Warning: This chapter has graphic depiction of violence so if anyone has aversion to as such, please take precautions.
---
The moment finally passed. I stayed hunched over the cold permacrete for maybe another thirty seconds, forehead pressed against the grimy floor, just letting it all pour out. Every muscle in my body was tight, wired to the edge. But the sobs slowed, turned into sharp breaths, and then into a weird, hollow silence.
Then, my brain snapped back into focus.
She's alive.
But that wasn't enough.
They'd taken her.
I sat up fast, a new wave of adrenaline surging through me like a jolt from a faulty power coupling. Okay. Think. Think. From what I saw, it couldn't have been long ago—maybe half an hour, tops. That was good. Real good. They wouldn't be out of Capital City yet, probably still funneling her through one of the outer holding zones. Or staging somewhere.
I can still catch them.
I pushed up off the floor but the second I put my full weight on my feet, the whole warehouse spun sideways.
A sharp bolt of dizziness shot through my skull like a blaster bolt. My knees just folded. I hit the floor hard, landing on my side with a grunt that got knocked right out of me.
"The kriff…?" I blinked fast, confused, trying to shove the nausea down. My hands were shaking as I pushed myself back up, slow this time.
That's when I felt it. My face was wet. Inside the helmet.
I fumbled with the seal, my fingers feeling thick and clumsy, and pulled the thing off.
The second it came free, a wave of cool air hit my skin, and I could feel it, a thick, warm wetness leaking from my nose, dripping down past my lips. I touched my fingers to my face, pulled them back... and just stared.
Blood.
A lot of it.
I was bleeding from my nose. My upper lip was slick with it. My... my eyes?
I turned my helmet in my hands, angling the curved interior to catch a dim reflection.
My face looked like a mess. Crimson streaks trailed down from both nostrils, and a slow, steady trickle of red was crawling from the corner of my left eye, cutting a path through the grime on my cheek.
Then I felt my vision start to narrow. A creeping black tunnel closing in from the edges, fast.
No. No. No. No no no no—
"This can't be happening," I rasped, shaking my head like that would clear it. It just made the dizziness worse. "Come on. Not now, not kriffing NOW."
I gritted my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to force the dizziness away, *willing* my brain to stay online. *I can't black out. Not now. She's out there, she needs me. I can still reach her. I just have to—I just—*
The nausea swelled again, a deafening roar in my ears, and my fingers went completely numb.
Goddammit.
I slapped my palm against the cold floor, the sting a tiny, useless anchor. "Come ON!" I shouted, my voice raw and cracking. "Get up! Get UP—!"
But it wasn't up to me anymore.
My body had decided, with no warning and zero permission from me.
Everything was shutting down—way too fast, like someone had yanked the main power conduit. The darkness wasn't at the edges anymore; it was blooming right in the center of my vision, swallowing everything.
I hit the ground again, face-first this time. My breath came in shallow, ragged pulls.
*Please… not yet. Just a few more minutes… Just let me—*
The last thing I managed to see before the world just blinked out was my own messy reflection in the blood-smeared curve of my helmet—eyes wide, terrified, and finally, going blank.
----
---
Unknown amount of time later....
The first thing I was aware of was the cold. A deep, bone-aching chill that had seeped into me from the permacrete floor. Then came the throbbing in my head, a dull, heavy pound that made thinking feel like wading through mud.
My eyes blinked open to utter darkness. For a few disorienting seconds, I had no idea where I was. The air was stale, smelling of dust and… blood. I could smell the coppery tang of it on my face.
My right hand clenched instinctively, and I felt the familiar, solid weight of the Gauss gun. The cool metal against my palm was the key that unlocked everything.
The warehouse. The vision. Vasha.
The memories slammed into me all at once, a tidal wave of panic that cut through the fog in my head. I shoved myself up, my body screaming in protest. Every muscle felt like wet clay, weak and uncoordinated. The world tilted violently, and I had to throw a hand out to steady myself against the floor, my head spinning.
I stumbled toward where the door should be, my legs barely cooperating. I half-ran, half-fell through the darkness, my breath coming in ragged gasps. I hit the release mechanism, and the door groaned open.
I spilled out into the alley, desperate for a sign, for any clue that it had only been minutes.
What I saw made my stomach drop straight through the floor.
