Flinging the cinystalq collar across the room, Georgianna flung herself around the corner of the banister, jumping down the stairs two at a time. Already, through the window, she could see the path clearing towards the door, the Tsevstakre sweeping people away like columns of dust. She grasped the handle with both hands, wrenching it towards her. It was a risky move, but if there was the smallest chance she could duck into the crowd, she had to take it.
Sunlight hit her, a smack in the face as she stepped out into the street. She took one step, then another. But the moment her hope tricked her into thinking that she’d made it away safely, a large hand clamped down on the back of her neck.
Georgianna squealed, floundering to get a grip on the hand that held her as she was pulled out of the crowd. Before her, people were drawing back with horrified expressions on their faces. They quickly turned their backs, running like rabbits in search of their warrens when the hunters came through the brush. Only when they were far enough away did they turn to take another look, staring open-mouthed.
Shaking her head, trying to wrench herself however she could from the grasp of the man who held her, Georgianna was suddenly set upon by two more Tsevstakre. Grabbing her arms, they held her splayed for the whole market to see.
“Get inside!” a man ordered as he stepped forward. Waving his arm to the Tsevstakre on either side of the building, six men in black moved forward, filing through the door, weapons raised.
The man giving the orders stepped towards them, coming to a stop in front of Georgianna and the men holding her. Georgianna gave another squeal as her head was pulled sharply back to look up at him. He was a giant of a man, the black armour only adding more girth to his already generous bulk. She wished that all that was hidden under the armour was fat and disused muscles, but she knew better. This man was nothing if not deadly: able to kill with a snap of his wrist.
“I know you.” A slick grin slipped over his lips. “You were in the compound. A medic, if I am not mistaken.”
She gritted her teeth. The man on her right gave her arm a painful twist, forcing her to cry out. Unable to turn her head from the grasp on her neck, Georgianna could only glare at the man before her.
“You’re not,” she answered.
“And what would a medic be doing here?”
“I didn’t know the Adveni had claimed the Oprust as their territory,” Georgianna snapped back and was rewarded by another twist of her arm. “I was called.” Grimacing, she pushed her arm the other way, trying to relieve the tension. “I was told there were injured here.”
The man looked at her for a moment, lips curved into an uneven smile. His gaze drifted quite deliberately from her head to her toes before he settled on her face again.
“And you came without any supplies?” he asked in amusement. “You must be incredibly talented, Medic.”
She gritted her teeth, even as the man on her left also decided to try convincing her to answer. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed as she tried not to make a noise that would give away her pain. She hadn’t even thought about the fact she’d left her bag with Alec back at the other building.
“No one,” a voice said from behind her.
The man’s attention turned to the Tsevstakre that had just come down the stairs. Reaching past Georgianna and the others, the Tsevstakre held out two cinystalq collars for the commander to take. He reached out and grasped them with agile fingers, turning each one over in his hands. His smirk faded, his eyes narrowing and his jaw tightening.
“Take her inside,” he ordered darkly.
Tugged backward by the neck, she struggled and tried to hit out, but was held fast by the three men. The effort was fruitless. She was pulled inside, the soldiers working together to move her back until the man holding her neck could step aside and she was pressed to the wall, pinning her in place against the warm brick.
“Where did you find them?” the commander asked.
“Upstairs, Volsonne,” one of the men answered. “There is nothing else.”
The commander frowned and indicated the door. Georgianna glanced to the side and saw four more Tsevstakre coming down the stairs.
“Check every street, every building in this district. I want them found,” he barked. “If you kill them, I’ll shoot you between the eyes.”
Georgianna fixed her gaze on the floor, trying not to let them see the fear that passed through her expression. What if Taye and the others hadn’t reached Alec? What if he was still in that building, just waiting to be found? What if they came back here looking for her? She’d been so sure moments before, but now all her certainty was dripping away.
Approaching footsteps brought her gaze up onto the commander’s black armour. He brushed the two Tsevstakre aside, forcing them to step back yet keeping a grasp on Georgianna’s wrists.
