Page 2 of Ravaged By the Reaper
My belongings are dumped onto a secondary table—my gowns, my perfumes, my jeweled stylus, my personal effects. Everything is cataloged, stripped of its meaning. As if I’m nothing more than a dangerous curiosity.
As they rifle through my things, I stare at the floor, willing myself not to tremble. This is just a misfire. A delay. Someone will realize the error.
But when Malem turns back to me, eyes gleaming like a predator who’s smelled blood, I know better.
This isn’t a mistake.
This is the beginning.
They bring through two winding corridors, deeper and deeper into the station’s belly, each step clanking with finality. I count the turns. I note the cameras. I mark the pressure points in the guards’ armor, even as my heart tries to claw its way outof my chest. It’s automatic—Companion training hardwired into my bones.
The room they drag me to smells like rust and rot. Not the sharp tang of blood, but older—like abandoned machinery or buried secrets. The walls are matte black, seamless, and the floor has a slight incline that makes me uneasy, like I’m being funneled downward—into something meant to trap and hold.
The metal table is bolted to the floor. No cushioning. No restraints padded. They slam me onto it with all the grace of meat dropped onto a butcher’s slab.
“I demand to speak with an Advocate,” I say for the third time, my voice cracking but controlled. “Coalition law recognizes the right to defense. You know this.”
Malem doesn’t look up. He’s scrolling through something on a translucent data square, fingers tapping softly.
“I know our laws,” he says without inflection. “Do you know the penalties for espionage, Companion Destrier?”
“I’m not a spy,” I snap.
He finally looks at me, and his eyes glint with something between curiosity and pity. “But you are from the Alliance. And your presence here… under the guise of a service contract… in this exact sector… it’s all very curious.”
“My contract was filed through proper channels. My client was pre-approved. You’re violating both treaty and protocol?—”
“Yes,” he says gently. “That’s how I know you’re lying.”
My breath stalls. I stare up at the ceiling—no lights, just a dull red glow emanating from somewhere unseen. My wrists are already raw against the restraints. The cold seeps in, clawing up my spine like a lover with frostbitten fingers.
“I am not—” I begin, but he cuts me off with a slight raise of his hand.
“There’s no point in the song and dance, my dear.” He turns to a small black case on the far table. I hear a series of soft,organic clicks as he opens it. “Pain makes liars tell the truth. But truth? Truth makes liars scream.”
He turns around with something cradled delicately in his hands.
I stop breathing.
It’s small. Maybe the size of a melon. Its skin is slick and opalescent, shifting through shades of purple and green. Tendrils uncoil lazily in the air, twitching with awareness. Its center pulses like a heart—or an engine. There’s a glassy black eye in the center of its body. No, not an eye. A lens. Biotech. It watches me.
“What the hell is that?”
“A truth-seeker,” Malem says, walking toward me with the thing balanced in his palm like a chalice. “It doesn't torture. It doesn’t even hurt. Not intentionally. It simply… accesses.”
I thrash against the straps. “You can’t do this! I haven’t been charged!”
“You’ve been accused.” He stops at the side of the table and leans down, his breath cold against my cheek. “That’s enough.”
“Please,” I say, voice trembling now. “Please. I haven’t done anything. I’m not Alliance intelligence. I’m not anyone. I’m just?—”
“You’re just inconvenient,” he murmurs, and sets the creature on my face.
It moves fast.
The tendrils dive down—up my nostrils, into my ears, across my temples, latching onto my spinal nodes, spreading like liquid fire through my skull. I scream. I can’t help it. The pain is… wrong. Not sharp, not stabbing. It’sinvasive.Like it’s peeling me open neuron by neuron, cell by cell.
Memories slam into me.
