Chương 29: Ch 18b - Joss

"A lot of commotion for such a small wound," was how Gask had summed up her injury. After cleaning the wound, she had left Cara in her room to" return to more important things." Cara absently swings her legs off the side of her bed, wondering if Gask would agree to giving her a sleeping pill. Her body aches for sleep but her head continues to spin from thought to thought, unable to pause to process one thought at a time.

A shadow marches through her doorway revealing itself to be Joss, her face looks even more disgusted to be in Cara's presence than before.

"Come. He wants you back," she says without greeting.

"Wyndeer?" Cara asks, trying to look past Joss into the open area behind her.

"No," Joss scowls, "Vheece. Wyndeer's already with him." Joss shifts sidelong in the doorway, her outside leg pointing impatiently towards the main doors.

"Now."

"I-" Cara tries to slow her thoughts enough to come up with an excuse to refuse the request.

"Now," Joss repeats with a jerk of her head. With a sigh she slides herself down from the bed. Maybe Gask can provide an excuse, she hopes. Making sure she takes the route closest to Gask's office she says unnecessarily loudly, "Perhaps Vheece should check in with Gask first." Joss snorts, "Why would he do that?" She side steps to ensure Cara walks in front of her. She follows behind close enough for Cara to feel the woman's breath on the back of her neck.

"Left. Second right." Joss barks as they navigate the identical grey corridors.

"Here," Joss commands. Reaching over she waves her cuff against a blank metal plate fixed to the wall.

"Here?" Cara asks as Joss nudges her through the sliding door. The grey walls of the corridor continue into the room which is dimly lit with strips of dull yellow light. Tracking below the strips of light as they stretch across the room are head-height shelving units, some empty, some neatly filled with tubs and boxes. Turning, she expects to see a look of anger on Joss's face as the woman realises her mistake.

"Yes, here," Joss smiles as she crosses her arms, her back to the door.

"I don't understand."

"Is this her?" A deep voice asks from the shadows. Cara's eyes widen as a broad set man emerges. He has the thick shoulders and neck of Crathsun but arms that are alarmingly larger. His thick triceps force his elbows out away from his torso nearly doubling his width. The circumference of his forearm cuffs is so large they could easily fit on her thighs.

"Puny little thing, isn't she?" he continues. Joss snorts, "Yeah, she's not even worthy of Cadet grey." The man continues eyeing Cara like a newly discovered toy.

"Any skills?"

"Her? Consider her an unarmed, unskilled basic." Grunting, he starts pacing a circle around Cara. A predator sizing up the fight in its prey. Cara pivots with him, keeping him in sight.

"What's going on?" Joss ignores her.

"You understood his instructions?"

"Yep. Doesn't seem much to it. Standard teach a Cadet a lesson in etiquette."

"Joss, what's going on?" Cara squeaks, fear squeezing at her throat.

"I think… I think I should go now." Joss holds her in a cold stare as she says to the man, "You'd better get started, I need to get back to my team before they discover she's missing."

"Yep," the man says, flexing his neck as he continues his circle.

"Joss!" Cara yelps, still pivoting with his circle. Joss moves out of her peripheral vision. Cara dares not turn away from the man.

"I'll lock the door behind me." A swoosh clunk sounds as Cara registers the words. Completing the circle, she sees the empty space by the door where Joss had been standing. Blood thunders in her ears.

"I- I-. Just let me go, ok?" she pleads with the man. He grins at her, revealing three metallic teeth nestled amongst his natural ones. Each metal tooth ends in a sharp point, one of which trails a string of spittle.

"You have been booked for what I likes to call a punishment party. It's my speciality." Her heart is pounding hard in her chest.

"I think there's been a mistake." Her back is to the door; behind him the rows of shelves lead into the darker recesses of the room. Trapped in his circle she continues to pivot, pushing her weight onto her dominant leg. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"No mistake little basic. Do you want to know why I call it a punishment party?" His grin widens. No, she thinks, no she does not want to know at all, but she needs him to continue his circle to clear her path if she is going to have any chance.

"W-why?"

"Because I likes to have me some fun at the same time. Do you want to have some fun time with me?" He flexes his arms, the skintight material of his top is painted onto every muscle. Bile sears the back of her throat. She needs him to take two more steps. A sharp pinging sound rings out in her ears piercing through the loud thud of her heartbeat. He licks his lips, his tongue slowing to caress the jagged metal in his mouth. One more step. She purposely flicks her attention from his face to the door behind him.

His grin widens as he anticipates her move. Now. She turns and runs, silently counting off the shelving units as she forces her shaky legs to accelerate. A little grunt sounds behind her.

"Run, run, run, little basic. Here I come," he sings out gleefully. At the third unit she turns, holding out a bracing arm in case she overcooks it and ends up sideways into the shelves. She chose this aisle because it looks gloomier than the rest. The line of overhead lights is offset, the aisle is narrow, she had noted during their hunter-prey dance; designed for the narrow frames of Flavitt or herself, not muscle clad beasts. She strains to hear how far behind her he is, not daring to pause and check.

A ping-ping-beep rings out as she reaches the end of the aisle, she makes a sharp left, counts off two units then dives right.

