His Guiding Star (Obi-Wan Kenobi)

Chapter Sixteen

Talia had woken up the next day to find herself lying in an unfamiliar bed, the mattress much harder than she was used to. She could feel it pressing against her back. Bright sunlight spilled through the window and she blinked, trying to adjust her eyes to the light. 

Her vision cleared, allowing her to look around the room she was in: very minimalist, with a bed, window and wardrobe and that was it, other than a chair in the corner where a squat man with a black hair and beard sat.

Talia was up in a split second, only to find her head swimming with dizziness.

"Easy, kid," a familiar gruff voice came from the man in the corner. "I'm not gonna hurt yer."  There was something in his voice that made her trust him. Talia lay her head back against the pillow.

"Where am I?"

"Bar's an inn," the man set down a plate of space waffles on her bedside. "Eat. Yer were 'alf starved when I found yer talkin' to those men."

Talia blinked.

"Sal?"

The man, Sal, nodded. He gave her a long, assessing look, and an uneasy feeling crept up her spine. Talia decided to eat the space waffles. He was right, anyway. She was starving. Literally.

"Yer lost, ain't yer?"

Talia, ever the heiress, swallowed her mouthful before responding.

"How'd you know?"

"Yer like a fish outta water, kid. One of them fat cats up top."

Talia frowned.

"Fat cats?"

"Rich people," Sal shrugged his great shoulders. "All that stuff with heirs and heiresses." For some reason, the way he said it made Talia feel ashamed. She looked down at her space waffles, taking another bite.

"I don't have any money to pay you back." The money from her parents' will would be looked after by the family lawyer until she turned eighteen. But she assumed, in such a rough place, that people did not do nice things out of simple kindness. 

Sal smiled wryly.

"Yer already learnin'. Good," he got to his feet, heading over to the door. "Don't worry about the money. I got a job for yer to pay it off."

"Sal?" Talia called out before he left.

"What?"

"Thank you."

Sal gave her yet another sharp look.

"That's how I know yer a poshie."

"Why?"

"Yer 'ave manners."

Talia followed the familiar labyrinthine streets, eventually coming across the inn. It was an unassuming place, known by the locals as 'Sal's', concealed in a narrow alleyway in the very heart of level 1313. She shoved open the durasteel door, stepping into the crowded inn and inhaling the familiar scent of alcohol and cigarettes.

It looked the exact same as when she'd been there at fourteen, although much smaller now. Talia had returned a few times while she and the kids had been on the run, though she'd never taken them down here. They could handle themselves, of course they could. Zoe had the nickname The Bone Carver for a reason.

But these were cruel people who played with people who didn't belong before pouncing, like a cat with a mouse. These were people whose hearts had been ripped to pieces, mangled beyond recognition and now hardened into stone.