To Cut the Sky: Second Phase - The Waxing Quarter (c. 1)

“Damn it, vixen, I’ll cut your throat!”  A crash rang across the courtyard of the cellblock, and there was whoop of laughter from the on-lookers as the busty dirty-blonde woman with a razor-blade took a leap at the much smaller, thinner, and waif-like red-head.  Unfortunately for the blonde, her query was much fleeter of foot than she, and gave her a smart kick in the teeth as she overshot her target.  The blonde howled in pain and fury, clutching at her mouth, and then spat blood, turning back on what she’d moments before considered prey.

“You little bitch,” she hissed, wiping more of the viscous red from her already-red lips “Come here.”

A maniacal giggle erupted from the littler one, startling all around her.  Crossing her arms defiantly, she stood her ground and gave her ‘tormenter’ a snort.  “You’ve got two legs and a heart-beat, Cici, why don’t you come over here yourself?”  And with that she stuck her tongue out, and was halfway across the yard on her way towards the guard post.  She wasn’t a coward by any means, but she took delight in tormenting those who started something with her.  Four years in this hell-hole had transformed her into a demon.  She’d never imagine when she was younger that by age fifteen she’d have spent four long years in the worst block of the Jagg Island Detention Centre.  Sure, she’d planned on visiting Coruscant at some point in her life, but she’d never meant to spend four years here, and she’d never meant for it to be in a cell, or being tormented ceaselessly by bulkier girls who needed someone to pound on.

Needless to say, she’d learned very fast the right way to go about things.  Antagonize, run, hide behind the guards, and let them deal with it.  Of course this got her in larger amounts of trouble in the beginning when she couldn’t defend herself, but now...she didn’t need the guards.  She just enjoyed seeing the shock staffs pointed between the eyes of the ones chasing her.

It seemed no matter what she did someone was always upset at her - always screaming, always threatening.  Internally, she blamed it on her foul mix of blood, but she reminded herself in her heart that she had discarded that heritage - she was human.  She would never be one of them again.  Those who’d sold her to this pit.

“Get back here, WILLOW! COWARD!”  Tara snickered as she felt the vibrations in the earth of several of them catching up to her.  She was only a hundred yards away anyway.  A hundred yards away from-

Wait.  She skidded to a confused halt - where were the guards?  They’d abandoned their posts?

A soft jeering sound met her ears, drifting down from above.  She looked up onto the perimeter wall, and there they were - hissing and snickering at her.  Her face darkened and she shot them several rude gestures, before she was bowled over by an enraged Cici, whom she’d temporarily forgotten.  Her breath vacated her body as she hit the hard dirt of the ground, and coughed in the dust as she struggled to scuttle away.

Kriff.  Kriff, kriff, kriff!

Strong hands wrapped around her biceps, and she was lifted bodily from the ground, dangling there staring rather apprehensively at the still-furious blonde.

“You’re going to pay for my teeth, you little tramp.”

“What teeth?” she couldn’t resist shooting back, kicking at the person holding her to no avail.  “You mean those nasty yellow cratered things?  You should pay me for helping you get rid of a few.”

That had been an excessively bad idea.  With a howl, Cici pummelled a fist into Tara’s mid-section, causing her to reject the remains of her supper at a high velocity right into the blonde’s face.  The smaller red-head made sure that her torturer got every little bit of it before spitting after it to clear her mouth, capping off the goo in Cici’s face with her saliva.  The hotly furious look on the other’s face told wonders - she wasn’t going to be on any duties for a couple of days after this - assuming the guards had the brains to intervene before the straw-haired bull killed her.

“Say it.” a fist connected with her gut again, but this time it was empty.

“No.” she spat again at Cici.

Another fist caught her square in the chest.  “Say it!”

“Sc-screw you!”

Another.  “Now!”

This time a little blood flecked her lips.  “I’ll die first!”

“You’ll die anyway!”

And at that point the larger one took to simply drilling both fists hard into everything she could reach, drawing blood from Tara’s nose, mouth, eyes, and leaving numerous cuts along any bony part of her body that was struck.  The smaller one could only be thankful that the twit had lost the razor blade.  It must be in the dust somewhere back across the compound-thud. Another bludgeon caught her unawares in the side of the head - Cici had aimed high and managed to kick her right to the temple.

Stars spun in every direction as she blinked and shook her head violently to clear it.  No, had to stay conscious.  Couldn’t pass out in the hands of these barbarians.

Another blow to the side of the head, this time from being slammed front-up against the wall, and being pinned with her arms behind her back, shoulders screaming so she couldn’t move.  She felt Cici’s filthy nails curl into her hair, and she squinched her eyes shut as the durasteel soared toward her.  She could not, however, quite block out the flaming explosion in her skull.  Blood seeped down into her closed eyes, and she tasted it flowing past her lips.  Kriff.

Another smash into the wall.  The pain was impossibly immense, and she had the sudden need to vomit, and started retching from the pain, though she’d nothing to bring up but flecks of blood from the previous beating.  Another smash.  Spirits, she was going to die...her vision was beginning to turn a hazy twirl of red and black, and was hollowing out to two pinprick tunnels.  Smash.

