Roar, Lioness. Roar

Broken Boy

An argument saves her from her own gongdo plagued thoughts. Latisha cautiously makes her way down the hall, following the sound of arguing slavers. Someone is badly hurt, and no one wants to take responsibility. Latisha assumes it's one of the guards until she sees the body on the ground.

Dimples' shorts are gone. His rear is battered and bruised, drying blood coats his inner thighs. His face is fat like an overripe melon, eyes swollen shut and lips busted open. He takes labored breaths, his body shuddering as it rises and falls.

Latisha looks down at him, conflicted in her heart. Compassion wins out and she goes to him. Kneeling beside him, she hesitates to touch his bruise-covered skin.

"What happened to him?"

The guards continue to argue, ignoring her completely.

"I asked you, what happened to him?" Her words drown out their back and forth bickering.

"Hey, shut your hole before I decide to make you meat."

Latisha stands up, happy to have something she knows how to deal with. She's no skin-knitter, but she has always been a warrior. She walks over to the bars, but stops just out of reach of their batons. She glances down at the seedboy who had become her friend during her time in captivity.

"What the fuck happened to Dimples?"

"Sounds like you need to be taught–"

Trout-Mouth puts a hand on the woman's chest to stop her and the slaver backhands her across the face. The slaver draws her baton and points it at Latisha's chest.

"I've been waiting for a piece of you since you blinded my cousin, seedboy." She unlocks the gate. "Bellgrave won't mind if you're an eye short."

Trout-Mouth lunges forward, slamming the slaver's head into the bars. The other guards back away as she jumps on the woman's back and bashes the back of her head with her own baton. Latiisha watches from behind the bars, acutely aware that her cage is unsecure. She knows this isn't the time to make her move, but it is hard not to take the bait. She moves up to the gate, and places her hands on the metal meant to keep her trapped.

On the ground just outside, Trout-Mouth rains blow after blow upon the other woman. The brash slaver manages to turn onto her back, but, when she puts up her arm to defend herself, Trout-Mouth's baton shatters her wrist. Women rush up the path to watch, laughing and jeering as the fight quickly becomes a beating. Flecks of blood splash up and splatter Latisha's face as skull gives way to brain matter.

Karen forces her way through the gathered crowd. She looks from the fighting women to Dimples, and finally to Latisha. Snarling, she rushes over to the bars and swings her baton, narrowly missing Latisha's fingers. Furious, Karen locks the nest.

"Don't just stand there. Break this up," she shouts at the gawking guards.

They grab Trout-Mouth and pull her off. She drops her baton and grins, a look of mad satisfaction on her face as they restrain her. She stares at the dead slaver, her eyes distant but intense.

"Take her to Rothschild, she'll know what to do with this one." Karen turns to one of the remaining guards as she rummages through the pockets of the corpse. "What happened here?"

"Old frog-face lost it. She just went berserk and jumped on her," the woman explains.

"And Dimples? Did the Lioness do that?"

"No... that was Chrysanth. She'd gotten a bit carried away and broke her strap-on inside him."

"Did anyone fish it out, the broken piece? Is it still in there?" Karen looks at what's left of Dimples with disgust. "If she was going to destroy him, the boss should have charged triple."