The Xarren Escape (Plundering the Stars Book 2) Read online

  I cried and cried and cried until my eyes burned and my face was covered in snot and tears.

  She was gone. Gone, gone, gone, gone…

  Gone.

  Gone.

  Gone.

  I wouldn’t see her again, hear her laugh or see her smile or the joy in her eyes. Jinx was taken away from me. Her and Amara and Pivek and K, all taken away by Xarren Elexae. And Rowan. That feshluk snake. If I ever got out of here, I swore to the saints—every single last one of them for every single star—that I would end Rowan. He was a liar, a cheat, a fiend, and he’d betrayed us.

  I didn’t know how I would do it, but I was gonna stick a blade right in the hole where his heart should’ve been. Then I would do the same for Xarren. Retribution for all the pain and suffering he’d inflicted on my family.

  I had two options: find a way out of here so I could make them pay, or find a way to die as quickly as possible so they couldn’t have their fun with me. The latter seemed a lot easier, since I had no idea how I was supposed to make it out of here. Dying wasn’t an appealing option, but faced with a quick death or endless torture with the barest chance of escape, neither looked that great.

  I laid there for a long time, in silence on the cold floor as I cried myself to sleep again. I hoped I wouldn’t wake up, but like most things in my life, it didn’t go as planned.

  With a beep and a whoosh, the cell door slid open, and in marched two very large Elarri men, decked in black armor with grav-blades strapped to their backs. Before I could make an effort to stand, they had me by my arms and hauled me onto my feet. I decided it was time to do something stupid.

  I cocked my head back and slammed it into one of my captor’s mouths. With a crack, I saw white as pain exploded from my head. But it had the intended affect. With a curse, both guards released me, out of pain and surprise. I recovered my wits and bolted through the door.

  This was a foolish and stupid attempt, but they had to know that I wasn’t going to give up, and hey, maybe the saints were with me and I’d actually make it!

  No sooner did that thought pass through my head than a sudden pain exploded through my left leg. I screamed and fell to the floor as a searing heat spread along my skin. I looked back. The guard who I hadn’t hit in the mouth held a smoking blaster pistol. His glare was downright venomous.

  I clutched at the smoldering wreckage of the wound in my calf. I didn’t want to sound weak in front of them, but I couldn’t help the curses and the whimpering cries that escaped me. I’d been shot before, long ago, in the arm. I forgot the absolute agony of blaster wounds. It was another form of hell. Really high-end blasters were so devastating that you practically didn’t feel them because they scorched your nerve endings. Not these.

  As I writhed in pain, the mob thugs approached me. No fight out of me this time. They lifted me without any sort of grace or caution and dragged me forward. They didn’t spare a thought for my wound. I cried out with each step. The one I’d hit, who had blood running down his nose and mouth, turned to me and slugged me across the jaw. Crack! I saw stars as my vision swam.

  “Shut up, you trash!” he barked. “Lord Xarren is not going to be pleased to hear about that little stunt.”

  Somehow, I managed a smile through my pain. “He… He won’t… He won’t be p-pleased to…to hear that you…let me escape so…easily.”

  I didn’t know the reaction I expected, but that just made him even angrier. He punched me again, this time above my temple. Black spots swam in my vision. I swooned. They caught me. No more words after that, just them dragging me between them with me barely holding on to consciousness.

  Not off to a good start.

  They brought me to another wing of the dungeon. I remembered from when my crew had been planning the heist that we’d memorized the blueprints of the manor. I was being kept in one of three standard cellblocks. There was a fourth block beyond the cells that led to some larger rooms. And finally, beneath it all, was a large open space that I had no idea what they used for.

  I was led to the fourth wing beyond the cellblocks, though in my beaten state, I barely registered anything around me. I was a mess of hot pain and throbbing drumbeats in my skull. Blood trickled down my face from where the guard’s punch landed.

  In a flurry of rooms and steps and near-blackouts, we came to a stop at last. The guards placed me in a cold metal chair and strapped my arms and legs to it. My mind wanted to scream when they gripped my blaster-scorched leg and strapped a metal bar over it, but my throat wouldn’t cooperate. I was too delirious from the pain, it seemed.

