Pheligian Falcon: Prison Escape

Three convicted criminals have landed in Earth's highest security prison — the spaceship, known as The Pheligian Falcon — for a string of interconnected crimes. One: embezzlement of government funds. Two: political assassination. Three: aiding and abetting the killer. Each convicted party has a part in another's story -- creating a cycle of pain that culminates in one shared cell between them. They have the opportunity to finish the cycle for good, but a greater threat looms over them. The exiled prison is set to enter a space storm that will destroy the ship and kill its inhabitants. The crisis is preventable, but the powers that be see it as an opportunity to sever the prison from the outside world. For the convicts, it's no longer a game of escape. It's a race for survival.

Something was wrong. Marius wasn't dead after all.

Wasn't death supposed to be cold and still? He was certainly cold-- colder than he'd ever been. But the steadiness had been disturbed. Marius could feel it in the way the water currents stirred against the hairs on his arms, how he seemed to be sinking further into its depths. Metal still kissed his lips, but for the first time, he could take notice of the air flowing through it. Even so, nothing broke that darkness where it made no difference whether his eyes were open or not, if he even could open his eyes. That much remained constant.

If he was dead, then this made for a strange coffin. But if he wasn't dead--

The metal tube was torn away, and water came flooding in to take its place. Marius choked, finding that he very, very much still needed to breathe as iciness filled his lungs, stinging worse with every failed gasp. A muted yet piercing beeping sound, like a distress alarm, stabbed through the silence he'd taken for granted. On instinct, he reached upwards, desperately searching for the surface-- but his numb, sluggish fingers found only smooth plastic edges or more water. The only air to be found was what bubbled around his face from that last sabotaged breath. He couldn't help the panic as he clawed at the water, his chest gripped by a frosty, unwelcome certainty.

Maybe there was no surface. Maybe he wasn't dead now, but he was about to be.

Then there was a hand on his hand, and a force. Motion. Marius clung onto it as he was drawn upwards, with the darkness growing thinner each heartbeat-- and then he was crashing into air. He heaved, finding the water was stubborn to leave his lungs, and for a moment, it seemed like he might drown anyway. But he found his first taste of air after a few more splutters, and he drew it in, hacking out more fluid to make room for it.

Who would bother to bring him back to life? He was no good to anyone-- not anymore. Even with his thoughts racing, combing through every inch of his subconscious, he could not bring a name to mind.

"Don't you know not to breathe water?" a voice cut in drily. "I thought you were supposed to be smart."

...What?

Marius blinked frantically, wiping the freezing drops from his eyes. He didn't know that voice, and once his vision cleared, he could tell he didn't know either of the people that it could have come from. Two men stood before him in uniform, arms folded over their chests as they watched him with disinterest. The uniform was not the sleek and tactical fit of his piloting days, or the crisp and decorated suits of the officers he'd worked among. No, they were baggy and plain clothes, made even less impressive by their taupe color. It was the outfit of a guard, and not a particularly important one at that.

There was a clear, impatient expectation in their eyes, but he didn't know what they wanted from him. Teeth chattering, Marius forced himself to focus enough to make a sweep of the room. The singular window was a thin but long strip of thick glass that stared out into empty darkness, and he was sitting in the only object in the room-- a tank filled with ice water, itself filled with floating tubes and pipes. Distantly, he realized those parts must have been keeping him alive during his coma.

His coma. He remembered it now. They'd forced him into this very tank, hooked him up to a breathing apparatus and run an IV through his arm. He hadn't been willing to go under the water himself, so they'd pushed his head down, and he'd forgotten not to fight. It hadn't mattered. The darkness hadn't waited for him to surrender.

He was only supposed to wake up when he was there.. Which meant he was...

"You've had a whole year in there," the guard on the left said flatly-- the same one who had spoken earlier. "Do you really need another minute?"

No, no he did not. Taking a deep breath, Marius braced his arms on either side of the tub, starting to lift himself out. He managed to get into a standing position, but the minute he let go and found his weight rested on his feet, he couldn't hold it. His legs were numb, and his joints were stiff from the motionless cold. He staggered forward one step, then two, just enough to get out of the water and onto the floor before he tumbled over.

The guards didn't so much as budge in his direction. Great. Why should they?

"Here's your towel," the same guard said, holding something out. "You get two minutes to dry yourself off."

Marius settled his gaze on it. It was a piece of paper-thin fabric, if that could even be called fabric. It was hardly any larger than a bathmat, too.