“Tell me, Medic, do you know who I am?” he asked.
Georgianna paused for a moment. There was no point in lying to him, was there? Not about this.
“No,” she answered.
“My name is Maarqyn,” he explained.
Georgianna couldn’t stop it before it was too late, the flicker of recognition that widened her eyes. She quickly gritted her teeth, taking a sharp breath in. She’d never seen him. Perhaps she’d been expecting some middle-aged man, knowing his importance. He looked like a fighter, just like the others.
“Ah, so, you do know who I am,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Well, let me ask you this then, do you know my two dreta?”
Georgianna narrowed her eyes for a moment and shook her head.
“Oh, now, I don’t think that’s true,” he suggested, stepping forward. “How about I ask that one again? Do you know Nyah? Or perhaps Alec?”
“No,” Georgianna breathed.
“Really?”
“I said no,” she answered.
Maarqyn let out a short laugh and glanced at the man on Georgianna’s left. Taking the cue, he began twisting Georgianna’s arm until she had to lean forward to relieve the pressure, her knee buckling beneath her. For a moment, Maarqyn left her there, one knee bent towards the floor, before she was tugged back up, her shoulders slammed back into the brick.
Georgianna glared at him as he held up the collars towards her. Rays of light and shadows bounced from the smooth, curved surfaces, and as Maarqyn turned them, Georgianna noticed a symbol she’d not seen when looking at them before. Three green lines intersecting near the base curved outward from each other, like the trident her father had used to fish when she was a child.
“These collars belong to my dreta,” Maarqyn hissed. “I want them back, and you will tell me what I want to know.”
“I don’t know where they are!” Georgianna cried back, pushing herself furiously away from the wall only to be whipped back into the brick again.
“We’ll see about that,” Maarqyn answered.
Glancing over his shoulder, Maarqyn frowned, then turned to the two men. He watched them almost absently for a moment before, having finally made some kind of decision, nodded.
“Take her upstairs, we’ll see what she knows!”
Georgianna squeaked in fear, but Maarqyn ignored her as he turned and walked back towards the open doorway. He stopped just inside the door to converse with one of the Tsevstakre on the street. Georgianna was sure that she saw him reach out to take something from the other soldier, but she was tugged roughly towards the stairs, and as she was turned away from them, couldn’t see what it was that Maarqyn had been handed.
***
By the time Maarqyn finally came up the stairs, Georgianna’s wrists had been bound before her, and she had been forced to her knees between the two Tsevstakre. Maarqyn tapped a Cinystalq collar repeatedly into his palm as he approached, his eyes narrowed.
Georgianna watched him, trying to keep her fingers from shaking in fear. Was it her imagination, or did that collar look different to the one she’d picked up from the ground? There were no coloured wires spilling from the open ends, no damage at all as far as she could see. Her gaze flickered from the collar up to Maarqyn’s face as he stepped closer, nodding to the men on either side of her. Both men took a step away from her, leaving her on her knees in the centre of the floor. She looked helplessly at each one, but neither acknowledged her, their eyes fixed forward. One, however, had the smallest of smiles on his face.
“Are you sure you would not like to change your story?” Maarqyn asked slowly, tapping the collar harder into his palm.
“My story?” she asked.
“That you were called here as a medic,” Maarqyn replied slowly.
Georgianna paused, and slowly shook her head.
Maarqyn stepped forward and took hold of the two sides of the collar, pulling them deftly apart. Georgianna shifted on her knees, trying to move herself back, but Maarqyn was faster. Georgianna lifted her bound hands towards her neck, shaking her head.
“No, please!” she begged. “Don’t!”
Maarqyn took no heed of her pleas, swatting her hands out of the way, and clamping the collar around her neck in a single movement. A vibration rumbled through her skin, a cold shiver that travelled down her spine and settled in her stomach.