It was dark. Not just a little dark. Fully, completely night. The sky above the narrow alley was a deep, star-flecked black, the twin moons of Lothal casting long, cold shadows. The sounds of the city were different—quieter, the daytime bustle replaced by the distant, occasional whine of a speeder and the low hum of nightlife several blocks over.
No.
It wasn't possible. It couldn't have been that long. It felt like I'd only just closed my eyes.
My earlier, desperate hope—that it had only been half an hour, that I could still catch them—was fucking ripped to shreds. It was gone. Because my stupid, fucking weak body couldn't handle a look into the past without shutting down for hours.
Hours.
Where was she now? A detention block? Already on a transport off-world? Was she awake? Hurt? Thinking I wasn't coming because I didn't care?
The air suddenly felt too thin.My chest tightened. I couldn't breathe. I realized I was hyperventilating, useless gasps that didn't bring any oxygen, just a rising tide of sheer, undiluted terror.
Fuck, was I was going to pass out again?
No. No. Stop it.
I bent over, hands on my knees, and forced the air out of my lungs.
"Breathe," I snarled at myself, as if ordering the body verbally would help. "Just fucking breathe."
Surprisingly it did.
The burning in my eyes was a dull throb now. I could feel the dried, flaky blood on my face. Small mercies, at least it had stopped.
But my mind was still a mess.
They wanted her skills. They'd mentioned contracts, official work. They wouldn't hurt her. Not yet. Not until they got what they wanted.
Right?
But she killed that commander. Tevan covered it up, but what if someone else found out? What if they decided she was more trouble than she was worth? What if...
I couldn't know. That was the worst part. I had no kriffing idea.
"Dammit." I slammed my fist against the cold wall of the alley. The impact jarred up my arm, a solid, real feeling in a world that was spinning away. "Dammit, dammit, DAMMIT!"
I fucked up. Again.
All those months… for what? Preparing for some hypothetical Inquisitor, training, modifying weapons… and I'd been completely blind to the most obvious possibility. How the fuck did I not see this coming?
I thought we were too small to notice. Just another repair shop. Nothing special.
But we'd grown. Clients came from further away, brought rarer tech, paid better. And I'd been too stupid to see that we'd outgrown our anonymity. Vasha was just trying to make a living. She didn't know what the Empire really was.
But I knew. I knew exactly what happened to people the Empire decided they needed.
And I'd let it happen anyway.
From further down the alley, a sound cut through my spiral. A clumsy shuffle, the clatter of a kicked-over bottle. Mumbling. Drunken, slurry curses aimed at no one.
"...frackin' whore... piece of shit ...thinksss she is some prinzess..slut..."
The voice faded in and out. I didn't even look up. It was just noise. Background static to the disaster screaming inside my own head. Some drunkard stumbling home, his problems so small, so meaningless compared to mine.
I should have done better. I should have protected her.
But I heard the sounds of steps coming closer to me, and the mumbling getting louder
A figure stumbled out from a deeper shadow, swaying on his feet. A human male, maybe mid-forties, but a hard life had carved extra years into his face. Greasy hair, stained clothes, and the glazed, stupid look of someone who'd been mainlining rotgut all day.
He spotted me hunched against the wall and his face cracked into a loose, ugly grin.
"Well, well. What've we got here? Little lost tooka-kitten?"
The air in the alley shifted, a new wave of cheap alcohol and unwashed body odor cutting through the smell of my own blood.
But the words were just noise. Annoying, distant buzzing. My head was a bomb about to go off, every throb a reminder of the hours I'd lost, of how far away she was getting. I didn't even look up. "Piss off. I've got nothing for you."
"Hey! I'm talking to you, boy!" His voice grated, trying to find a purchase in my brain. It couldn't. All I could see was her face. The shock on it when the officer dropped. Too much charge. My modifications. My fault.
The drunk's boots scuffed closer. "You deaf or something? Look at me."
"Go away," I mumbled, the words tasting like copper.
Where would they take her? Not the main garrison. Somewhere quiet. A black site. The soldiers would know. I had to find one. I had to make one tell me. The plan was a fragile, desperate thing forming in the wreckage of my thoughts.
The drunk laughed, a wet, choking sound. "Nah, I don't think I will. See, you're sitting in my spot. That means you owe me a toll."
My fault. All my fault. I'd been so obsessed with hiding from a future threat, I'd let the present one walk right up and take her. I was a fucking idiot.