"I'm still waiting on that towel," he said.

He'd meant for it to sound smoother, but his voice was patchy, unused to the absence of silence. The speechless guard raised his eyebrows, and the other one only let out an unimpressed snort as he threw the towel Marius's way. It really felt like he was throwing it at Marius, though, because it hit his chest with more force than was necessary. Forcing his face into impassive neutrality, Marius raised the rag to his hair, scrunching the water out. He still lacked the strength to sit up comfortably, and as he worked, he shuffled inch by inch over to the wall so he could lean against it. Perching his chin on the windowsill ledge felt almost nice. Maybe his standards had just fallen impossibly low in the last couple of minutes.

But something-- many things-- caught his eye through the glass, and he paused, in the middle of holding the towel to his arm.

The darkness outside wasn't empty at all. He'd never seen the stars on Earth's surface: the city lights, the billboards floating in the sky, and the ships slicing through the night had drowned even the brighest one out centuries ago. Even from the windshield of his Vesper, near-weightless in the upper atmosphere, the pinpricks of light had been washed out by hazy blue. It had been the best he could do to learn how to make out the brightest ones: both of the bears, Orion drawing his bow, Cassiopeia on her throne. But from here, he thought he could see every single star in the galaxy-- and not recognize a single one.

"That's two minutes," the guard said, stepping his way. But Marius didn't turn, transfixed by the lights.

"Which one is Sol?"

"Sol?"

"Sol. You know... our sun." But that wasn't his sun anymore.

The memories flickered back, first one by one, then all at once. TRAPPIST-3 was redder, cooler, and almost a light year away from home. He hadn't quite believed it when he'd been told they'd be sending him there, after all the courtrooms, the holding cells, the interrogation room with a single chair and a desk covered with his own life twisted against him. Even the officers storming into his cubicle on his lunch break, with distrust in their eyes he didn't understand, hadn't felt real.

It still didn't feel real.

The silent guard only shrugged. Marius couldn't possibly imagine not caring enough to at least know what star they all came from. Then again, these two didn't seem to care about anything.

"Your clothes," the talking guard said dryly, ignoring his question as he dropped a golden-yellow jumpsuit on the ground beside Marius. It looked awfully reminiscent of a rubber duck.

Atop the suit sat a pair of soft, white, lycra shoes. It wasn't like he knew anything about fashion, but these obviously weren't for the aesthetics. Marius pursed his lips as he collected them, unfolding the suit and holding it out. It looked no more pleasant in its entirety. A patch numbered #27899 stared back at him.

"Oh, you shouldn't have," he muttered.

A glance upward informed him the guards were still watching him. So much for privacy. Marius rolled his eyes and looked away as he reached for the zipper of the thermal layer he'd woken up in.

At least the jumpsuit fit. It was far from cozy, being made of synthetic fabric, but it wasn't itchy or irritating either. Marius held his now-yellow arms out in front of him, trying to think of something else positive to say about it.

It wasn't made of the same material as the "towel". There. Things were looking up already.

This time, the guards-- even the one known to occasionally open his mouth-- didn't even bother with an introduction as they shoved a tray containing three items on the floor towards him: a spoon, a dish of steaming water, and a pouch of dry, vaguely orange powder. Marius recognized it instantly as the dehydrated ration packs they handed out to infantry and mech soldiers on active duty. Usually, they were meant to at least imitate a particular food, however poorly it was accomplished, but he didn't have the slightest idea what this was intended to be. He didn't love the idea of finding out.

Still, he realized he was starving. This had to be his first real meal in... a year? Whatever had been sustaining him in that coma, he doubted it was anything solid. Steeling himself, Marius tore the pouch open and dumped its contents into the bowl.

Somehow, upon contact with the water, it turned a bland shade of brown, which was hardly encouraging. Stirring it in gave him a sludgy paste with the consistency of mud-- and Marius found it actually tasted quite a bit like dirt, too, as he learned while trying not to gag after his first bite. He couldn't help a grimace.

"What exactly is this meant to be?" he asked in disbelief.

"Vitamins," the same guard said plainly. "Fiber. Minerals."

"Oh, of course," Marius said. "This is definitely all-natural."

The guard merely pointed at the dish.

"You make me look fun at parties," Marius mumbled as he forced the next spoonful to his mouth.

