Shalia's Diary Omnibus

by Tracy St. John

  As I contemplated my next move, Nang stopped his one-sided argument with me. The sound of the engines changed as we slowed, and the shift in gravity beneath me told me the shuttle was landing. The question was, where?

  I wouldn’t meekly go along with whatever Nang had in mind, that was for damned sure. As he set the craft down, I stopped playing possum. I rolled up so that I was sitting up on the floor. At that moment, Nang glanced at me over his shoulder. There was relief on his expression—which told me he’d worried about how hard he’d hit me. That was helpful, I hoped. He regretted having hurt me. Maybe it would keep him from any more violent reactions.

  I couldn’t count on that, though. I didn’t trust Nang’s state of mind for an instant. Not after all he’d done to kidnap me.

  It was a small shuttle, a little larger than my personal craft on Kalquor. I scooted to the rear wall of the cabin, shifting as far from Nang as possible. Then I started struggling with the straps binding me.

  My feet—no big deal. It was easy to reach down and unhook the clasps. I ignored Nang calling, “Don’t do that. Shalia, I mean it.”

  “Fuck you,” I muttered under my breath. It had to be said whether I let him hear it or not. I kicked away the yellow collars, hooked together as the ones on my wrists were.

  The shuttle bumped to a rough rest on the surface of wherever we were. Using my teeth, I raced to free myself as Nang switched off the shuttle with a curse and bolted out of the pilot’s seat.

  “What are you going to do? Punch me again? It’s a lot easier, isn’t it, with me being unable to defend myself.” I sneered at him, wondering why I was baiting the asshole. But rage felt better than fear. Fear might freeze me.

  He didn’t abuse me. Instead, Nang knelt and covered my wrists. “I didn’t want to hit you, Shalia. You gave me no choice!”

  “The favorite excuse of the abuser. ‘It’s your fault I hurt you.’ Bullshit, Nang. You must outweigh me by a hundred and fifty pounds. This is all on you.”

  Anxiety and confusion twisted his features. He was pathetic. I refused to feel sorry for him. The man held my life in his hands, and there was no doubt in my mind I was in danger. If I could convince him to stop and think beyond the madness that had gripped him, maybe he’d acknowledge the fact he had a problem.

  “Shalia, you’re the only person who matters to me. The only thing that’s kept me going these last few months is being with you again.” His smile was tremulous. “With you, I’m the man I should be. Remember how I tracked down your mother when those extremists kidnapped her? How I helped to rescue her? Don’t you remember that, Shalia?”

  Ancestors help me. He was asking me to recognize a crime that he was repeating. Kidnapping and torturing.

  I wanted to point out the irony, the sheer craziness of it all, but he kept talking. “What about when your quarters were bombed? I spearheaded the effort that got you out. Who did you turn to when you needed help, help only I could give? Wasn’t I there for you?”

  He’d convinced himself he was my hero. In his mind, Nang was the only person who’d ever done a thing for me.

  I attempted one more stab to make him own up to the truth. “Who’s holding me prisoner now, Nang? Who’s taking me from a wonderful life into hiding like a criminal? Who punched me in the head? Don’t you fathom what’s in front of you?”

  “I’m sorry I hit you. I can do better. I will do better. Give me a chance. You’ll see.” He was feverish in his desire to convince me. He let go of my wrists and cupped my cheeks, raining kisses on it. “We were so happy together. I made you feel good. I know you remember that. Clawing me as you came, your pussy clutching my cock, being my good little girl…”

  He tried to kiss me for real, his touch moving down to my breasts. I fought, kicking him, shoving against him, twisting away to scream in fury. “Get off me!”

  I don’t know if he jerked back at the vehemence, or if I succeeded in moving him. At any rate, I found some space. As he stared at me with that stupid confused expression that I had learned to hate already, I spit in his face.

  I never saw the blow coming. All I knew was I was knocked on the floor, my cheek flaring white-hot. It felt like a mixture of sunburn and ants biting me in a frenzy. I lay still, relearning how to breathe.

  “Shalia! No, no, I didn’t mean to do that.” Nang picked me up, set me in his lap, and rocked me as he cried into my hair. The son of a bitch fucking cried after slapping the sense out of me. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please stop making me mad. I can’t think straight when you make me doubt you love me.”

  Ancestors and prophets. He wouldn’t understand. Nothing would help him comprehend that the little we’d had was over between us. Nang was in a place that I wouldn’t be able to lead him out of, no matter what I did.

  I had to escape. I couldn’t wait for rescue. Nang was too deluded, and no matter what, I couldn’t see the situation ending well for me if I didn’t find some avenue of escape.

  As he held me and petted me, his hand rubbing up and down my back, I went to work on the wrist restraints. I tried to keep my movements subtle, but after only a few seconds, he was on to me.

  “Stop it,” he hissed, switching from contrite to angry again. “Stop fighting me.”

  “Never,” I snarled. “I will never quit trying to escape. I don’t want you. I’d rather a Tragoom fuck me to death than be touched by you. I could never love you, Nang. I hate you, and I’ll always hate you for this.”

