Wednesday Briefs: Ancalagon Ch. 109

Loktah dragged of the officers over to the door panel and opened it with their palm. I rushed into the room. “Garjah!”

He rolled on the bed, and I gasped. There wasn’t a mark on him that wasn’t natural, but he looked horrible. I could identify the signs of shock. His skin was pale, his markings standing out in sharp relief. His eyes were dull, and his mouth was parted as he breathed in a short, harsh breaths.

“What did they do to you?” I hesitated to touch him, crouching in front of the metal slab they’d given him to lay on without any cushion and shivered in the freezing cold air. He blinked and focused on my face.

“Essell?” He took in the first deep breath I saw him take, his chest shuddering. “Did they really capture you? I thought… they lied.” He clamped his lips together and reached out with all four arms, his hands shaking. “I am sorry. I thought I could keep you safe from them.”

I grabbed him, pulling him close to me, gasping in shock at the icy chill of his skin. At that same moment, something inside me that had been broken mended. I’d felt alone, but with this need to find Garjah driving me because I knew he was in danger, that he needed me. “You did. You did keep me safe. And now I’m here to make sure you’re safe too. We have to go.” I couldn’t ignore Loktah’s hisses. “I need help. I don’t know if he can stand or walk, and he’s too heavy for me to lift on my own.”

Garjah stiffened and was shoving me behind him as soon as Loktah entered the cell. Turned out I was wrong about him standing or walking. He was shaking, though, even as he tried to hide it with locked knees as he kept me behind him. I stroked his back, his muscles rigid despite the fine tremors rocking through him. “Garjah, Loktah came with me. He’s an officer who is helping rescue you. We have other people helping us, like Timok and Ases, waiting outside your cell. Please let him help me.”

For a long moment, I thought whatever they’d done to Garjah had damaged his ability to think or understand what I was saying. Then he started to slump. Loktah jumped forward and caught him with a grunt. I hurried to get under the other side of him, pulling his upper arm around my shoulder. Garjah curled his arm around my waist.

“We have to go,” Loktah said.

“Okay. Can you walk?” I asked Garjah.

“I will.”

He didn’t walk very well, but he stumbled the best he could between us. The second we hit the corridor, my heart rate ramped up again, not that it had slowed much. There were too many ways for someone to spot us. Garjah’s weight dragged on me, and I couldn’t move any faster.

Timok was in action as soon as he saw us. I had no idea where he had the spray hidden, but it was in his hand and Garjah was bolting upright the next moment. He blinked several times, but he never let go of me.

“Better?” Timok asked.

“Yes.” Garjah took a deep breath and then another one. He looked down at Bouncer who, in a move completely unlike him, had sat at his feet and leaned gently against us both. Garjah rested one of his lower hands on his head. Bouncer’s ears perked up, and he turned his head. “We need to go. They should be coming soon.”

Chaintrik’s eyes widened. “They?”

“The Kardoval.”

“They’ve been coming themselves?” Chaintrik turned. “We can get back out the same way we came in.”

Loktah tried to grab Garjah again, but he shook his head. “I’m fine.” Loktah looked at me.

“He’s not leaning on me.” He just wasn’t letting me go, either.

“I gave him the antidote to the serum they were using to keep him weak. He’ll be fine.” Timok certainly wasn’t waiting. “I don’t want to get stuck in one of these rooms. Let’s go.”

Every second of our escape I worried that the next one would be the one that led to our capture, and I almost couldn’t believe it was true when we escaped the building and made it underground.

We made it past the sentries and back into the little rooms where we’d waited, where I’d nearly gone crazy waiting, but now I had Garjah with me. He must have been here before because he didn’t ask any questions until we got there, knowing he had to be quiet.

“How many?”

“What?” I asked.

“How many did we just expose to get me out?” Garjah asked. He had his gaze focused on Chaintrik.

“Just me,” Loktah said. “But I was already under suspicion anyway. It wouldn’t have been much longer before I was in an interrogation room beside yours.”

“We had two on teams that we neutralized on our way in so their identities wouldn’t be exposed. Don’t worry, even if this rescue was planned quickly, we didn’t do it without weighing the risks. You’re too important to let them interrogate and subvert. Your bonded would not have tolerated it, for one.” Chaintrik stared at me. “He is very fierce, for a human.”

“Know a lot of humans, do you?” I snapped.

He raised one brow. “Exactly what I mean.” He waved a hand in my direction. “He has been very adamant in rescuing you.”

Garjah squeezed my hand. “You should have stayed safe,” he said to me. “If they had both of us, they have all they need to destroy the treaty. Even now we’re cut off from most of your allies.”

“Technically not,” said Ases. “Besides, we could always just broadcast what my mech recorded and bring the Galactic here to investigate them.”

“We disabled that feature,” Garjah reminded him.

“Did you?” Ases released a feral grin. “Are you sure about that?”