How did the mixture move like slime while still crunching unpleasantly between his teeth? They had to have engineered that on purpose. He did his best to avoid chewing altogether as he finished the bowl. Somehow, once it was empty, he didn't feel hungry anymore. At least he had that much.

The guards swept the tray away from him, dropping it unceremoniously into a hatch in the wall. From the thuds that followed, Marius could tell the chute went on for quite a while. Wasn't this only the transport ship, though? How large was this one-- and how many like him did it hold?

"Up," the first guard said. "It's been long enough."

And of course he would be running late to his own imprisonment, too. He was just a name on what had to be one very, very long list.

This time, Marius managed to get to his feet without losing balance, although it still didn't feel right. Cautiously, he took one step forward, then another, and another. He still swore his legs could collapse from under him at a moment's notice, but it hadn't happened yet, so he just had to get where he was going before it did.

And he was going...

"We'll be escorting you to your cell," the guard said. "We docked with the Pheligian Falcon an hour ago, and we're only scheduled to rendezvous for three more, so no funny business. Any time wasted on shutting down a foolish escape attempt will not be looked on kindly."

"Where's there to go?" The reply came out instinctively, with more bitterness than he realized he was carrying. He didn't get a response, other than two flat looks, and he didn't need one. It wasn't like the question had an answer anyway.

The silent guard opened the door, and Marius found himself staring into a long, sterile-white hallway. With the two guards now flanking him on either side, there was no question about where he should be going. He stepped out and didn't look back.

The guards took him on a turn after about two minutes of walking, but where Marius expected another branching hall, he found a tunnel far longer than the narrow corridor he'd just walked down. It stretched into near-darkness barely broken by intersperced light panels as far as he could see. At its opening was a platform levitating over magnetic rails, like a cross between a train and a horizontal elevator. Marius stared ahead where the lights faded out, struck with the terrible feeling that he already knew what was at the other end, and that this was a one way ride.

But even if there was anything to do, there was no time to do it. He was being escorted onto the platform, and with the press of a button, they were racing off with startling speed.

Like the window he'd first looked out of, he quickly realized the tunnel wasn't completely dark. Panes of glass whizzed by, almost too rapidly to see through without interruption. The backdrop of vivid stars still made no sense to him, but they were only half of what he could make out. At first, he mistook it for a moon-- a misshapen, stretched-out moon, with ridges, pipes and greebles in place of craters and seas, and a sharp terminator line dividing light and shadow on its surface. But of course, it was a ship. The Pheligian Falcon, at that.

He wasn't sure he'd ever felt so small, and it wasn't just the difference in physical size.

The platform screeched to a halt, and even if he hadn't traveled all that distance, Marius would have instantly known he was standing on a different spaceship. That was not to say it was an improvement. Where the transport ship had been a plain, inoffensive smooth-edged white, the prison was all dull metal and sharp sides. The fluorescent lights overhead glared from between winding mazes of pipes and valves, and the floor was a grid walkway interlocking over what appeared to be miles and miles of empty darkness below. It wasn't as if Marius had the most luxurious idea of space travel-- afterall, his experience was mostly within the Vesper's tight, purely functional cockpit, but even that had had a sort of refined elegance to what little space it took up. This? Someone had tried to make this spaceship as actively hostile-looking as possible, and it had worked. It would have been impressive, if it weren't so horribly depressing.

The clap of his feet echoing off the metal came to a halt when they reached a doorway with an airtight seal. As he sized up the guards waiting for him, he noticed that, in contrast to the cargo crew's lifeless beige, the Pheligian crew were dressed in stark white. On their hips, they had a multitool that looked like it served as both a remote and a tazer. And from the panels on their wrists, everything else was controlled by their fingertips.

"Turn around please," the man said to Marius while he simultaneously tapped at his wrist.

The guards did not wait for Marius to obey. Pushing him at the shoulders, they turned him for the guards. He heard a click, and a chime.

"Marius Santiago," the man confirmed.

"From the Wellington case?" the female guard asked. In contrast to the neutral indifference he'd been met with at every turn, Marius was surprised to find a spark of interest in her voice.

"You get the news all the way out here?" the talkative guard asked dryly, pushing Marius forward, and it was all he could do not to stagger on weak legs. "Did it reach you a year late?"

"Fortunately," the man replied, catching Marius by the shoulders. "Gives us something to talk about. Do you get news in-flight?"