Barely pausing, Maarqyn stood up straight and reached into his pocket, pulling out a tsentyl. He swiped it open, holding it in one palm as he glanced down at Georgianna.
“Where are my dreta?” he asked.
Georgianna, touching the collar tentatively with her fingers, looked up at Maarqyn quickly and shook her head.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
Maarqyn touched the tsentyl. The shock that travelled through her body seared like lightning collected and released on command, shooting through her body to the tips of her fingers and toes. She screamed, falling forward. Her hands hit the floor. Another shock reverberated through her skin. She slid forward onto her elbows.
“Where are they?” he asked again.
Georgianna gasped and carefully brought her head up.
“I don’t know.”
Another bolt of lightning ripped a cry from her. Maarqyn kept the shocks coming. Two, three, four, he sent one after the other in quick succession. Georgianna balled her hands into fists, gritting her teeth together. Her body shook and trembled against the dusty floor until finally the last echoes of the shock faded into the memory of pain.
“Come on, Medic,” Maarqyn sneered. “We both know you were involved.”
Georgianna carefully pushed herself up until she could look at him. For a moment, she simply stared at him, her breath rattling through her tightly clamped teeth. Maarqyn was smiling, a sick, amused smirk that didn’t reach his eyes. The tsentyl lay open in one hand, his thumb hovering over it, ready to shock her again.
“I came here because I was called,” she breathed.
“And yet you have no tsentyl to prove it, no supplies to treat an injured person?”
His thumb pressed down and Georgianna was back on the floor, writhing and screaming.
“Where are they, Medic?” Maarqyn shouted over her screams. “Tell me where Alec and Nyah are. I will let you go.”
Unlike before, now Maarqyn didn’t remove his thumb from the tsentyl. He kept it pressed to the surface, administering shock after shock to Georgianna’s trembling body. Her throat was raw from screaming. She couldn’t think, couldn’t focus on any thought other than the pain and making it stop. She clutched at the collar, trying to pull it from her neck, but it only sent the shocks through her hands instead, shooting in the opposite direction as well.
“They’re gone!” she screamed finally. “I was looking for them!”
The pain, while not gone completely, dropped instantly. Old tremors still radiated through her skin, but no new assaults came from the collar. Each breath seared in pain down her throat into her lungs as Georgianna lay on her side, staring across the dirty floor.
Maarqyn paced for a moment before he crouched down, taking hold of the collar and yanking her up from the floor.
Georgianna yelped, clutching at his wrist and trying to keep the pressure from her neck. Maarqyn pulled her close, glaring at her and ensuring she could see his thumb hovering over the tsentyl.
“Gone where?” he asked.
It was over, Georgianna knew that. There was no point in denying now, not when she had admitted that she knew about the escape.
“I don’t know,” she breathed.
Maarqyn’s thumb moved to press the charge, his fingers slipping from the collar so that he could shock her again. She shook her head desperately.
“I promise, I don’t know!” she cried. “I was meant to meet them and they weren’t here!”
She couldn’t tell them about the second meeting place, not when Alec was probably still waiting for her.
“Please! Please, I’m telling the truth! I knew about the escape, but I don’t know where they are now!”
Maarqyn stood up straight, brushing the dust from his arms. Georgianna watched him in desperation, her gaze fixed onto his face as he looked down at her in disgust. He finally glanced at the man on her left.
Holding out the tsentyl, he handed it to the Tsevstakre before rubbing his hands together.
“Keep shocking her while I see if the others found any tracks,” he stated as if telling the man to make sure his breakfast didn’t burn. “She’s going to Lyndbury anyway. They won’t care what state they get her in.”
Georgianna’s screams had begun before Maarqyn’s foot hit the first step downstairs.
YOU ARE READING
Dead and Buryd
Science Fiction"You are an inmate, not a medic. You should get used to that." On the planet Os-Veruh, the native Veniche have endured a decade under the oppressive rule of a race of invaders, the Adveni. When Georgianna Lennox, a Veniche medic, discovers her child...