Then everything was gone.

***

The wave of black began to gradually recede as her brain returned to working order from its traumatized state.  She moaned, expecting the pain, but it never appeared.  Why was she...soaked? 

Her eyes popped open, and she stared frantically.

She had been placed in some sort of tank filled with a viscous fluid - it had to be bacta gel.  It had never crossed her mind that the complex would have bacta tanks.  Or at least, not ones they put the inmates into.  She’d been hurt critically before, and been forced to tough it out.  What the hell was this supposed to be?

She shifted slightly, rubbing at her ankle with her other foot.  It was so smooth...wait a sec.

Someone had shaved her legs.  “What the kriff!?”

It also came to her attention at that point as she stared down at her body through the rippling, undulating gel that she was devoid of her clothing.  And her wrists were secured snugly in binders, behind her back.  She gave a jerk at them, testing to see if she could perhaps get free, but to no avail.  This was ridiculous!  Who the hell’s idea had this stupid stunt been?

“I might be a convict,” she hissed through gritted teeth, working at the hasp on the restraints  “But I’m not about to be anyone’s whore.”

It took about ten minutes of trying before she gave up, writing the effort off as useless - she couldn’t grip anything in the slippery gel, and she couldn’t seem to get her fingers to the mechanism anyway - not that she had anything to pick it with in the first place.  She’d just have to wait it out.

Reclining her head slightly, and letting her eyes drift closed, she relaxed.  Might as well enjoy the luxury she’d never see again while she could.  After all, they weren’t ever planning on letting her out of this junkyard.  She was here for life.  Hopefully she’d just die young...

“I’d rather you not, young lady.” came a voice, in answer to her thoughts, it seemed.  “You see, it took me quite a long while to find you, disturbance that you were.  I’m not about to let you slip away now.”

Her heart leapt in fear, and she jerked in the tank, accidentally slipping off and submerging herself in the liquid from the frightened movement.  She inhaled on instinct, and found herself choking on anaesthetic goo.  Shit lot of good it was doing her lungs like this!  Eyes wide, she thrashed, unable to pull herself up since her hands were bound tightly behind her, and she sank until her toes touched the bottom.  A solid kick off the bottom sent her rocketing to the top again, where she broke the barrier to air, and spewed a rather large amount of bacta into the air - incidentally right into the face of the speaker who’d frightened her in the first place.  She didn’t feel altogether guilty about the results either, though she didn’t want to find out what he was going to do to her.

“B-bastard...” she choked, coughing more of it up and spitting it at him.  “What in hell did you do this to me for?”

“Yearghhh...” he skimmed the goo from his face, spattering it on the floor, and revealing a slickly glistening young man - he looked like he was mid twenties, maybe late.  He had jet black hair, cropped to his shoulders, wavy and kind of attractive.  Not that she knew too much in that department - she was far more versed in the art of fighting than romance.  Romance might as well be a curse word as far as she was concerned.  But then her thoughts were broken again as she began to sink, devoid of any support.

“Help me, you stupid nerf-herder!” she cried, tilting her head back as the gel rushed up into her nostrils.  He glared, but seized her by the scruff and hauled her up, right out of the tub, setting her on her feet on the floor.  Sheets of bacta rolled from her body to spill everywhere, and she stumbled, some of the pain from her earlier beating returning.  The gel had really been suppressing it.  She moaned softly as her knees gave out, and was just saved from hitting the floor by his hand under her arm. “Woah, little lady...stay on your feet.”

“Tryin’,” she wrinkled her nose, unimpressed still with the binders.  “What’s the big idea?”

He looked blank.  “With what?”

She jingled her wrists, making the metal clack.

He went red, all of a sudden remembering that it prevented her from covering herself.  “Oh, kriff, I forgot about those.  We just wanted to make sure you didn’t wake up and bolt.”

She glared at him.  “That’s nice.  Take them off.”

He looked away, and started peeling off his cloak.  “I don’t have the key on me.  But...” he draped it around her shoulders, clipping the brooch across the front of her throat.  “Uhh...that ought to, um, help.”

Oh, she was going to kill him.  She was going to- Crack.  A kick to his shins, and she took off at top speed across the medical bay.  He went down with a grunt of surprise, but she was too busy trying to escape to notice.  A klaxon sounded, and red lights started flashing as she threw herself through the glass partition, shoulder first.  Hell on this!
The cloak billowed wonderfully around her - she’d have to stand in the wind with it like this, and-

Something tightened around her throat viciously - someone had grabbed the cloak, and with a coughing choke and a strangled cry, down she went.  Hard.  Her head smacked off the tiles of the floor, and she rolled, coughing uncontrollably, to see him walking up the corridor after her, a slight limp to his step.  He looked rather unhappy, to say the least - brow furrowed and such a dark expression.  Oops...?

But how had he...? Who’d grabbed her?

“That,” he snapped, stopping next to her, and stooping down to grab her by the upper arm, and turn her around to march her back down the hall roughly “Was not funny.”

“Really,” she rasped through gritted teeth “Here I thought it was kriffing hilarious-”

“We’ll see.”