"I think I'd quit if we didn't," the other said. "It's bad enough we have to stop for refueling, and all of the unloading we have to do. But I know you've got the worst of it."

The male and female guard in white exchanged a brief, knowing glance, and the woman only huffed.

"See you soon, Lennox," the woman said.

"Same to you, Fyedora."

Echoes followed every step of the cargo ship's guards, but his new custodians regarded them no further. While the man held Marius by the arm, Fyedora's fingers flew over her wrist, and a bright light emitted from the screen, flashing blue across her pale face.

The door beside them opened with a ding, and a sigh from the hinges. A hiss of air broke through.

"You should get that fixed," Marius said, without thinking. "Sounds like the pneumatics have a leak."

The man holding his arm chuckled. "It adds character. Now come on."

"Sure, that's another term for structual failure," Marius murmured, but he did pick up the pace.

The three of them stepped through, and Fyedora sealed the door hatch again, with a similar noise of complaint from the tubing.

"There hasn't been a single interaction I've had with Lennox where he hasn't bemoaned the mandatory wait time," Fyedora said, as if Marius was invisible.

"Yeah, well he won't have to complain much longer," the man said. "He'll blink, and it'll be over." With a jostle of Marius's arm, the man smirked. "Just like it'll be for you."

Marius furrowed his brow as he stared at him incredulously, too caught off guard to form a question.

"Josiah," Fyedora chided.

"Yeesh, Fye," Josiah sighed. "You're always so soft on the nerdy types. It's not like he's helpless. He landed himself in prison all by himself, didn't he?"

It took some outside help, actually, Marius thought bitterly, but he only pressed his lips together.

"Give me that," Fye said. But instead of taking an object like her sentence implied, she grabbed Marius's arm, and pulled him away from Josiah, leading him down the ever-stretching corridor herself.

Josiah followed behind with another laugh. Marius wasn't fond of how it echoed off the walls, along with every sound this metal husk carried. Just like the corridor, it felt like his laughter went on forever.

If Josiah was trying to push his buttons, then this journey had the successful effect of making him feel insignifant. He lost count of how many turns and checkpoints they led him through: the first time he thought they were nearing the end, it was only to board an elevator and descend three levels, and the inspections continued on the other side. Marius had lost all sense of time, and his legs had gone weak, by the point he finally found himself at what had to be the end destination: a cell block.

It was obviously one of many, with two levels and at least a hundred cells on either side of the mezzanine, each with its own iridescent, ever-shifting force field locking in its residents. He spotted three to a cell, but surprisingly, he spotted almost as many guards as he did prisoners, all of which were either actively patroling the hall or standing at a post. Marius was far from the only prisoner just arriving, as he saw a number of figures in yellow being escorted ahead, but for some reason, he felt more eyes on him than anyone else. Was he imagining it?

"Now the party's starting," a guard bellowed through a laugh as he passed.

"Hey, cut it out," Josiah laughed back.

But a whistle rang out from the cell beside them. That was a new one. Marius narrowed his eyes at its source, and in return, received a mocking nod and thumbs up from the prisoner inside.

"You cut it out too," Josiah snapped, sharper, and the man held up his hands in surrender.

Definitely not imagining it, then. But what was he seeing?

Or rather, what was he missing...

On instinct, Marius's gaze flicked up to the nearest security camera. He'd sensed it there the minute he'd walked in-- a 3043 Oculus model, all spaced about six feet apart. Interesting choice, given that their field of view was only rated to five and a half. He knew he wasn't slipping anyone's notice there either, though. It was hard to spot for the untrained eye, but he could see the lens of the camera swerving behind the glass cover, dilating and shifting to get a better look.

He could see everything, except for what he was increasingly sure was about to happen.

Fyedora and Josiah suddenly paused before a cell, as Josiah moved to his remote. The force field layer warped and fizzled out, and Fyedora seemed to hold his arm tighter for a moment before she wasn't holding him at all. He couldn't see which one of them shoved him in, but it had to be Josiah, because whoever did it seemed to have a bit too much fun with it. Sure enough, he heard that grating laugh from behind him as the force field sealed up again.

"Enjoy the show," Josiah clearly said through a smile.

Marius caught himself on a bunk, barely avoiding a fall as his legs struggled to hold him up. He let out a deep sigh, drawing in a breath as he turned around, intending to take in what little of the cell there was to see. After all, he'd have to get used to it.

It was then that he realized he wasn't alone-- and that the face staring him down was not Amber Petrov's.