"You listening to me, pretty boy?" He was closer now, the stink of him overwhelming.
"Shit, look at you. All bloody and crying." A boot nudged my leg. "Someone already fucked you over? That why you're hiding here?"
I kept my head down, a fresh drop of blood splattering on the ground.
"I said, is that why you're hiding?" Another nudge, harder this time. "Come on, pretty boy. Use your fucking mouth."
"Leave me alone." The voice that came out wasn't mine. It was flat, dead.
"Such a pretty face under all that blood." He crouched down, his rancid breath hot on my cheek. I flinched back. "Bet you'd clean up real nice. Could make good money with a face like that. Always wanted to feel how a little boy would feel. Bet you'd be tighter than those whores."
I pressed my palms into my eye sockets, seeing stars. Not now. Not this.
"Not gonna answer? That's rude." His hand came up, fingers grimy and calloused, reaching for my chin.
I jerked my head away. "Just. Fucking. Go."
"Ooh, there's those eyes." His grin widened, a horrifying sight. "Yeah, you'd do real well. Might even keep you for myself first, break you in proper."
Something cold and solid was in my hand. The Gauss pistol. I didn't remember drawing it.
"Where's your mama, pretty boy?" he slurred, rocking back on his heels. "Bet she's worried about you, all alone out here."
The words hit a wall. They didn't register. Nothing did.
"She must be a real looker, to make something as soft as you." He licked his cracked lips. "Yeah, I bet she's prime meat. Probably where you get it from."
Soft. The word echoed. Prime meat.
"Tell you what," he continued, a world of vile promise in his tone. "You tell me where she is, and maybe I'll go easy on you. After I'm done with her, of course. Bet she'd love a real man after whatever soft shit spawned you. I'd show her a good time, make her scream—"
The world went white. Hot, silent, and utterly blank.
There was no thought. No decision. There was only a pressure in my head that needed to explode outward.
The sound of the Gauss pistol firing was more like a thunderclap than a blaster. A sharp, teeth-rattling CRACK that echoed down the alley and came back on itself. The drunk's face exploded backward in a wet spray, skull and skin tearing apart under the magnetic punch. His body folded like a puppet with the strings cut.
And I kept pulling the trigger.
The next shot slammed into what was left of his head, frying the coil capacitor. Flesh and bone scattered, sizzling as the energy cooked it midair. The stench hit me a heartbeat later—burnt iron and meat, heavy and suffocating.
The third shot was a blind spasm. The gun bucked hard, the recoil hammering into my wrist, but the blast still landed. Pieces of him sprayed the wall. A smear of red painted across the stone in a dripping fan.
I should have stopped. The weapon was hot in my hand, screaming that it was at its limit, but my body didn't care. I was already moving, already on him. The pistol clattered from my grip as I threw myself at the twitching remains. My fists came down. Again. Again. Each strike was a white flash behind my eyes, a rhythm I couldn't break.
The sound wasn't human anymore. It was meat. Wet, heavy, splintering meat under my knuckles. His face was gone after the first few hits. Then it was bone shattering, caving in. Then it was pulp. I could feel it give way, my hands sliding on the mess, skin tearing across sharp fragments of teeth and jaw. I didn't stop. I couldn't.
I screamed something into the dark—wordless, raw, ripped out of me. All of it poured into him. Vasha's name. The fear. The rage. The hours I'd lost on that floor. Every second I hadn't been there to stop them. I broke it all against his body until it wasn't a body anymore.
When my arms gave out, I collapsed on top of what was left. My breath came in ragged, animal gasps. The world swam in red. The wall behind him was slick with it, running in crooked lines. The ground around us was a pool, sticky and warm against my knees.
I dragged myself back, slipping in the blood. My hands were unrecognizable—coated to the wrists, chunks of flesh and bone caught under my nails. I stared at them like they belonged to someone else.
The thing at my feet wasn't a man anymore. It wasn't even a body. Just a broken, ruined shape spread out across the alley stones.
My stomach heaved, bile burning up the back of my throat. I turned and retched until nothing came out, dry sobs shaking my ribs.
Then silence.
The only sound was my own breathing, sharp and shallow. My knuckles throbbed. My arms felt hollow. I couldn't stop shaking.
I looked at him—what was left of him—and a cold, sick horror crawled up my spine.
I'd wanted him gone, but not… not like this.