"Cara," Draig's voice says. She falters, almost tripping over her own foot. Her hand shoots out dislodging boxes on the shelf beside her.

"Cara," he says again. She spins around, a feeling of relief already washing over her as she seeks him out in the patches of light and shadow.

"Are you ok? Are you with Vheece?" The realisation that his voice is only in her head crushes her.

"Cara, answer!"

"No. Not Vheece," she whispers. A cascading clang of metal sounds to her left. She hunches, searching across the gaps amongst the boxes and tubs on the shelf next to her.

"Help," she whispers.

"What? I can barely hear you? Are you ok? Your pulse rate has tripped my alert."

"Help," she repeats, as loudly as she dares.

"Help?" YES HELP! she silently screams at him. A shuffle behind the row of shoe-box sized boxes to her left causes an eruption of goosebumps down her arms.

"I have your location. I'm on my way," Draig announces in her head. She stares at the shadow through the thin gap between the boxes.

"Stay where you are." A hand explodes through the gap, pummelling her with falling boxes. She reels back with a scream. Short stubby fingernails claw a centimetre short of her nose. The man's sweaty face lurches across the shelf above her as she lands hard on the floor.

"There you are little basic!" he croons. Screaming again with a ferocity that burns her throat she scrambles to her feet. The shelving unit creaks in protest as he presses his weight against it, his hand groping into her aisle. She trips over the scattered boxes, her jelly-like legs struggling to respond to her demand to flee. Boxes spin and skitter out of her path as she finally orientates her feet and begins to run.

"I'm almost there," Draig pants inside her head. She swerves left and right between the lines of shelves, her sense of direction destroyed by her panic. Contents tumble from the shelves as she braces herself against the units to twist and swerve through the aisles. She sees a dark area at the end of an aisle where an absence of overhead light has plunged the units into shadow. She races down the aisle intending to wait for Draig in the darkness. Just as she slows her pace her face bounces off a warm firm surface.

The man steps out of the shadows.

"Dumb little basic," he chides her with a playful smile, "you're not suppose to find me. I'm supposed to find you." She takes a shaky step backwards. He advances forward one step. She steps back again. He matches her with another forward step.

"Coming up to the door," Draig says in her head.

"Having fun?" the man asks, taking great care to watch her expression as he cracks his knuckles one by one. Her hand frantically grazes the contents of the shelf beside her, feeling for anything to throw, not daring to take her eyes off him. She feels box after box, each too large for her to pick up in one hand, too heavy for her to dislodge. Finally, she touches upon something cold and cylindrical. Too wide for a comfortable grip but it is her only option. She flings the unseen object at him.

A tall dark brown jar ricochets off his chest, smashing at his feet as it hits the ground. A milky green liquid seeps between the broken ceramic fragments expelling a foul-smelling odour of rotting seaweed. His advancement does not falter. His large boots crunch down on the broken pieces which shatter easily under his weight. She flings more jars in desperation as she continues her backward retreat. Most fall to the floor in an ever-increasing green puddle of jagged pieces.

His boots, now coated in the foul liquid, slip as he traverses the mess, forcing him to slow his pace. Her hand reaches for the next jar but swipes empty space. Risking a glance at the shelf she finds she has reached the end of the unit. She turns and sprints. His laughter chases her between the aisles, igniting a wave of panic that flares up her back like a hungry fire. She lengthens her stride, fighting for every inch of distance from the beast behind her. A weight punches into the back of her neck.

The scream that escapes her is mangled by his hand clamping around her neck. Fingers dig deep into her flesh as he pulls her backwards. Feet kicking and arms flailing she seeks out any leverage against his pull. He responds, pinning her arms to her sides and her back against the solid expanse of his chest. His hand at her neck slips across her throat, pressing her head into his shoulder.

"No more running little basic," he growls in her ear. She cannot recoil from his spit landing on her cheek. Draig's voice pants in her head, "We're in the room."

"Drai-," is the only sound that escapes as he squeezes her throat, trapping the rest of her scream in her lungs. The squeeze tightens as she bucks and kicks.

"The more you move the more I squeeze," he warns. He is a vice crushing her throat, dividing the hot pressure of trapped blood in her head and the burn of air trapped in her lungs.

"That's it," he coos in her ear as she stills her frantic legs. He releases just enough grip for her to wheeze a ragged breath. Her vision spins with the sudden flow of blood and her knees buckle as her weight transfers back to her legs. Shouts come from behind them. With one arm still wrapped around her the man twists to face the noise, flailing her outwards like a rag doll. Unable to lift her hands to protect herself, her forehead meets hard metal with a bone jarring thud.

Before fully registering the impact, her head is snapped backwards to collide with a scuffling movement behind her. The man's arm uncoils from her waist. For a moment she sways on her own, then her legs give way, crashing her knees down onto the hard floor. She braces herself against a shelving unit with one arm, curling the other up and over her head in defence against the melee of grunts and jostling that fill the aisle.

A warm wetness drips over her eyes seeping a metallic taste into her gaping mouth as she uses her final ounces of energy to replenish lungfuls of air through her crushed throat.