It almost could have been, though, given that it was her dark eyes burning a hole through him. But they belonged to someone else now. The man leaning against the wall looked like he'd just walked out of a thunderstorm, with his brown hair spiking up in a way that was also horribly familiar and muscular arms folded over his chest. Even with those glowing cuffs on his arms, the air around him still felt electric. Or maybe that was just the fear making the hairs on Marius's arms rise.

If he had felt small before when seeing the ship, it was nothing compared to now, standing in front of this man who was fighting the ceiling for space, and who had every, every reason to want him dead.

Somewhere, through the petrified daze of staring back at Kazimir Petrov, Marius could hear the clink of coins being exchanged outside in was presumably a bet on how quickly he would die.

"...Fuck."

Just as Kazimir's eyes ignited and he leaned off the wall, Josiah's voice cut through the force field.

"Oh, you think that's good? Look who's here, Marius."

Marius wasn't sure how he managed to turn away, but he did, finding himself moving on autopilot. The force field was down again, but not to save him from his fate. Instead, a new figure was being shoved up with the same gracelessness as Marius had been an instant earlier. He didn't need to wait for the man to raise his head-- that obviously fake dyed auburn hair gave it away immediately. Of course, justice had taken the slow route in finding Geofrey Everest Wellington, a man only more appalling in attitude than in name, but it had found him eventually. Marius just wished the path had led anywhere other than here.

Everest's expression shifted from pale annoyance into blistering rage as his gaze darted from Marius to Kazimir, and Everest straightened, drawing as tall as he physically could. The yellow suit undermined the look considerably, and Marius could have laughed, if not for Kazimir being right there and still very, very much capable of killing him in a second if he wanted to.

Looking through the shimmering surface of the force field, Marius searched desperately for some sort of help, and found only violently gleeful eyes staring back at him.

He should've asked for the death sentence when he had the chance.

Ever since he was a boy, his father always spoke of divine providence. It struck Kazimir as odd that a man so opposite of God-fearing would believe in a greater good, where fates aligned so all was right with him. He later learned that providence was nothing so divine. It was natural, mundane, and man-ordained. The shuffling of money, the twisting of an arm, the cold barrel of a gun; these were the laws of providence, and this wasn't the first time he was the caged tiger in someone else's show.

Kazimir raised a finger towards Everest, but his eyes were set on Marius.

"Do not say a word," Kazimir said. "I will deal with you later."

Everest made a noise of indignation, but it didn't matter. Every heartbeat echoed in Kazimir's ears as he stalked towards the whelp who recoiled like it would make him smaller — as if posture could make someone disappear. In a world made for cowards, Marius would like that. He would've begged to dissipate, even if it meant being a mutant, like Kazimir, with cuffs to match his own. It would have come in handy, too, if Marius could've disappeared in his father's warehouse, leaving unseen, with no use for a gun, or a bullet in his mother.

"Yes," he said softly as he reached for Marius's collar. "I'm sure you wish many things."

Marius flinched, but willfully made no attempt to escape. The look in his eyes was one of a deer in headlights, one who knew all too well that the car was coming and what it meant. How many times had he seen that look? Somewhere along the way, Kazimir stopped counting.

No. He'd never started.

"Look," Marius started quietly. "I know what you want with me. I--"

"You know?" Kazimir asked without asking.

Of course Marius knew. He knew everything there was to know about the Petrovs, the Bloodline, and his father's every move. That was his whole schtick, wasn't it? The investigator. The hacker. The face, hiding behind a screen. Kazimir's mouth twitched into a smile as he stared through Marius's skull, into the fleshy mass within, where his brain might've stuttered, if he could only use his powers. It could've been fast. Could've been painless.

But the air was stale and lifeless between them.

The outer cells were so quiet, Kazimir could feel the guards holding their breath. Under the suppression of the cuffs he wore, he could feel electricity humming through his veins, like a pressure building with no release. It was enough to make his fist tremble as he pulled Marius upward, forcing him to stand tall for the audience to see. This was what they wanted, wasn't it? Money changed hands again as someone lost a bet, or won another. Seconds were ticking, the force-field was buzzing, and one moment was going to amount to a lifetime in this God-forsaken cell.

"If you two don't mind taking the bitch-fight to the other corner of the room," Everest intoned, "I'm claiming that bunk. And I'd prefer it didn't have blood on it. Yet."