And yet, when I tried to imagine stopping earlier, letting him live, my whole body locked up. No. That wasn't an option. He'd said those things, painted those pictures. Something inside me had snapped, and this was what came out.
so i rewrote the last part of the scene. see it once:
And yet, when I tried to imagine stopping earlier, letting him live, my whole body locked up. No. That wasn't an option. He'd said those things, painted those pictures. Something inside me had snapped, and this was what came out.
Yeah, this was his fault...not me, I was just breaking down in silence, not minding anyone...
I laughed at myself.
Fucking hell, what am I, a fucking emo on his evil guy arc who blames everyone on the world? Get a fucking grip dammit...
I leaned back against the wall, blood drying tacky on my skin, and felt the weight of it settle in my chest.
I looked from my bloody hands to the thing on the ground, then back again.
A raw, shaky breath escaped me. Was I crying? or was it blood on my face dripping down?
The panic was gone. The fear was gone. Weirdly, because of what I'd done, I felt the same colors the rest of the world was wearing now: ugly and permanent. Murder ticked a box on the list. I hadn't planned it, but I couldn't find the mind to care about it.
I was going to kill anyways, be it now or in future. This world didn't allow an peaceful existense.
How funny, wasn't it? She killed when she didn't want to, while I killed because I wanted to.
I didn't feel cleansed. I didn't feel guilty in that soft, rom-com way where you cry and forgive yourself. There was a new cold in my chest, like a well had opened and I'd fallen in
I pushed off the wall. My knees screamed. The alley was a smear of shadows and the remains that would make sure nobody thought kind things tonight. My long jacket smelled like iron. My hands looked like sculptures made of red clay and broken teeth.
Time was a problem. I'd slept through hours. Could be a day, could be longer. Whoever'd picked her up wasn't an idiot. They'd have moved fast once the troopers reported back. Transport, a secure holding, a private shuttle, the whole bureaucratic rot that turns people into property—gone.
I peeled at my face with fingers that trembled. The dried blood flaked off in ugly pieces. I wiped at my mouth and tasted copper. My throat tightened. I hated that my hands stayed steady when I flexed them. Wanted to test the edge of what I'd become, and the muscles answered.
Tevan flashed through my head—slick smile, too-clean uniform, ISB stink all over him. No. Not yet. Going straight for him was suicide. ISB didn't play games you walked away from.
The soldiers, though… the ones from earlier. Planetary garrison grunts. Green behind the ears, uniforms still stiff like they were fresh off the rack. They'd flinched when things got messy. The kind of kids who'd follow orders but talk too much afterward. They'd know where she'd been taken. A detention block. A holding site. Something local.
And I knew their faces. I knew the garrison. Big, square, ugly thing squatting near the south platform, its walls all pretense and intimidation. By now those two had probably clocked off, washed the stink of fear from their skin, and crawled into whatever barracks hole they called home. But tomorrow? They'd be back on shift. Predictable.
That was my opening.
If luck didn't favor me, there was always the networks. Their systems weren't perfect—nothing Imperial ever was, no matter how many black-booted bastards swore otherwise. I could dig through manifests, internal memos, detention logs. If I had to. But I'd rather avoid it. Digital footprints leave trails. People don't.
I flexed my bloody hands. They trembled, not from fear anymore but from the echo of what I'd done. The soldier boys didn't scare me the same way Tevan did. They were soft targets. Soft enough that I could corner them, ask the right questions, and if they got stubborn… well, I already knew I had it in me.
I spat the taste of copper out onto the stones and turned away from the mess in the alley. The corpse wasn't my problem anymore. The trail to her was.
Tomorrow, those troopers were mine.
And if they didn't talk?
I'd make sure they did.
But first—practicalities. Boots left prints. My palms left prints. But lucky for me, nobody is going to suspect that a child did this. I just needed to get out of here, fast.
The Gauss wasn't something you could holster in polite company after what it had just done. I slid my fingers over the grip, felt the heat. The pistol stank of burnt hair and luck.
I stomped through the mess, trying not to think about the shape I'd reduced a human being into, the way the ground had soaked and the way my knuckles had sung against bone. Didn't let myself look at the wall where the splatter made a map of my unspooled fury.
Maybe I was late in saving her..But force be damned, I wasn't done playing my hands yet...
--
Don't forget to vote!
Also next chapter gonna bring in the start of the much awaited content from the synopsis