across her chin.

  She went limp beneath him.

  ∆∆∆

  She came to with a palm tapping at her cheek.

  “Wake up,” Fili hissed in her ear.

  She glared up at him through her lashes, trying to move her hands and feet, but she was bound. She tried the knots, feeling them with her fingers. Someone had done a neat job, but the rope was a little loose. Her shoulders ached slightly as she rolled them.

  “Good morning,” she drawled, taking in the room.

  Oh.

  She was on the floor of her house, and she could see the hallway leading to her garage. She hadn’t been near her home sector since the guardians had chased her through the forest. It felt like a lifetime ago.

  Her living space had been ransacked, papers and utensils strewn across the floor. Her mattress was leaning against the wall, piles of clothes on the bed frame. At least they had closed all her cabinets, she noted dryly.

  Fili strolled to her stove, stirring something he was warming up.

  “Cyril will never give you what you want,” she snorted to his back.

  But it was a lie, and they both knew it.

  “See, you made a mistake lying to us about Kira. And then you decided to run. Then”—he began to tick off his fingers—“you talked to Empyrean. Then you found the connector stick. I was willing to forgive all these things. And then you snitched to the oligarchs. That was very stupid of you.”

  “I didn’t necessarily do things in that order.”

  He rushed forward and shoved her raypistol against her chin, forcing her head back. “But you are going to fix everything.”

  “You don’t scare me,” she said lowly.

  And he didn’t. But the situation scared her. It made her so scared that if she stopped a moment to think about it, she’d freeze up. Never move again.

  And she couldn’t afford letting the people around her know that.

  “I know, and I really hate that about you.” He pointed her gun at her thigh and shot.

  She cried out, agony searing across her body. The blinding pain stole her breath, and she felt light-headed.

  He grabbed her hair and yanked her upright once more. “At first, I just wanted to bleed the Oich-Ru dry. But you have the connector stick, and that’s really damning.” His grip tightened around her hair. “Without it, Navar doesn’t have concrete proof of my involvement in the candy rings. And that’s what the oligarchs need. Proof. It doesn’t matter if they believe you. You know how our courts work.”

  Oh no.

  There must have been fail-safes on the connector stick. If Fili got his hand on it, he could force the data to corrupt and remain inaccessible. The oligarchs would keep investigating, but it would be hard to move forward without the most compelling piece of evidence.

  She snarled through the pain, trying to not let her rage overshadow her thoughts.

  “It’s a shame you managed to help Kira escape.”

  Was he talking about that fateful first night they met or the previous night?

  She clenched her fists, smile vicious. “How’s the nose doing, Fili? It’s looking a little crooked from this angle.”

  He backhanded her, and she collapsed against the floor.

  “I can’t believe my guardians couldn’t capture you. You’re pathetic.”

  She swallowed the metallic taste in her mouth, not surprised when it didn’t clear. She rolled onto her back, cackling. “I may be pathetic, but at least I’m not delusional.”

  He kicked her side, but she kept laughing and wheezing until tears poured from her eyes.

  “I’m going to become an oligarch!” he sneered. “You won’t be laughing when you’re dead, and I’m one of the most powerful people on Navar.”

  “You could rule the galaxy, but it doesn’t make a difference to me. I just don’t give a shit about you.”

  “You do care!” he accused, punctuating each word with a blow. “You care so much, and you don’t want to admit it.” He kicked her thigh where he had shot her. “You’re obsessed with me!”

  She gritted her teeth, unable to help her sharp groan.

  He was insane.

  “Beat me all you want. It’ll never change how I feel,” she said, thinking of Kira’s panic, the kids hanging out and painting her doors. Tauri thought of her parents, Orn, and everyone she had met on Navar. She thought of Cyril’s smile and gentle eyes, his soothing touch and reassuring words.

  There was too much at stake. Too much she wasn’t willing to walk away from anymore.

  “You rat,” he hissed.

  She spat blood at Fili’s feet, grinning up at him. Tauri knew she looked like a mess, crimson staining her face and teeth and other parts of her body.

  She was a rat.

  And she would endure.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I should’ve killed you when I had the chance,” Fili said, eating yuniper berries three days later. His fingers yellowed at the tips, stained from the fruit juice.

  “Why didn’t you? And why didn’t you ever add us as fugitives to the official guardian database? You would’ve had a better chance of catching us,” Tauri said from her position on the floor. They had cuffed her hands across the front of her body
.