"Providence," Kazimir snarled, ripping his hand away.

Marius dropped to the ground, but scrambled back to his feet with surprising speed. From the confusion in his eyes, it was evident he couldn't believe he'd been released-- and the tension in his frame said he didn't trust it yet. And he shouldn't. The tiger was not hungry; it was starved.

"You want blood?" Kazimir goaded, turning to Everest.

"Yours, actually," Everest said, a flash of anger lighting his eyes as he crossed his arms. "You don't mind, do you? You've taken so much from others, seems a shame not to return the favor."

Kazimir snarled at Everest's grating, curdled Australian accent. Even through threats, he was chewing every word.

"A Wellington being generous," Kazimir said. "It would be a first."

"You formed a full sentence!" Everest mocked. "I'm impressed, I hear that's rare for you."

Kazimir bellowed a wrathful laugh. With a bobbing nod, he crossed the small cell in three steps to stand right in front of him, face to face.

"You want me to kill you too?" Kazimir said with a curl of his lip.

Everest raised his eyebrows and laughed. "Your brain really must be broken—"

"You would like that, wouldn't you!" Kazimir shouted. He waved a hand out towards the guards. "Kill everyone in this cell, end the suffering for both of you, because that would be easier, wouldn't it! Easier for you. Easier for him! Easier for them! Easier for me!"

He let himself tower over Everest, leaning in with every word. Everest watched him with narrow eyes, the calculating look of a man who was used to getting on others' nerves and worming his way out of it. Everything within in him wanted to take Everest by the throat, wring it like a sponge, and send him flying through the force-field, down the stairs of the mezzanine. His hands were so close to it, too — reaching for Everest with arched fingers, stopping himself short of the violence he knew, loathed, and craved. Spit flew from his mouth as he released a guttural groan and tore himself away, spinning into the nearest bunk with fists flying against the mattress, against the metal frame, against anything that would take it, and take it, and take it.

It was just like conditioning. The stone father of his childhood stood over him still, tapping his foot, watching the blood spill from his hands with every tear in his knuckles. No one ever fought fair. No one ever fought back. Always, always, send the dog after the innocent: because that's what we need you for.

If only he was innocent. If only any of them were.

Kazimir's hands throbbed, and the blood running down them was warm, and sticky. He fell with his full face into the wall, feeling the dents from his own impact, and the cracks in his knuckles. All of this was paid entertainment, and the money never passed through his hands. Only blood, for now and eternity, until he'd rot here like everyone else.

Kazimir slid to his elbows and knees, groveling before a god who never showed mercy, and a father who never loved him. With nails dug into his hair, he couldn't will the hum away. The itch inside him didn't fade; not one iota. Everything inside him wanted to burst, and it never would again. The guards made sure of that when they locked the cuffs on his hands and feet, assuring him that any use of his magic would result in immediate tranquilization.

He was light years away from anything he cared about, and this was what he'd earned. Treatment like an animal.

"You don't have to give them what they want," Marius said, just as quietly as before, but with more firmness this time. "God knows they won't give you anything in return."

Still seething, Kazimir lifted his head. Marius stood upright, like he meant it this time. Behind him, the guards watched on, fixated on him. He breathed slowly through his nostrils as he flexed his aching fingers, pulling them away from his face.

"You don't know what you did," he said quietly.

Marius blinked, guarded uncertainty flickering over his face, but made no protest.

"What Matvei became, after you killed her," Kazimir said lowly. "What he made of me."

"Oh, yeah," Everest chimed in, head cocked as he looked blankly at Kazimir. "I've been meaning to ask how your mother is. I hope all is well."

"Fuck you," Kazimir spat.

"This isn't your fight," Marius said tersely to Everest. "You're not used to waiting your turn, are you?"

Everest gave Marius a fake smile. "Everyone's killing mothers nowadays. I hope you enjoy the quality time you have with yours while you can. Oh." He paused and frowned. "Wait. I guess that's not possible anymore. Terribly sorry."

"And whose fault is that?" Marius said, his tone withering and flat.

"You think that's funny?" Kazimir hissed through his teeth, sitting up, propped on one arm.

"Oh, not at all," Everest said. He shifted his gaze to Kazimir. "I actually take motherhood quite seriously. It's why I pay for the birth control of all my regular f--"

"I should've killed you instead," Kazimir said, getting to his feet, hands curling again.

