Page 3 of Logic Broken

I knew this Sithral male was called Laimeil and he was kind of like a loan shark. The few times I’d seen him had always made an impression; he was terrifying to me. His skin was parchment white, and he had no nose in that oval-shaped face. Two gold-capped horns jutted from his chin and vertical slits bisected his cheeks. When he spoke in sibilant tones, a mouth full of needle-like teeth was revealed.

He wasn’t the only Sithral I’d seen, but he was the only one that gave me the creeps like he did. They weren’t a majority on Ov’Korad since they much preferred the warmer, dryer climates of the neighboring planet, Ov’Karal. I’d still seen enough of them to know that there was some kind of class system and Laimeil was at the top.

Strutting across the sawdust-covered floor like he was walking over marble, he crossed the distance between the door and the bar in only a few long-legged steps. Drova was frozen in place behind the heavy wooden counter, his hands wringing together in front of his dirt-stained apron. I looked like he was praying for a hole to open up beneath him to swallow him whole, but he didn’t run off like I half expected him to. That meant that whatever he had to pay this shark, he had it, and that meant me. If he couldn’t pay up, he would have fled because this loanshark would have ensured compliance through pain.

I discovered I had frozen in place, just like Drova, when a patron drunkenly stumbled into me. Usually, I was extremely good at dodging; par for the course around here. Eyeing the door, my heart sank into my shoes when I realized there was no way out. One of Laimeil’s bodyguards had taken up a position right next to it and I could see another duck around the bar to stand in front of the kitchen doorway. I was trapped; they had blocked all the exits.

Now what? My heartbeat started racing, my body readying itself for action. I felt a thrill shoot up my spine, my eyes growing a little wider. How about I threw this tray of drinks in bodyguard number one’s face? No… better idea. What if I started a brawl? The chaos could be the distraction I needed to get out of here.

I moved through the crowd of guests, trying to pretend like I was just doing my job when I was really approaching the door. I couldn’t hear the words exchanged between Drova and his loanshark, but I didn’t need to anyway; I knew what was going down. Almost there, just a little more.

“Hey, boss, I think your payment is trying to get away,” someone called out right behind my shoulder. I spun around, dodging a pair of grabby hands, but the sight of the Hoxiam behind me took me by surprise. Carnivorous, always hungry; the Hoxiam were not allowed on most planets since they tended to prefer eating people. This one had clearly been fed a steady diet of flesh because he was huge and bulky, his blue pelt gleaming with health.

He curled one clawed fist around my left arm, squeezing tight enough to cut off the circulation. Despite that firm grip, I still struggled to pull free but it was hopeless. His shout had drawn the attention of every single patron in the bar and a hush was starting to fall over the place.

From the corner of my eye, I could see that Akri, still in the corner by the bar, had jumped to his feet. His set of tentacles was writhing around his shoulders, the ends curled up into thick knots, almost like a set of fists. Oh no, I really hoped he wasn’t going to stick his neck out to help me. He’d get himself killed.

Aware that my strength was no match for a well-fed Hoxiam, I subsided in his grip, fighting my instincts to get away to do so. Maybe if I acted like I wasn’t concerned, Akri wouldn’t interfere. Now what? I could see that the Sythral and Drova were furiously arguing but they were talking quietly, not allowing their conversation to be overheard.

The crowd of patrons was on edge, staring at the Hoxiam with unease now that they’d noticed him. If I threw my drinks at them, which were miraculously still on the tray I was holding, would they start brawling? Or was the Hoxiam enough of a deterrent?

I was taking too long to think this through; Laimeil was leaving the bar. Drova had sagged against it in utter defeat and he had the decency to look sorry for me when his eyes came my way. Or maybe he was just sorry that his free help was leaving, now he’d have to pay for a replacement and that was going to hurt his bottom line.

Oh God, that guy was creepy, and the closer to me he got, the stronger became my desire to flee or fight. The Sythral male was tall but slender but I knew it was all coiled power and strength. One of my few memories of this male was when he’d personally punished some poor bloke in the alley behind the bar. I remembered seeing him crush the Tarkan male’s hand from the tiny window in the storage room where I slept. To crush the hand of a Tarkan… required incredible power. A Tarkan could turn their skin to something almost resembling stone.

“Good catch,” Laimeil drawled, “You’ll be going with us, female.” He reached out to me with a pale hand tipped with obsidian black claws. I reacted instinctively, pulling back my arm with the tray and hurling it at the loanshark. As the drinks crashed and splattered all over his fancy black suit, he hissed in outrage, his hands reaching for me.