  Last night, she had managed to slide her wrists through the knots at her back, causing more than enough trouble, swatting at everyone. Fili didn’t want a repeat of it. His skin had reddened with fury as she threw her plate of food at him. He opted to instead have her hands where they could see them, but she had a feeling it would backfire.

  How much longer until Cyril arrived? Had Kira found him? Tauri hoped Kira had taken her holowatch and holocomm from the storage place.

  “It would’ve been too dangerous. Not all guardians know about our candy operation. If one of them had picked you up, and you told them the truth? Then what would happen if they believed you and told their superior? Eventually, it would get to the oligarchs. We would’ve had to kill everyone involved. I don’t want an innocent’s blood on my hands.”

  “You already do, though,” she stated, staring at her ceiling. “So many underworlders, and you don’t even feel anything.”

  “Underworlders aren’t innocent.”

  They’d been over this already. There was no point in trying to reason with him.

  He snapped his teeth at her before waving the other guardians out. “Secure the perimeter and stay outside. Let me know everyone that gets close to the building.”

  She looked at him. Really looked at him.

  His hair had gotten longer, slicked back against his neck. The golden locks danced in the weakening sunlight. His brown eyes were so dark they were nearly black, burning with excitement. He thought he was going to win this.

  Over my dead body.

  She hadn’t come this far for everything to fail. She trusted Cyril. Trusted everyone to do the right thing.

  “Have you ever had yuniper berries, Solne?” he asked innocently, shoveling more into his mouth. “They’re delicious.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him and sat up. She’d always wondered what they would taste like, but the few chances she had to buy them, she declined. Overworlders owned all the yunpier farms, and they priced them so most underworlders couldn’t afford to buy the fruit. Despite her curiosity, she wasn’t going to eat the berries.

  He laughed, shaking a full hand of yunipers under her nose. But her jaw remained locked, expression guarded. She turned away from him, but he held her face in place. “Now, now. Don’t be like that,” he said. “I only want to share.” He smashed the berries into her face, and she growled.

  He wiggled his fingers against his lips and chin. “You might need to get cleaned up. Otherwise, your face is going to stain.”

  She kept her voice even. “It was really kind of you to share.”

  Tauri leaned forward, wiping her face against his shirt. He went to swat her, but she fell away to the wall. His nails grazed her nose as he jackknifed to his feet.

  “I can’t wait to kill you,” he rumbled, looking at his ruined top.

  “Thanks for your help.” She gestured to her face and smiled angelically.

  He stomped on her thigh, and she collapsed against the floor in a fetal position. Then, he kicked at her back. She coughed, her body shaking, wondering how many bruises this day would leave on her.

  “I don’t like you.”

  She snorted, trying to find the strength to sit up straight. “I can’t imagine why.”

  His holocomm dinged, and he quickly read the message. Fili’s nails sank into her upper arm as he hauled her upright. “Cyril is here. Get moving.”

  She winced as she put weight into her injured leg, surprised he had picked her up so easily from the floor. He was stronger than he looked.

  There was a flurry of movements, guardians coming in and out as Fili pushed her into her garage.

  Her garage was worse than her room. The cabinets were overturned, tools spilling out onto the floor. Several of her posters were ripped from the walls, dirtied and torn.

  There were still blood stains where Barco had fallen all that time ago. Polaris had confirmed he survived the shot after hacking into hospital records. Tauri would have to go to the bakery next door and apologize when things were safe again.

  “We kept waiting for you to come back here, but you never did,” Fili said.

  She didn’t say anything, fury so overpowering she couldn’t speak around it. This was her home, the place she should’ve felt safest, and they had violated it, leaving it like this so she knew. How many other homes and workplaces had they done this to? Invaded and acted as if they had the right? For no other reason than to induce fear and puff their chests full of hollow power?

  Before she had a chance to gather herself, the garage opened. Cyril was in front of her, framed by the sun and moon painting still on her doors.

  “Cyril!” she breathed, eyes eating him. They hadn’t been separated for long, but the roiling in her stomach settled slightly.

  He had cleaned up since she last saw him. Not a single hair was out of place, and no wrinkles were visible on his clothes. The dirt on his face had been washed off, and she could barely make out the scratches on his chin and forehead where he had bled. There was an air about him that reminded her of when they had first met. His movements were regal, his stance powerful and intimidating. His silver facial markings glimmered as he tilted his head.