  They left me alone for saints knew how long, I was too gone to really notice the passage of time. Could have been minutes or hours or days for all I knew. The pain was too great. I hurt all over. And this wasn’t even the torture, this was just some thugs being skiving yalrich turds. Xarren would have so much worse for me, and he would heal me so he could do it all over again. I’d heard the stories of what he liked to do to his enemies, especially those that had been a consistent thorn in his side. That was me; I was the thorn.

  But even a thorn in the foot of a moonlion was just a little nuisance. What had I accomplished? Nothing. Friends were dead and gone. Parents were gone, and sister enslaved.

  This was what my efforts amounted to. A whole lot of nothing. It was as if all the saints for all the stars looked down at me as one and collectively laughed as they dealt me bad card after bad card to give me the worst hand ever dealt.

  Thanks. So glad I prayed to them.

  The door to my new cell—which, judging by the tile floor and the bloodstains, was a torture chamber—opened and in walked the devil himself. Xarren Elexae. My vision was still fuzzy from my unbridled agony, but I knew his silhouette.

  He paced around me slowly, hands clasped behind his back. He gave me a slow tsk tsk tsk. “Sorry about the leg, my dear boy. I’d be mad at my men for damaging my new toy, but then they said you tried to escape, and that’s simply not acceptable.”

  Of course not. I licked my lips and tried to smile. “M-maybe… Ma-maybe…”

  He leaned in close. “Yes, Yan? Spit it out, son. I can’t hear you.”

  I swallowed. “Maybe they s-shouldn’t have m-made it so eaaa…easy.”

  Xarren chuckled, which turned into a laugh. “Ah, even when beaten and berated and broken, you still have so much spunk. I respect that about you.”

  “Good, then let me go.”

  “Oh, no can do. Good effort, though.”

  I took in some deep breaths and tried to calm myself and push through the pain. My vision slowly stopped swimming and I was able to focus on the dastardly man in front of me. He smirked.

  “There you are, here with me at last.”

  “Hooray.”

  Xarren grinned, his smile ear to ear, bisecting his face a little too creepily. He knelt before me and put his hands on my thighs, the force of which caused me to yelp in pain. He pressed on my blaster wound. I bit my lip to keep myself from whimpering.

  “So,” he said with a nonchalant demeanor. “Here’s how this is going to go. I’m going to do things like this—” He stuck his finger right into my wound. I roared and thrashed. No amount of willpower could keep me still. He stuck it deeper and wiggled it around, and I screamed. Tears spilled down my cheeks. I wish they didn’t, but this hurt.

  He pulled his finger away and continued while I gasped. “I’m going to do things like that, and you’ll scream and cry, and then I’ll have my best doctors heal you up with some biogel and we’ll do it all over again. How long will this go on? Ehh, depends on when I grow bored of you, but I assure you I stay easily entertained for a while.”

  I nodded. “Sounds like a good plan,” I managed to say between gasps as I tried to control myself.

  “Ah, that spirit won’t last in here. I promise you. So, what do you say?”

  What did I say? I spat in his face.

  He didn’t even flinch, which was terrifying. He sighed and lifted his sleeve to wi
pe my saliva from the bridge of his nose. Xarren stood and backed away as he composed himself, completely unfazed.

  Then he backhanded me.

  His ring-studded hand smashed into my face. I saw stars. My teeth rattled and my cheek felt like it was broken. Xarren was lean by Elarri standards, but he was still incredibly strong compared to me.

  I groaned and lolled my head as I tried to keep myself conscious, but I was failing. I muttered some curses. Saints, that really sucked.

  Xarren cleared his throat. “I don’t appreciate that one bit, Yan. I want us to be friends.” He walked behind me. His hand suddenly gripped my throbbing face and forced me to look into the light, which made my head throb even worse. “This is simply a drop of rain in a vast ocean of torture I have planned for you.”

