With her face ground into the sand and a stranger's knee in her back, Vanessa lay still. The knee pressed down, and she gasped. Her foot kicked up and contacted with something, perhaps a shoulder?
The man fell back, onto his rear. She heard her tomas pacing a few yards off. She had sand in her eye.
Lunging at her, the man shoved her head back into the sand and continued to tie her wrists.
She struggled. If she could pull her knees up…
Gaining just enough leverage to spring to her feet, she kicked him in the gut and backed away, tugging her wrists loose. One hand out. Then the next.
He was short, stocky, with black hair and a crazed look in his eyes. Again, he lunged, and she was taken down.
She shoved him off with her knees and punched his jaw.
Grabbing her throat, he climbed between her legs.
Vanessa snapped.
Executing moves she hadn't used in ages, she fought him with quick punches and high kicks. It only took a few moves to get him down, and he fell heavily.
The sounds of her heavy breathing and his gasping filled the air.
Leg, compound fracture, broken through tibia and fibia. Shoulder, dislocated. Fingers, probably broken. Possible concussion.
She, on the other hand, was unharmed. Backing up slowly from his crumpled form, she approached her tomas.
O
O
Knives had a speech prepared. He was going to tell her about what he'd meant, about language, about peanuts, and he thought he should lead in to an explanation of Callisto. He'd gotten hungry and had cooked up several zucchini with mushrooms in a garlic broth. Full, he waited inside the complex for her to return. The cooling bowl at the head of her sleeping bag filled the air with an acrid garlic smell.
He was going to simply lie there, ready to go to sleep, and he would start talking to her as soon as she got settled in.
In the meantime, he'd read to the plants. How boring.
Her footsteps sounded faint at the entryway and picked up pace. She was running to him? But then the sound faded and echoed down a hall. And again, the running, back out of the building.
Tinkering with old technology at an hour like this, he wondered, outside, no less?
"Where are you going? I have something to tell you," he called, standing. He jogged casually to the entryway. "Did you find something?" he called out, turning out into the desert.
She was moving about hurriedly while kneeling and bent over in the sand, turned away from him. He squinted to see her in the moonlight. "Come inside, I'll get you some light," he offered, leaning against the complex wall beside him.
Between folds of her head-wrapping, her arm wiped at her forehead. "Knives, go inside," she ordered.
"Still that angry?" he asked, kneeling beside her. "I have an explanation f-"
"Go inside, Knives, please," she yelped, an attempted command broken by a wave of emotion.
Her hands rested on the ground and she was still, but shivering.
He touched her shoulder, it was cold and bare. Where was her shirt? And her robe? Ah, the robe, much the same shade as the sands before her, was laid out on the ground, over whatever she was working on. A large something.
She was glaring at him, her eyes glittering between narrowed lids. He stood to leave.
But what was that? The wind was still, but the robe rustled. Glancing over, he saw an outline of the form beneath the cloak.
"Who's that?" he asked casually. Who? Who? He felt his heartbeat quicken, his lungs worked for air. Taking a step back, his mouth hung open. With a jolt, he reached for Vanessa's shoulder and he tugged her away from…someone…?
"Ow!" She pulled away. "I told you to go inside. Now…"
It was too late – his left arm was already aglow.
Vanessa held her arms out to block his knives. "Stop it! He's already dead!"
"He? He's not dead, I saw him move. Step away!" he roared, shoving her aside.
She reeled and punched him in the jaw.
The angel weapon retracted and Knives' hand went to his face. That hurt…it hurt quite a bit!
"I'm tending to his wounds, I need my medicines, and you will not kill him," she sneered through bared teeth. "He's no threat like this, I've beaten him near to death already, so you will BACK OFF."
"Where did he come from, are there more?" Knives demanded, the old hatred rising within him.
"He won't say, and you won't be torturing it out of him," she snarled, raising her fists for a fight. "I know what I'm doing, now you go back inside or I'll break something of yours, too!"
Knives stood there, blood pulsing, fists balled at his sides. If she really meant to fight him, and this human was truly incapacitated, his best option was to leave. If not, he would surely kill the man.
Vanessa watched him storm away, and returned to finish setting the human's shoulder in the moonlight.