  His face darkened. I saw the mindless insanity without its masks, without its pretense of adoration and dreams unfulfilled. There was a monster in Nang, and all it knew was greed to possess and to destroy what it could not have. Right now, that was me.

  Then everything darkened. He knocked me unconscious again.

  It would have been nice to stay in that senseless void he sent me into. God knows, I tried to not leave it. A part of me wanted to cop out, to hide in darkness until all the bad disappeared. I admit to the weakness. My strength doesn’t lie in not being scared. Being scared is what drives me, that insistence to not be helpless against those forces that would harm me. If I’m to live, it’s with the ability to live my life.

  Forget the philosophical mumbo-jumbo. I woke up. Despite the feeling my noggin had been split in two, I immediately began to ponder how to break out of the fix I was in.

  Like the first time, I didn’t open my eyes immediately. Ugh, my head hurt too bad to rush that task, no matter how much I needed to know what was happening around me. I kept them closed and my body lax.

  I could hear someone pacing back and forth, back and forth, making the floor beneath me vibrate. Nang wasn’t talking to himself any longer. I didn’t know if that was good or bad.

  I took inventory quickly, trying to sense other body parts beyond my aching head. Wrists strapped in front of me. Legs free, however. I supposed that was a step in the right direction, though it wouldn’t do me a hell of a lot of good to run anywhere. Maybe I could land a decent kick when Nang closed in.

  Which he was doing, judging from the sounds and vibrations of the steps. Crap. Now what would happen?

  I continued to play as if I was out, wondering what fresh hell I was in for.

  Palms framing my face. It took all I had to not wince as the left cheek screamed with renewed pain at the pressure. That’s where the second punch had landed, along with the slap. I was betting that side looked like a big ol’ pumpkin by now.

  I remained still. Nang sighed. His caress slid down my neck. Down to my shoulders. Cupping my breasts.

  I swear I twitched. A part of me howled in rage to be touched by that man. It wanted to break every finger, to bite them off. It took everything in my power to not jerk up, to not take a swing with my bound hands. I forced myself to stop, and Nang seemed to not notice the slight movement.

  I had to try to survive. If I kept inciting Nang to punch me, he’d eventually do real damage. Maybe kill me…and the unborn child I carried. I was abruptly reminded that though Anre
l was safe and sound somewhere else, I had someone else’s existence to concern myself with.

  Had Gilsa reached the homestead? Had my clan received our messages? Were they zeroing in on me now, or was help far off?

  I’d thought I couldn’t delay waiting on someone to gallop to my rescue. Yet that was what I had to do, if I was to keep myself and the unborn child alive. With no idea of when help would come, I also had to be ready to fight should a real opportunity arise.

  The chances of that were down to slim and none. I would do what I had to.

  I lay there, letting Nang grope me, pretending I didn’t notice every hateful, unwanted touch. Pretending my skin didn’t crawl, that I didn’t feel violated.

  I could have sobbed in relief when he stopped, but that respite was short-lived. Nang lifted me to pull my blouse over my head. Dear ancestors, he was undressing me.

  I fought the urge to vomit. The moment stood out, hideous beyond belief. I couldn’t allow it. I had to allow it. I had to hang on.

  My shirt hung up on my bound wrists. Nang grunted, and flung my arms over my head. The soft, worn cloth of a workshirt settled over my hands. My arms thudded to the floor, bent in a circle. Broken Shalia, abused doll. That’s how I must have looked.

  I bit down on my tongue as he shoved my bra up and out of the way, baring my breasts. It was the only way to keep from screaming.

  He buried his face against me, moaning and from the sounds of it, weeping again. I shoved the horrified part of me away, looking for the fighter I’d so diligently cultivated. I found her, and my resolve kicked in.

  With Nang distracted, I opened my eyes. I relegated what he was doing to the back of my mind, not letting it affect the instinct Oses, Resan, and others had helped me hone. With calculation at the fore, what was happening to my body was no longer a factor. I could assess with the coldness of a trained warrior.

  I moved my head just enough to take in my surroundings. The undersides of the seats of the cabin, with their legs bolted securely to the floor…no help on my right. A cautious peek to the left confirmed the same on that side.

  I had to move more to peer past Nang’s bulk on top of me. The end of the cabin, where I’d confronted him. Nothing I could see beyond him. No help, though the temporary urge to reach down and yank out fistfuls of his hair had appeal.

  That left the hardest direction to search. Moving as carefully as possible, I strained to look over my head, begging the ancestors for any small chance. The prophets had failed me for ages, so it was to the Kalquorian equivalent that I silently appealed to.

  The ancestors heard. They answered.

  The metal beam I had tried to brain Nang with at the site where Clan Denkar’s shuttle went down was mere inches from my blouse-covered fingertips. Had he tossed it there carelessly when he’d put me on the ship? Had it fallen from some other place he’d stored it? I didn’t care. It was there, and I meant to have it.

  I didn’t lunge for my one weapon, my last hope. Nang was absorbed in doing what he was doing, so I took my time, considering the moves I would make.