  He let go and walked back in front of me. My head immediately drooped. I spit blood on the floor.

  “That’s… T-that’s…a s-s-stupid meta-metaphor,” I wheezed.

  Xarren smirked and leaned in so that his nose was nearly touching mine. “Well, how’s this for a more literal example. I have security cameras throughout the manor, so I think it would be fun for us to watch the footage of our dear friend Rowan shooting your precious Torgoran friend.” He leaned even further past me so he could whisper in my ear. His words sent a shiver down my spine. “What do you think of that?”

  My stomach dropped. My tongue became heavy like lead. I had no words. I couldn’t see that, if he actually had that. There was still a tiny part of me that didn’t believe it, couldn’t/wouldn’t/shouldn’t believe it. Pick one. I wanted Jinx to be alive out there, needed her to be alive. I hoped beyond all hope, prayed to every Saint I could name that they were lying, and she was alive and well and that I would see her again.

  But if they had footage of her dying… If I saw that footage… Well, it would just about break me more than I’d already broken.

  They didn’t need the footage. My heart told me that Rowan had told the truth. Something about his words had been painfully, viciously true.

  Jinx once told me that hope was the greatest gift we had. But there was a Goonish saying that hope was also the most dangerous thing in the world. Because hope could make us foolish. I couldn’t have hope. She was gone. And having hope for the impossible would only crush me further. She was gone.

  Gone.

  And here I was.

  The silence must have drawn on, because Xarren chuckled and walked away from me. “I didn’t think you’d be rendered speechless so soon. Perhaps I overestimated that spunk of yours.” He went to the door. “Do regain it. It will be no fun for me if you simply take my torture without a fuss.”

  Then he nodded to the guards and left the room. That was when, yet again, an Elexae thug smashed me in the back of my head and sent me into unconsciousness.

  I came to. As Xarren had promised, he’d healed me. My leg felt fine, if still a bit sore. There was a dull itch from the biogel grafting to my skin, but that was minor. So, I was alive and fine and in perfect condition for more torture. Fantastic.

  My thirst for revenge was intense, burning and blinding. But I wasn’t stupid. Xarren was a shrewd, careful man. He wasn’t going to let his prize prisoner escape. He wasn’t going to allow me an opening. Maybe a miniscule chance originally, but not after I managed to slip away from those stupid thugs of his. No, security would be even tighter.

  No revenge.

  But there was another way to get back at him. One that wasn’t so savory on my part, but my head wasn’t really in the best place.

  I was back in my cell, my hands chained together, and my legs chained together. But that was it. Nothing keeping me from hurting myself…from killing myself and depriving Xarren of his sweet victory. Yeah, as I said, it wasn’t the best thought.

  Still, I wasn’t about to just get tortured for months on end while I prayed for an opening that wouldn’t come.

  My fingernails were delightfully long, as I was often neglectful with my hygiene. This would be a boon for now. They weren’t particularly sharp, but they would get the job done for the purposes of my death.

  So, I took a deep breath and stabbed my index finger into my wrist with all the force I could muster. I’ll be honest, I didn’t believe I had the fortitude to injure myself, but I was surprisingly determined. It took some effort and some screaming, but my fingernail pierced my skin. Blood started to spill down my arm, slow at first, but then in earnest—dark, thick, and warm—as I dug into my wrist. I gritted my teeth and pushed through the pain, even though it was tremendous.

  But I could do it. I could do it. I would do it.

  Saints forgive me, but this was the only option I had.

  The door whooshed open, and Elexae guards came in. I was getting lightheaded from the blood loss, but I was aware enough to know that this wasn’t enough to kill me. So, as the first guard approached with a glare and some angry Elarri words, I brought my chained feet up and kicked out. I caught him in the jaw just as he was crouching to catch my bleeding wrist. His head snapped back, and he flailed.

  That alone was enough to make me smile.

  The other guard wasn’t as daring, but it hardly mattered because my surprise attack was spent. He dodged my next feeble kick and seized me around the waist. He slammed me against the wall. My head hit the hard surface. My eyes watered. I bit my tongue from the force of it. Ow.