One yanked at the red scarf around my neck, yanking it free and exposing the pain collar for the whole crowd to see. The other hand grabbed at the shoulder of my flimsy dress, tearing it, and all my stolen credits came tumbling out. Now I was screaming in outrage, fighting in earnest against his clawed grip and the Hoxiam’s immovable hold.

Those were mine, fair and square, but despite our struggle, patrons were diving to the floor to grab the fallen money. Greedy, awful, filthy bastards. Without that money, I had zero resources, and I was seeing my chances of survival without Drova dwindle before my eyes. I screamed in anger, scratched at Laimeil’s face, and then I was sent reeling when the asshole retaliated with a hard shove.

Everything seemed to be standing still for a few drawn-out seconds, and then that chaos I wanted to create exploded around me. Something barreled into us with force, ripping the Hoxiam’s grip from my arm, tackling the giant, blue-furred male into the Sythral. They went down in the sawdust together under the sound of patrons screaming, chairs scrapping and tumbling as people leaped to their feet.

Akri was standing next to me, arms out at his sides, his long black leather coat fanning out around his legs, and his chest heaving. Was he always this tall? This big? When the Hoxiam leaped at him, the two seemed almost matched in size, which had to be a trick of the eye. The Hoxiam was almost eight feet tall.

They became some kind of brawling, wildly moving mass as the two engaged in combat. I backed away, as did some of the other patrons, but most? They dove into the fight, especially those whose food or drink got spilled in the chaos or those already there still trying to get their hands on my money. This was a horribly dangerous spot to be in as a small human girl. Now more than ever, I was aware of just how fragile and tiny I was compared to many of these aliens.

Ducking out of the way, heart pumping, adrenaline roaring, I didn’t feel fear or stress; I felt elated. I felt alive. I knew that was crazy but I’d been an adrenaline junky long before I’d gotten abducted; I wasn’t going to deny that. I was steadily managing to dodge and weave my way to the exit. I felt a little bad for abandoning Akri back there, but there was nothing I could do to help him.

The door opened and I caught a glimpse of the outside world. The streets of Akrod, smelly and ugly as they were in this district, called to me like a siren’s song. I realized the newcomer that had opened the door was none other than Bacli, the Health inspector that Drova regularly bribed to keep in business.

Horror washed through me when he was followed in by a set of surveillance drones. They were there to watch his every move, mostly as a precaution when he walked these dangerous streets. Normally, the inspector turned them off as soon as he entered the bar… Today? That was impossible; he was immediately sucked into the fight.

Grabbing an empty plate from a nearby table, I raised it over my face as the nearest drone panned over me. The last thing I needed was to be caught on tape while I tried to escape, my pain collar exposed around my neck.

Something yanked hard on my ponytail and I stumbled back, a pained scream escaping, more from the shock than anything. I reached up to grab my hair back, twisting in the grip of whoever had me. The bodyguard from by the door, he’d abandoned his post when the brawling started, but he hadn’t forgotten about me.

A big Rummicaron, his face was that of a shark, down to the maw filled with razor-sharp teeth. He was holding onto my hair, dragging me back into the brawling mass. I fought to free myself, and then I frantically started searching for a knife. If I couldn’t get my hair out of that grip, I’d cut it, damn it!

In the chaos, I couldn’t see Drova anywhere but Akri was a beacon my eyes were instantly drawn to. He was poetry in motion, reminding me of the main character of one of my all-time favorite movies. He was even wearing a long black coat. All he had to do was bend over backward impossibly far and dodge a barrage of bullets to complete the image.

His eyes met mine, cutting through that crowd, through the chaos, as if it was just the two of us in this room. Then he made an agile jump, sliding over a table, and nimbly he snatched the laser pistol right out of the bar inspector’s belt. Flashes went off as the laser pistol fired, but in the roar of the fight, I couldn’t hear the whine of the laser. The guard holding me dropped like a stone, his death grip on my hair forcing me to go down with him.

Down in the sawdust all I saw were legs and downed bodies. I was at serious risk of getting trampled, so I freed my hair and dove beneath the nearest table for safety. I couldn’t see what was happening from here but I could see the open door to freedom. With no money, my chances were lower of avoiding detection out there, but I had good survival skills. I was going to try.

Now that I knew Akri was one hell of a fighter, I didn’t feel so bad about trying to escape without him. I’d forever be grateful that he’d shot that Sythral’s bodyguard and freed me. That had definitely been on purpose.

Judging the crowd, I timed my leap well. Rushing up from beneath the table and toward the exit. I wasn’t the only one at this point trying to get outside and some of the fighting had even spilled into the street. I dodged between two big bodies, my fingers curling around the doorpost for leverage, and then I took my first step outside.