  Fili shrank back without realizing, positioning himself slightly behind Tauri.

  This was Cyril Oich-Ru, the galactic tycoon and Dagrian aristocrat.

  His glowing gaze scanned her form, narrowing at the dried blood on her face, bits of yuniper, and the slow healing wound on her thigh.

  “That wasn’t smart, Fili,” he rumbled, hand going to his holster.

  Fili tutted, disappointed. He pressed the barrel of the raypistol against Tauri’s head. “This whole game you’re trying to play isn’t smart, either.”

  She growled, annoyed at the satisfaction Fili received from using her own weapon against her.

  “The units. And the connector stick, too.” He leaned forward, whispering into Tauri’s ear, “You’re all dead when this is over.”

  The promise came as no surprise. She hadn’t expected him to take so long to admit it.

  She began harshly, “Do not—” but his hand muffled the rest of her words.

  Tauri bucked against him, but he held steady, his forearm an iron bar.

  Cyril held the connector stick in his hand, considering Fili. “If I give you this, you let her go. You let us leave Navar and go our separate ways.”

  Don’t fucking do it, Cyril, she wanted to scream, but it only came out as muffled shouts.

  “The connector and the units,” he confirmed.

  Tauri bit Fili’s hand, and he yelped. He tried to jerk away, but she sank her teeth further, gagging as blood flowed into her mouth. But she held on, even as her lungs tightened. She needed to breathe, but not yet.

  Just a little more…

  Finally, he kneed her back. At the burst of pain, her mouth went slack, and she gulped for air.

  “She’s a feral little thing, isn’t she?” Fili asked louder in disgust.

  Cyril’s eyes sparkled, and she knew he was forcing back a smile.

  “I am,” Tauri wheezed.

  “She’s much more than that,” Cyril responded, glancing down at the connector stick in his hand.

  They’re going to kill us, she thought savagely.

  “Hand it over.” Fili gestured with his fingers.

  “Don’t you dare do it,” she told Cyril. “I’m warning you!”

  “There are some things—some people—I’m not willing to give up,” he said softly.

  She shook her head at him. His words spread warmth through her, but she recognized the severity of the situation. “You’re making a mistake.”

  “I’ll take that.” Fili stepped forward, yanking the unit holder and connector stick from Cyril. He threw an arm around Tauri’s neck, offering a dazzling smile. “Now, let’s check to see if this is the real one.” He plugged it into the holopad he had sitting on one of the counters. His face lit up as he tapped several different windows, authenticating the conn
ector. “I didn’t expect you to give me the real one,” he said, sounding mildly impressed. “I guess now there’s no need for any of you.”

  Exactly as she had predicted.

  Cyril quickly shot the two guardians beside Fili, and they went down easily.

  “Shit,” Fili snapped.

  There was an imperceptible slide of Fili’s leg as he readied himself for his shot. It was enough to let her know exactly where he was aiming. She threw her arms up to protect herself, knowing it was futile. Tied up as she was, she didn’t have enough time to leap out of the way. Cyril must’ve seen the same thing.

  Fili shot at Tauri, but Cyril was faster.

  He teleported between them, forcing Fili away. Cyril groaned as the shot went through him, staggering and blinking rapidly. He fell onto his knees, struggling to stand.

  Fili aimed at his head. “Oh, you’re going to be sorry for that.”

  But Tauri threw herself forward with a roar. He wasn’t expecting her sudden weight, and they tumbled to the ground. She winced as pain shot up her leg, and her side hit the concrete. Everything had been knocked from Fili’s hands. She rolled onto her belly and scrambled forward.

  She gripped her raypistol with all the strength she had left, struggling slightly around her handcuffed wrists.

  “I told you that you were going to regret the day you walked into my home,” she snarled.

  And she pulled the trigger.

  His body crumpled, and Cyril was at her side before Fili hit the ground.

  “Tauri, are you okay?”

  “Are you okay?” she countered. Before he could answer, she brought her hands to his face, yanking him down to her. The kiss was a clash of lips, trying to remind herself that they were safe. Injured, but safe.

  Relief flooded her body, and she nearly began to cry. It was over. They were mostly fine, and they were together. She felt lighter, and the tension on her chest faded away.

  She strained against him, hands a frantic drizzle as she tried to find where he had been shot. He inhaled sharply against her mouth and she pulled away, narrowing her eyes at him. It had knicked his lower abdomen.

  “You were shot.”

  “Not too badly. You were shot too.”