  “No,” I said in a gasping breath, my mouth spilling with blood.

  I struggled against him, but he punched me in the face, and I met darkness before I could even blink.

  I didn’t know how long I was out, but when I stirred, I sat up immediately. Curses spilled from my lips. It wouldn’t be that easy to off myself, I knew, but the disappointment still got to me. My arms were now chained behind me, and I felt an ich in my wrist from where they must have used biogel on my wound.

  Ugh. Xarren was determined. But so was I.

  My legs were still free—chained together, but free enough for me to stand and pace around the room. Again, not too many options at my disposal, but the good thing about death was that there was so many ways for it to find you. As those ways swam through my eyes, a bad idea formed, and I ran with it. It would be idiotic and would be slow and terrible, but it was an option.

  So, I stood on shaky legs, walked over to the wall, and bashed my head against it.

  CRACK!

  Like with my wrist slitting earlier, I didn’t think I had it in me to actually smash my head against the wall as hard as I could, but I did, and it was agonizing. My head immediately rang like a bell and my vision spun, but that wasn’t close to what I needed to accomplish.

  So, I did it again. And again. And again.

  Until blood streamed down my face and I could hardly see or keep myself standing. Until I was sure I was about to pass out. Maybe I wouldn’t die right away but if I had internal bleeding in my skull or had a brain injury, I could just go in my sleep. Not exactly clean and easy, but I didn’t have any options.

  I kept at it a few more times but before I could do any more damage, the door opened and in came two Elexae guards.

  “Hey, stop that!” one of them yelled. Couldn’t stop me from hitting my head again. I collapsed but didn’t black out. I tried again, but this time, rough hands grabbed me around the neck and pulled me back. I strained against them, but I was too weak, too woozy. Though even if I was completely healthy, there’s no way I would have been able to break the hold of two adult Elarri.

  They hauled me to my feet and brought me toward the door. As I came into the corridor, my head swam, and I blacked out. I prayed as unconsciousness took me that this darkness would be my last.

  It wasn’t.

  3

  Chapter 3 (JINX)

  I was in a haze of heat and anguish. My mind flitted between waking and the dark realms of my dreams. Every time I woke, I heard muttered words and saw the faint glow of a fire, a couple of blurry silhouettes, but then I’d try to move, and pain would envelope me and I’
d get snatched back to the land of the unconscious.

  It was not a pleasant experience. I’d rather my body just make up its mind, be alive or dead. Pick one. Don’t leave me dangling between the living and dead. Of course, it was hard to even tell what was real. I thought I was waking up sometimes, but perhaps it was all part of an intensely vivid dreamscape. My nightmares have always been too real for comfort, so perhaps this was the same.

  But then…the pain of my waking was much too brutal, much too nauseatingly real for this to all be a dream. No… No. I was battling for my life. Unfortunately.

  It was impossible to tell how long this went on. Hours? Days? Weeks even? I woke and relapsed back to sleep probably a dozen times or more, but even counting that was a daunting task. I was completely out of it.

  I couldn’t remember what happened or what was real after a while. Why was I in this state? What happened to Yan and my friends? I think I remembered some terrible things happening, but was that all a dream as well? It was so infuriating! I wanted to scream and cry and stand and make a scene, but my body wouldn’t let me. I could hardly open my eyes or lift my head without feeling like I was lying on a metal sheet in the desert while someone bashed my head in with a hammer.

  So no, not a vacation.

  After all the pain and the jumping from conscious to unconscious and back, I finally seemed to come to my senses, my mind ready for waking.

  I opened my eyes. Shut them again. Pain flared, bright and real, followed by an ebbing in my head. I took a deep breath. I could do this. Once again, I opened my eyes. This time, the pain wasn’t so great, though discomfort was high. I blinked and blinked again, until my vision adjusted to the light.

  I was in a low sandstone room, aglow in the warm light of a fire. I could hear it crackling nearby, though I didn’t yet wish to move my head to see it. Baby steps first. Had to get used to being awake before I could move.