I’ll show you the respect you deserve when I spit on your lifeless body.
Despite knowing better, Drakkal nearly responded to her aloud. But giving voice to his hatred would only make it more difficult for him to accomplish his objectives. Provoking her further would only bring more pain. Though he’d not reached the limit of what he could endure, he could not say the same of Shay. Foltham had indicated that he’d held back on punishing her during her prior captivity only because of her pregnancy. What would stop him now?
And regardless, Drakkal couldn’t afford to lose any more time to unconsciousness.
Hold on Shay, hold on Leah. I am coming for you.
“I’m going to give you a break this one time, Drakkal,” Vanya said, “and make it easy on you—because I’m not in the mood to hear more of your disrespect.”
A moment later, loud music with heavy drums and bass came on in the cab, sweeping back to echo through the holding area.
I’m making an offering of thanks to my ancestors when this is all done.
Drakkal waited until his breathing had steadied and his heartbeat had eased before he let himself act. He agreed with Vanya’s self-assessment—she wasn’t stupid. But neither was Drakkal. Everyone had a flaw, and hers had been the same for as long as he’d known her, even if he’d been too close to realize it early on. The music was just another demonstration of it.
She was overconfident, and it seemed that overconfidence had blossomed into something closer to outright arrogance over the years.
Keeping his gaze on the cab’s entryway, Drakkal forced his breathing to slow further still. This was his chance. If it didn’t work, he doubted he’d have another anytime soon. It reliedentirely too much upon luck for his liking, but the realist in him said he had to take whatever he could get.
Carefully, he withdrew his stump from his prosthesis, bending his legs to alter the angle of the elbow and slide off the metal limb. Once the prosthesis was freely dangling from the wall, Drakkal glanced to his flesh and blood arm. He pressed his lips together and slowly turned his right wrist within the manacle, shifting his body around with it. The metal pulled his fur and scraped his flesh, offering more resistance than he’d hoped to encounter, but it wasn’t enough to stop him.
He paused once he was facing the wall fully with his palm toward him. He could see the right edge of Vanya’s body from his new angle; the movement had taken him a step or two closer to the cab. Her attention was fixed on the traffic around the vehicle—they were traveling along one of the many lanes of traffic that cut through the air over the streets and walkways of the Undercity.
Drakkal looked at the manacle around his right wrist and flexed his fingers. Their tips were tingling, resulting from a combination of the exertion, his position, and the manacle’s tightness. Once some of their feeling had returned, he offered a fleeting glance to the cab to ensure Vanya was still otherwise occupied and clenched his fist.
Sliding his feet forward, he braced them against the place where the wall and floor met. He drew in a deep breath and threw his strength into moving his right arm toward his prosthesis.
The muscles of his legs, arm, chest, and abdomen bunched, trembling with the strain. The cuff held firm for a second, two seconds, three. With a light shake, it slid a centimeter to the right.
Drakkal snapped his head toward the front again. Vanya was facing forward.
He returned his attention to the manacle and repeated the process, leaning more of his weight back this time. Each time he took in a heavy breath, he tugged the manacle aside another centimeter or two, moving it at a crawl toward his inert prosthesis. He dared not try for more with each movement; though the music drowned out many of the sounds in the vehicle, Vanya had sharp senses. The smallest out of place sound could alert her.
The already intense heat in his body increased rapidly with his exertion, but he couldn’t spare the time to cool down. Eventually—it might only have been a minute or two later, but it felt like years—he’d maneuvered his right arm to the opposite side of his prosthesis, with the manacles set about twenty centimeters apart. He leaned forward, opening his jaws wide enough that they felt close to unhinging, and clamped his teeth around the metal arm. Slowly, he turned the prosthesis so the pin would be better aligned to his new position.
He brushed his thumb across the external sensor on the cybernetic wrist. A small holographic screen rose from the projector; the holocom was the only component of the artificial limb that didn’t require an active neural link to operate. He flicked through the options quickly, eyes constantly darting toward the cab to check for Vanya, and attempted to send a quick message to Arcanthus after ensuring the holocom was silenced.
The holocom displayed an error message—connection failed. Drakkal wasn’t surprised, and he wouldn’t allow himself to be frustrated. Vanya likely had a signal blocker somewhere in the vehicle to prevent this very thing. He dismissed the holocom screen.
Releasing his hold on the prosthesis, he shifted his body, lifted his stump, and slid it up to the metal arm. He stopped the instant he sensed that neural link with the prosthetic; it was farenough to allow him to control the arm, but not so much to lock it into the socket. It would be foolish to lock in while he had no means of releasing the arm from its restraint.
He formed his hardlight claws. Eyes flicking between his hand and the cab—Vanya was out of his line of sight again—he extended his metal fingers and swept the claws down. The hardlight blades bit into the metal of his right manacle, slicing through it cleanly—and causing a faint pain on his wrist.
The manacle deactivated, and his arm fell away from the wall—along with a couple chunks of metal that had been separated from the whole. Drakkal sucked in a sharp breath and flattened his chest and arm against the wall, catching the loose bits on the inside of his elbow. He stared wide-eyed toward the cab, not daring to breathe again. The thunderous pounding of his heart filled his ears. Were it any louder, he swore Vanya would’ve heard it despite the music.
But she didn’t look back, didn’t speak. The heat that had built within Drakkal spread beneath the surface of his skin, crackling, tingling, consuming. He finally released the breath he’d been holding; the air stung his damaged lips as it passed between them.
Soon, Shay. On my way soon.
Carefully, he turned his head to his right and bent his neck to move his mouth down. He raised his arm at the same time. Lowering his lips over his fur, he took the metal bits into his mouth.
Once that was done, he took a firm hold of his prosthesis and pulled it down along the wall so his fingers could comfortably reach his neck. He tilted his head back, watching the cab from the corner of his eye, and set his hardlight claws to the shock collar. Their tips bit into his flesh more than once as he worked, but the cuts seemed shallow enough to ignore for now.
He tugged his stump away from the prosthesis as hereached up with his right hand and pried off the damaged shock collar. The hardlight claws vanished with the severing of his neural connection with the limb.
One item down. On to the next…Vanya.
Drakkal willed his rage back to the surface as he moved to the opposite side of the transport—which would keep him directly behind Vanya—and stalked forward. That inner heat intensified, and his chest tightened, but his mind was clear, just as it always was leading up to a fight. He’d faced worse odds, had been in situations he considered more dangerous—as though there could really be many more degrees of danger once you reachedlife-threatening—but this, more than anything, felt likethefight for his life. Not just to determine whether he lived or died, but whether he could reclaim the life he’d made with Shay and Leah.