Chapter 11: Fatigue
Jazen's POV:
I was stopped at the door by two people, a boy and a girl, both bigger than me. The girl had tattoos running down both arms.
"Get lost kid. This ain't a place for-"
I held up my I.D. card, and the boy's eyes widened a little.
"Back up, Vix."
He's a regular, then. An old regular. She's new. They both stepped aside and let me in. The crowd inside was cheering, chanting as two guys attacked one another. I made my way around them, blinking a few times when the colored contacts bothered me.
"Xavier."
The Keshian looked up and smiled. "Kristos. You finally decided to come back."
"I need prison records. Recent prison records for these places." I handed him the list in my notebook.
Xavier looked from me to it. "I dunno. That's a lot of records to give someone who left without a word after practically living here for almost eight months."
"You owe me, Xavier. I saved your ass on Christophsis, and saved three of your lackeys from being executed."
"That was nearly three years ago."
"You still owe me, Xavier. I nearly drowned trying to save your lackey that last time."
Xavier shrugged, grabbing a drink from a passing tray. "I don't know."
I growled under my breath and grabbed his shirt collar, jerking him down so we were eye to eye. "I am not dealing with this shit. You know damn well I could murder you right here, right now. You've seen me fight."
The cheering had stopped, everyone clustered around us, the match forgotten.
"Unless you want my friends here to attack you, I suggest you let me go."
"You know I can take 'em. Half of 'em are drunk."
Xavier hesitated, then nodded to someone behind us. I heard the blaster powering up and grabbed his arms by the sleeves, keeping one hand holding his collar as I twisted him around. He didn't have time to react before I had him totally pinned, my serrated knife against his throat and my other hand keeping his arms pinned, his hands almost between his shoulder blades.
"Blasters down. Hands behind your head. Now," I snapped. Most of the crowd were regulars and knew me. They'd seen me fight before, and they complied. I locked eyes with Xavier's second-in-command. "Brentley. I know you know where Xavier keeps the prison records he collects. Go get them. Now."
"They're gonna tear you limb from limb, you son of a bitch," Xavier growled when Brentley rushed off.
"No. They're not. They know what I can do. I fought here for seven months, remember? And I never lost a match. Brentley knows that better than anyone." I looked at the man when he walked back in. His nose was crooked, and the scar was still visible on the side of his face where I'd slammed it into the wall in our final match.
Brentley set the folder he'd gotten on the bar beside me. I shoved Xavier into the ground right after and went to grab it. I wasn't paying attention as I turned around. The next thing I knew, I was being tackled, slamming into the bar.
White hot pain bloomed from both the impact of my chest and the bar and the way it aggravated my already-injured side. I felt something graze the side of my neck. But I grit my teeth and elbowed him in the chest. I whirled and lashed out with my knife seconds later, catching him in the face.
I kept the knife up as he covered the bleeding cut and stumbled away, his free hand up. No one else tried anything. I grabbed the folder and shoved it in my bag. I stepped on something that broke, and I looked down.
Kriff. How did I not notice he had a damn syringe?
Whatever was in it was still mostly left inside, judging from the amount of liquid on the floor. At least half of it, anyway. Nobody tried to stop me when I left, throwing my I.D. on the ground outside before I got on my Speeder-bike I'd left close by.
I didn't start feeling tired until I was about seven minutes away from the fight club. There's no way I'll make it back like this. My vision was getting fuzzy. I changed direction and headed for my nearest hideout, pulling a tarp over my bike after I parked it behind the building. My hands were starting to shake and it took multiple tries to unlock the door.
I managed to drag the wooden bar down to block the door and pulled down the blinds on the windows, making sure they were secure before I stumbled over to the couch shoved up against the far wall. Luckily, I didn't dream when I passed out.
I woke up to a voice. It was dark when I pulled back one of the makeshift blinds and looked out.
"-are you?"
I rubbed my eyes with one hand while I dug my comlink out of my pocket. "I'm here, I'm here."
"Are you okay? We've been contacting you for hours." It was Hera.
"I got the prison records I needed, but I got in a bit of trouble. Couldn't make it back, so I just crashed at one of my hideouts. I'll be back in half an hour."
"Did you get hurt again?"
"Drugged, but I'm fine now."
I put my comlink away and checked my side. The stitches had held. I glanced at the punching bag on the other side of the room, then the rope leading to the loft, then the pull-up bar bolted to the bottom of the loft. As much as I wanted to, I'd never be able to focus on the prison records until I managed to clear my head.
Pull-ups it is.
I shrugged off my jacket and long-sleeved shirt I had on underneath, leaving the purple sleevless shirt on and then fixing a glass of water, which I set on the crate between the bar and the rope. I grabbed the bar in a switch-grip, my left hand closed towards the wall and my right closed towards me. It didn't hurt my side much.
Ten pull-ups later, the voices in my head had stopped. I'd been ignoring them, but the quiet was a very nice change. I stopped for a few seconds before doing the next set. Another ten had my head totally clear. No worried, panicked thoughts. No paranoia.
Only then did I drop down, drink the water, and start sifting through the prison records I dug out of my discarded jacket. Most of the prisoners had just that, 'prisoners' along with some letters or numbers. But I was right. It was on the fifth paper I skimmed.
Whoever had Darrick and Mason definitely wanted to lure me out. Their names were actually listed. Sabine's guess had been right. They were on Iego.
And their execution was scheduled to be in two days.
I pulled my long-sleeved shirt back on, along with myjacket. It took almost exactly half an hour to get back, counting the few minutes I used to make sure everything was locked or covered at my hideout.
"I know where Darrick and Mason are," I announced after finding everyone in the common room. "Sabine was right. They're on Iego, but they're gonna be brought here for execution in two days."
Hera and Kanan skimmed the prison record I handed them.
"You do realize they're-" Kanan started.
"Baiting me. I know, yeah. But I don't care if I'm walking into a trap. I can't just let Darrick and Mason be killed for 'harboring a known insurgent' or 'aiding a known insurgent.': I hesitated, twisting my bracelet around my wrist until it stung a bit. "You don't have to help me if you don't want to. I can handle it myself if I need to."
"Of course we're going to help," Hera said.
The others nodded in agreement, Zeb muttering something about them being innocent people, even though he didn't know them, I told him he was right.
"How do we need to do this?"
She was asking me. Hera was asking me to plan the mission.. "It'll be easier to rescue them once they're here," I decided. "They're going to need medical attention. There's going to be guards, obviously, but if the person I think is behind this actually is behind this, then they'll be focused on me, specifically. I can use that and lead them away while you guys get Mason and Darrick. I'll shake them, duck into a hideout for a few hours, then meet you somewhere."
"You want us to leave you there?"
"Just for a little while, Ezra. If I'm right about the person behind it, they'll want me alive. I won't be in as much danger as I usually am. I just need to know that you'll tell me as soon as Darrick and Mason are on board, okay?" I was half asking so I'd know they were safe, and half asking if the plan was alright.
Hera nodded.
"Wait, who do you think is trying to bait you?" Sabine asked.
I twisted my bracelet again. "She's on the holo-net a lot. Lura Hawke?"
"Why would she be after you?"
"It's… complicated. She's sent people after me before, but I guess she finally caught onto the fact that sending greedy, trigger-happy people after me isn't gonna work."
I left them to their conversations and took out the brown-colored contacts before heading to bed. Bad dreams or not, I had to have a few hours of sleep a night or I'd be no help to Darrick and Mason.
I dreamed about Dad that night.
