Chapter 14 Jessa
The Kwin liked the foot massage. She liked it so much she let me feed Tovis again the next day, but this time, I bargained a facial, and I got to feed Jiith, as well.
I didn’t know why I did it, only that the syto looked like a corpse, and walking past his pale, shuddering body, listening to his wheezing breaths while I fed Tovis made me feel sick.
It helped that the Kwin had no idea what a facial was supposed to entail, so I used the cooking oil from the bar’s grill area and enjoyed my petty revenge as I rubbed Pam into her face and hoped all her pores got clogged.
After an hour of rubbing that left my hands stiff and cramping, I was escorted to the stakes outside by one of the guards. I fed Tovis first, just in case the Kwin changed her mind, and then picked my way across the glass to the other stake.
A full twenty-four hours exposed to the elements had not been kind to the imprisoned syto. He lay on his side, barely breathing, his skin blistered and peeling from the sun.
“Here,” I muttered, still a little salty about being kidnapped. “Food and some water.”
I set the dry ration bar in front of him and waited until he opened his eyes to set down the cup of water. I sold my massage skills for the drink I was giving him, the last thing I wanted was for him to knock it over and waste it.
“Why?” he rasped out, reaching for the cup with shaky hands.
“Because some humans are better than sytos,” I said bluntly. “And I couldn’t handle watching you die this way.”
“I’ll still die,” he said, gulping down the water. “The Kwin shows no mercy. I’m an example to the others.”
“Maybe you will, maybe you won’t,” I muttered, turning away. “But at least I didn’t just let it happen.”
I hurried back toward Tovis, hoping to get a few minutes with him before I was dragged back inside.
“Thank you, female,” Jiith called out.
“Jessa, my name is Jessa.”
He didn’t reply and I pushed him out of my head as I pressed myself to Tovis’ side. I’d done what I could, but I didn’t owe the syto anything.
Tovis looked down at me, his eyes soft.
“You’re a good female,” he murmured, his tail curling upward to stroke my bare leg.
“It doesn’t bother you that I helped him?” I asked. I had worried a little. The sytos had enslaved Tovis, twice now. I doubted he had a lot of charitable feelings toward them.
“Am I bothered that my mate is kind? Never.” He smiled down at me. “Besides, we have two sytos in our band. Uriish is a bit unpleasant, but Gigi is as good a turoch as any of us.”
“Aren’t they your enemies?” I wondered, trying to picture a camp full of turochs making friends with two tentacle headed aliens. “Don’t you hate them for everything they’ve done?”
He cocked his head to the side. “They’ve proved themselves. The Kwin is evil, many sytos are cruel, but most are merely slaves, born to do a task and unable to understand any other way of life. I pity them.”
I looked over at Jiith. He’d sat up and was gnawing at the ration bar like a feral animal. Pity, I could understand. Forgiveness? Friendship? Maybe I could learn a thing or two from Tovis, but I wasn’t quite there yet.
***
They brought back a percer the next day.
I’d just finished handing over ration bars and water to Tovis when the returning search part struggled into view. Six sytos were holding onto a huge net, each of them leaning as far from the thrashing beast inside as they could.
The rest of them eyed the beast warily, batons at the ready, as they painstakingly dragged it into the parking lot. It looked almost identical to the one that had knocked Tovis down, massive, armored, a sickly yellow, but this one had longer tusks, and was favoring its back leg.
Someone ran inside, no doubt alerting the Kwin that her newest pet had arrived.
I stood beside Tovis, watching with my heart in my throat as the percer planted its feet and tossed its head.
Its heavy tusks caught on the net and hurled one unlucky syto to the ground, his hands tangled in the weave.
He scrambled up but couldn’t back up in time to reach safety.
The percer lunged for him, catching his arm in its bony jaws and crunching right through the limb.
The syto screamed, jerking back, sans arm, and stumbled away, spurting blood everywhere. It seemed like it only took seconds for him to bleed out, he fell to his knees, then to his face. His legs twitching spastically as his body was surrounded by pooling blood.
I covered my mouth, holding back a retch at the sight.
I wasn’t naive, I knew death happened before the world ended.
There had always been wars, murders, nine car pile-ups that left bodies and suffering in their wake.
But before all this, I’d been lucky enough to be insulated from the grim reality of things.
Bad things belonged on the news and in history books. I’d never been forced to watch it in real time, hear the sounds, smell the aftermath. Because in just a few days, I’d learned death had a smell and it haunted me.
“You can’t fight that thing,” I whispered, even though he’d survived an encounter in front of me.
Tovis bumped shoulders with me. “I’ve fought worse. The females are bigger, more violent and have an extra set of limbs that they can stab you with. Those are the ones I fought in the arena.”
I looked over at him in horror. There was something worse than this?
“I fought beside Vret,” he said. “But he moved so slowly, we usually just had him distract the thing while I killed it.”
“Tovis,” I breathed, unable to form words that could communicate just how much I hated this.
“Things are not as hopeless as they seem, Jessa. I swear it.”
I nodded, but I didn’t believe his pretty promises and he knew it.
The door to the strip club opened and the Kwin’s chair was carried out. She scanned the parking lot until she spotted me and I knew my time with him was up.
“I’ll-” I swallowed hard, doing my best to trust him. “I’ll bring you food tomorrow.”
It was as close to a ’good luck’ as I could manage.