"Not that I'm eager to get back to the part where I get eviscerated," Marius muttered, looking at Everest with disgust, "but do you ever shut the hell up?"

"Of course!" Everest exclaimed. "Whenever someone else has something valuable to say, I'm always happy to listen."

Kazimir forced his feet to stay still. Drops of blood still pitter-patted on the metal floor, spreading the red from the wall to the floor. Kazimir looked down at his stupid-ass jumpsuit, and the drip stains on his sleeves, and chest.

No one would bother to clean that, and Marius didn't take the bait. Instead, he only looked away with an incredulous shake of his head.

Everest, seeming satisfied he had won yet another "bitch-fight," as he called them, turned his attention then to the forcefield, eyes trailing around the border methodically. It was rule one of close combat: never presume to think you've won, even when you're the only one left standing. This was how the Bloodline separated predators from prey, and culled the weak. It was what Everest and Marius would never understand about Kazimir, the Petrovs, and the empire his father built on bones.

Mutants could've just been people, in another world, or another life. But the Petrovs made them this.

Kazimir crossed the room before Everest could turn his smug face to see him. It should have been satisfying, when his fist flew through Everest's chin with a crack, and the prick propped by his family fortune fell so easily against "his" bed.

"Yet," Kazimir said, as Everest was still reeling. "No blood yet."

Marius had backed up a half-step, hands ever so slightly raised as his gaze flicked rapidly between the two. He made no further move, but didn't even bother to hide his obvious surprise that he hadn't been the first to get hit.

Everest rolled his jaw, a hand raised to feel along it. He flashed the ghost of a smile, but it looked more like a snarl. "Feel better, big guy?"

"No." Kazimir's eyes slitted, and he looked at Marius. "You. Come here."

Marius frowned, but the desire to get this over with clearly won over any stubbornness, and he took the steps slowly.

Kazimir took Marius's head between his hands and gripped his face tightly. For a moment, he pictured how easy it would be. Even without electrocution at his fingertips, Marius was built like a toothpick, stuck into the sand. Snapping his neck and releasing spinal fluid would be the path of least resistance, but there would be no lasting satisfaction in another kill. There never was.

"Killing you now would be a mercy," he said. "If you cannot picture a tomorrow, where we do this again. And again."

Marius gritted his teeth together, but got the words out anyway. "I don't expect mercy from you."

The pressure built, on either side of Marius's face, just for two seconds.

"Then I will do as you said. I will not give you what you want," Kazimir said cooly, and pushed Marius away.

Marius staggered back, regaining the distance. There was little surprise to be found in his expression, which had gone dark with regret and guilt.

A sound of slow-clapping echoed in the cramped cell. Everest, with his somehow smug and indifferent face, watched the two of them. "You should keep giving them a show. I'm sure someone out there is making a lot of money they can use towards good old Mama's retirement home."

"Mention mothers one more time," Kazimir snapped over his shoulder.

"Why?" Everest shot back. "You into that? The MILF demographic? I could hook you up with some that have pretty good deals. I don't know any of them would do anything without payment from you, but you could give it a shot."

Kazimir huffed through his nose, far from amused. He could imagine taking many shots: shots of electricity, through Everest's chest. Shaking his head, he walked to the bunk behind Marius. The distance between the top bunk and the ceiling and the bottom bunk to the top was nearly equal, meaning the fates left him no difference. Grabbing the metal frame at the top, he pulled himself up seamlessly, and swung his legs over the side.

The mattress sunk underneath him, but the industrial, loveless metal held. That was all that mattered. Rolling over, he turned away from the other men in the room. If either of them wanted to hurt him, they would've already tried.

Everest's chuckle was quiet, paired with the clank of his feet against the other bunks. It did not surprise him that the man demanded the other top bunk, leaving Marius with two choices below one or the other. It sounded like Marius was not eager to choose, from the ensuing silence. Kazimir didn't blame him.

Over the top of his bunk, he caught a glimpse of the guards, splitting off and parting ways. For them, the show was over. The tiger was back in its cave, and the blood still stung on his hands, untended to, but clotting. This was the first of many days in his father's last circus of punishment, and he knew, even on The Pheligian Falcon, the Bloodline would follow him. It always did.

Kazimir dug his face into the nonexistent pillow. As practiced, he focused all of the hum, the pressure, and the noise into one single stream. Light, quiet tears. He did not shake at all. Matvei always hated that he was an angry crier, but at least, for once, that didn't matter.