Nostrus pulled the knife back and stabbed again, this time under his right arm. Shay jumped aside, moving toward his back. The blade cut through the fabric over her ribs and bit into the flesh beneath.
Shay growled through her teeth and pulled his right arm outward, using it for extra leverage as she swung her left knee into the back of his right. Nostrus collapsed onto his buckled knee with an agonized yell. He reversed his grip on the knife and stabbed it backward at her blindly. The blade caught her left hip. She felt it strike the bone; the impact diverted the blade’s path, angling the tip away from her body.
“Fuck!” Shay twisted quickly to plant her hip against his shoulder and throw her weight against him, simultaneously wrenching back on his arm.
He pitched forward, crashing face first to the floor. The knife clattered away. Shay landed atop him, back-to-back, and pulled harder on his arm. Something cracked and popped. Nostrus screamed and thrashed beneath her, jerking his head up. The back of his skull slammed into the back of Shay’s with jarring force. Darkness skittered across her vision again, and the spot he’d struck with his elbow flared with new, intense pain.
She rolled off Nostrus and away from him, clamping her left hand over the back of her head. Her tangled hair was wet and sticky with blood—undoubtedly the result of that earlier elbow shot.
Swearing again, she turned toward Nostrus and braced her right hand on the floor, struggling to push herself to her feet. She didn’t trust the two meters of distance between them. She didn’t trust the way his right arm hung limp, or the way he breathed heavily and groaned as he fought to rise. She didn’t trust that his back was turned toward her.
“When I’m done with you,” he said, words slurred like they were being forced through mashed lips, “I’m going to hunt down your azhera”—he grunted and planted his right knee on the floor—“and skin him alive.”
Shay’s head throbbed. She staggered once she was on her feet, assailed by sudden lightheadedness. She sucked in a deep breath through her teeth and lowered her hand into her pocket. Several drops of liquid spattered audibly on the floor; she didn’t know if it was her blood, Nostrus’s, or both, but it didn’t matter.
Her fingers closed around the blaster’s grip.
Nostrus shifted his left leg, moving himself onto his knees, and sank back to sit on his calves. His head lolled forward. He raised his left arm, bent at the elbow, as though clutching his chest. “You are going to regret every moment of this, terran.”
Shay lifted the blaster. It felt like it weighed a hundred kilos, but it didn’t snag on the jacket this time, and her arm was steady as she raised the weapon.
“You,” Nostrus spat, swaying as he tugged on something, “and your fucking vermin offspring?—”
Shay pulled the trigger. The blaster’s high, thumping whine was diminished under the corridor’s sound dampeners. It was a muted, anticlimactic sound, an unimportant sound, an inconsequential sound.
It was the perfect sound to mark Nostrus’s death.
“You don’t get to talk about my mate or my baby,” she said softly.
Nostrus remained on his knees, unmoving, for several seconds. Faint wisps of smoke drifted up from the neat, dark hole on the back of his head. The smells of charred flesh and burned hair were strong in the air. There was no nausea this time, not even as Nostrus finally pitched forward and collapsed unceremoniously on the floor. A blaster fell from his left hand.
Shay’s arm trembled as she lowered her weapon.
No such thing as a pretty fight, Shay,her father said in the back of her mind.
She chuckled humorlessly as warm blood flowed from her numerous cuts, as every muscle and bone in her body ached, as her head throbbed. She wished she hadn’t had to go through this to hear her dad’s voice so clearly again. She wished that his lessons had never proven necessary. But more than all that, she wished that her daughter would never have to learn such lessons firsthand.
From somewhere far away, a voice called her name.
Don’t have time to go crazy, Shay. Need to get to Leah.
The voice sounded again, a little louder. Furrowing her brow, Shay lifted her gaze, tentatively raising the blaster along with it.
A big, beautiful, dun-colored azhera was sprinting down the corridor toward her, the vibrant green of his eyes clear even from forty meters away. An equally big, stupid grin stretched across her lips.
Drakkal?
“What a good, pretty kitty,” she muttered. She stumbled backward, feet slipping on the blood-slick floor. Her arm fell limply to her side once she’d caught her balance, and the blaster slipped from her fingers. All at once, her body felt weak, sapped of every ounce of energy.
“Shay!” Drakkal called, his voice sounding so, soreal.
Tears stung her eyes.
The last time she’d seen him was when Murgen’s guards had hauled him into Vanya’s transport. He’d been taken away from Shay. He’d beenstolenfrom her. As he drew nearer still, she noticed the people running behind him—Thargen, Urgand, and Sekk’thi. But they didn’t know anything about any of this. There was no way they could be here.
Guess I really have lost my mind.
This wasn’t a convenient time or place to lose her shit—not thatanytime or place was convenient—but the evidence was right there. Full-blown audio-visual hallucinations.