  The way I saw it, I had two options. The first was obvious. Go for that desperate grab. Hope Nang wouldn’t think fast enough the instant I tensed to do so to yank me from the bar. Even if I got hold of it, he might block an attack. He only needed that split second of warning that I was awake.

  I thought over my other ruse, the subtle one. It would mean lulling Nang into a false sense of security. A lot of it depended on how great his delusion was when it came to the hope of winning me over.

  Neither gave me a lot of hope, but brute frontal attacks had done damned little for me so far. I was due for a change in tactics.

  I muttered nonsense syllables thickly and stretched, as if starting to come out of my stupor. Then I moaned, as if enjoying the attention.

  Nang paused, his face moving against me. I was sure he must be looking at me, to check if I’d awakened. I whimpered, a pitiful sound of loss before going still again.

  I prayed my act was a good one, sufficient to fool Nang. I prayed harder that he wouldn’t notice the end of the metal bar beneath my shirt, that he wouldn’t look and discover the tips of my fingers clutching it.

  The seconds hung suspended, refusing to pass as the quiet went on. Then, a cautious movement against my breasts. An experimental nuzzling. A kiss.

  I murmured a happy sound and wriggled a little, inviting more attention. I let a slight smile play over my lips, trying not to overdo it. He was watching.

  “Shalia.” A glad whisper, and Nang returned to what he’d been doing before, with more enthusiasm.

  When his teeth nipped, I almost panicked. Ancestors save me, what if he decided to bite me with his fangs? I gripped the metal bar hard, and I nearly brought it down. It occurred to me that if Nang had a sane thought, he would have intoxicated me with his venom. He still might. I tensed, ready to act.

  Then cold calculation returned, my training taking precedence once more. I couldn’t rush this. If I fucked up once more, it would probably be the last.

  When Nang paused again, perhaps because I’d gone stiff for a nanosecond, I did my best to mask the mistake by twisting in his grip. I whispered, “Yes,” again hoping against hope I wasn’t overacting.

  I guess not. He fell for it. “My love. My only love.”

  When I was sure Nang was once more too busy to notice, I opened my eyes a touch, peeking at him. His dark head had begun to move down my body as he eased my workpants down my hips. I watched and waited for him to shift into position.

  Lower. Lower. And then, hovering not in the greatest of places from the angle I was stuck with, but the best I was going to get. Keeping my lower body lax, I gripped the bar hard.

  “Fuck you.”

  His head rose fast. I’d hoped it would. I needed him to make up for me not landing as mighty a swing as I wanted. The metal flashed down on top of his skull, and I saw the shock in his eyes an instant before pain.

  I’d readied myself for that too. I was not wasting my final chance on sentiment or sympathy. He was not a person. He was not a sick individual who needed help. He was no more than an instrument of pain, a rabid dog that had to be stopped.

  I never paused. I hit him again, jackknifing my body out from under him. I didn’t try to escape, though. I had to take him down. I had to stop him, even if it meant killing him. I drove the bar down again and again, not giving him a chance to scramble away, not giving him a chance to fight back. I pounded him as he emitted strange, breathless squeaks, as blood flowed and then splattered, as I screamed all the fear and rage that had built since discovering he was coming after me.

  I hit him a few more times after he quit moving. Then I stopped. I stared at the crumpled figure lying at my feet, at what remained of a once-proud and accomplished man.

  I killed him. That was my first thought. He was so still. Then he drew a moaning breath. And another. His respiration steadied. Nang was alive.

  I’d read enough books and seen plenty movies to know this was when to finish him. Like anyone else who’d ever read a thriller or gone to the theater, I always rolled my eyes when the villain was left hurt, but able to come after the hero later in the story. How stupid was that old gimmick, anyway?

  This was not a movie or a book. This was real. I was taken aback that when I’d believed I’d killed Nang, I hadn’t remembered he was a living person, someone I’d once cared about. I was horrified when my brain spoke the words I killed him, and I hadn’t felt a fucking thing. No remorse, no horror. The idea I’d taken a life held the same meaning as if I’d stepped on a bug.

  Somehow, that was more monstrous than Nang kidnapping and attempting to assault me.

  Revulsion filled me. What had I let him turn me into? This wasn’t me, Shalia Monroe, the woman who once cried over a mouse caught in the trap I’d set out for it. I wasn’t a sociopath who ended lives without a pause.

  Was I?

  I didn’t recognize that a person driven into pure survival
mode could reach a point where feelings turned off. I’d coached myself to focus on doing what needed to be done to stay alive, and my consciousness had gone along with that requirement. Filled with chaos and blood and my enemy beaten within an inch of his life, I let the real me, complete with insecurities, regain the upper hand. And that Shalia totally freaked out.

  At least she didn’t pull that other stupid movie trick and drop the bar, though a clump of Nang’s bloodied hair clung to its end. I don’t think anyone could have pried that piece of metal out of freaked-out Shalia’s hands.

  Instead of being smart and finishing the threat once and for all, I ran out of the shuttle. For a few seconds, I kept running, though I had no idea where I was or where I was heading. I wasn’t running to find help. I wasn’t running from Nang. I ran from me, from the creature that would have killed without conscience.