Page 48 of Star Claimed Omega
Chapter 8
SOLEIL
The slap cracked across her cheek like lightning through fog.
Soleil gasped to wakefulness, choking on her breath and the reek of rot, steel, and piss, as the world rushed into clarity.
Her eyes struggled to open, her vision fragmented, blurred at the edges.
She blinked as her auditory senses perceived male voices, rough as grit.
‘Yo, Scarletta. Wake thefokkup. Your handlers need you back on the job.’
She tried to move her limbs, but they seemed like sacks of wet sand.
Her body throbbed, burning and freezing all at once.
She scarcely lifted her head as two shapes sharpened into view, burly, unshaven men in faded blue-gray uniforms, the kind worn by ice haulers docked in from the outer rings.
The first man, stocky, with breath like sour ‘hol, crouched and shoved her shoulder.
‘Vern sent us. As in your precious uncle. Said you’re off mission. We’re here to check on you and impress on your ass the need to keep to the plan. While reminding you of your obligation to him and to the blood you want to keep alive.’
The second one laughed, hoarse and cruel, and leaned in. ‘He didn’t say you’d be half-dead, though.’
Their hands were on her, grabbing, tugging, trying to pull her upright. Her knees buckled uselessly, and she crumpled like a broken marionette.
‘Fokk’ssake,’ muttered the first. ‘She’s sick. We need to take her to a clinic.’
‘Fee didn’t cover this shit,’ the other growled. ‘No way we’re taking her to a medbay. Don’t need that kinda heat.’
They began to bicker, rough fingers still pawing at her, as if willing her into motion.
She whimpered, curling in on herself, nausea thick in her throat, her limbs twitching with shuddering chills.
Whump.
Soleil blinked and struggled to open her eyes, confused by the sudden absence of hands on her.
One of the men standing over her suddenly launched into the air, his body slamming into the alley floor.
Another thud. A grunt. The hiss of broken breath.
A blur moved light, fast, and lethal, extremities striking like whipcord.
The secondkinaiswung, missed, and was grabbed mid-lunge, hurled into the side of a steel vent with a dull clang.
The other, who roused himself from the ground, attempted to make a run for it, but only got two steps before he was crushed into the cement by a single, brutal strike.
Silence fell, and her eyes fluttered shut, unable to remain open.
She caught the unmistakable hiss of energy cuffs as her breath rasped in her throat, each inhale wet and broken.
A pair of prowling boots approached her, and she tensed, bracing for more violence.
Until a voice, familiar, deep, and hard, growled out. ‘Soleil?’
Her eyes flickered open.
