9. Sophie
SOPHIE
T he arena is screaming.
Metal on metal. Voices tearing themselves raw.
The crowd’s roar fractures into something jagged and directionless as Ace’s carefully staged nightmare starts eating itself alive.
Drums stutter, miss beats, then collide with each other.
Smoke pours through the corridors in greasy waves, burning my eyes and turning every breath into a gamble.
“Now would be an excellent moment, Sophie,” Ragon murmurs, his voice maddeningly calm in my ear.
“I’m moving,” I snap, already sprinting.
Jax’s cage punches out of the haze like a bad dream made solid.
Thick bars. Reinforced welds. Mean and deliberate, built to make escape feel theoretical.
One guard is down in front of it, facedown and unmoving.
The other is backing away from Ragon with a look on his face like he’s trying to remember every bad decision he’s ever made all at once.
I don’t wait to see how that ends.
I drop to my knees at the lock, fingers slick with sweat, heart slamming so hard it rattles my teeth. The mechanism is crude but stubborn, teeth worn from overuse and neglect. My hands fumble once.
“Come on,” I hiss at myself. “Come on.”
The noise presses in from every direction. Feet pounding. Someone screaming too close for comfort. I force my breathing to slow, feel the shape of the lock instead of fighting it.
There.
The lock gives with a sharp clack that sounds impossibly loud.
“Jax,” I whisper, yanking the door open.
He’s moving before I finish the word. On his feet, swaying just slightly before catching himself on the bars. Up close, the damage hits me harder than I expect. Bruises layered over bruises. Dried blood at his hairline. One arm held too carefully, shoulder stiff.
His eyes lock on mine.
“You came back,” he says, like it never crossed his mind that I wouldn’t.
“Don’t get sentimental,” I say, voice shaking despite myself. I duck under his arm and haul it over my shoulder. “We’re not done yet.”
He huffs a rough laugh. “Missed you too.”
Ragon finishes his opponent with a sharp, efficient movement and turns toward us, scales flashing in the firelight. “Reunion later,” he says briskly. “Escape now.”
We run.
The corridors are a crush of bodies and panic. Guards shove past prisoners. Prisoners shove back. Someone fires a weapon wildly and sparks rain from a ruptured cable overhead. The air smells like burned oil and fear.
Ragon leads, carving a path through the chaos with terrifying precision. Jax stays tight to my side, striking when he has to, teeth clenched against pain he refuses to acknowledge. I grip the pistol so hard my knuckles ache, every nerve screaming awareness.
A gate slams down ahead of us with a bone-rattling crash, cutting off the main exit.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter.
The gate is held fast by a thick weighted rope system, counterbalances clanking as guards on the other side try to reset it. The rope sways, heavy and taut, just out of reach.
Ragon skids to a stop and looks at it, then at me. “Confidence level?”
My mouth is dry. The distance is longer than I’d like. The rope keeps moving.
“I’ve got twenty shots,” I say.
“You require one,” he replies.
Jax glances at me, eyebrow lifting. “No pressure or anything.”
I raise the pistol. My arms shake, then steady as I lock my elbows the way my father drilled into me, years ago in a ship bay that smelled like oil and stars.
Doesn’t matter where you are, he’d said, patient as always. If you know the stars, you know where you’re pointing. If you know your weapon, you trust it.
I squeeze the trigger.
The recoil punches up my arms, sharp and loud. The shot snaps the rope clean through. For half a heartbeat nothing happens.
Then the weights drop.
The gate shudders, screams, and slams open with a crash that sends people diving out of the way.
“Nice shot,” Jax says, breathless, a flash of something like pride cutting through the pain.
I shrug, adrenaline still screaming. “My dad taught me to shoot. Said it was as important as learning star charts.”
“Your father sounds like a very wise man,” Ragon says, already moving again, finishing off a charging guard with brutal efficiency. “But perhaps we should discuss firearms proficiency another time and escape now ?”
“Strongly agree,” I say, sprinting.
We burst into open air.
Night slams into us like a blessing. Fires rage across the camp, smoke clawing at the sky. Alarms wail now, late and overlapping. Somewhere behind us, Ace is probably screaming himself hoarse.
Then I see it.
“The crawler,” I shout, pointing.
It’s parked near a supply rig, dust-coated and scarred but unmistakably ours. Two of Ace’s men are arguing over it, one already halfway up the frame.
“That’s ours,” I add, irrationally furious.
Jax laughs, sharp and wild. “She gets possessive.”
Ragon doesn’t slow. He barrels into them, momentum and mass doing most of the work. One goes down hard. The other takes one look at him and runs.
Jax hauls himself into the driver’s seat with a grunt, fingers flying over controls he knows better than his own pulse. The engine roars to life like it’s been waiting.
I scramble up beside him as Ragon vaults onto the rear, gripping a handhold like it’s nothing. Gunfire cracks behind us, rounds chewing up dust as we tear through the outer barricade and burst into the open desert.
The camp shrinks behind us, fires flickering like dying stars.
The crawler settles into a steady rhythm as we put distance between ourselves and Ace’s nightmare. Wind cuts the heat. The stink of blood and smoke fades.
For a few breaths, none of us speak.
Then Ragon breaks the silence. “So,” he says mildly, “I leave you alone for a handful of days and you allow yourself to be captured by a warlord with atrocious taste.”
Jax snorts. “Funny. I was going to say the same about you and that ridiculous cloak.”
“This cloak is functional,” Ragon replies. “And intimidating.”
“It has tassels.”
“Decorative intimidation.”
I laugh despite myself.
Jax glances at me, expression softening. “He didn’t… get weird with you, did he?”
Ragon gasps dramatically. “I am wounded.”
I shake my head. “No. He wasn’t creepy at all.”
Jax’s mouth tightens just a fraction. “Huh.”
Ragon’s smile sharpens, pleased with himself, and I suddenly have the strong urge to roll my eyes and keep them on the road ahead.