The room with the holding cells was sound proof. It was something Nihlus had made sure of when he was buying the new ship. The methods he had to use to extract the information needed wasn't always easy to stomach. He didn't need his friends to share the burden, so he hid it from them. And they knew what he was doing, just not the details.

The batarian woman's chest heaved as she fought for breath, her lungs exhausted from her screaming. "Fuck… you…" she growled, glaring death at him.

"All I want to know if where the humans are, tell me that and I can make your stay a lot more comfortable." Nihlus said, picking up another long, thin, metal pin. "After all I am still being nice about this." He slid the pin under her ring finger's nail to match her index and middle finger.

She screamed, biting her lip so hard it bleed. Her body jerked against the binds tying her to the chair. "Yeah, you're such a gentleman," she spat.

He shrugged, standing back up straight. "I like to think so, after all I haven't left any permeant damage. You still have all your eyes and fingers, teeth and toes." He turned back to the small table that was holding a variety of instruments. "I could try cutting out some of your organs. batarians have four kidneys right? I'm sure you'd be able to part with three of them." He picked up a scalpel, twirling it in his fingers. "How much do batarian kidneys go for anyways?"

She laughed, spitting out the blood that had pooled in her mouth from the bit on her lip. "You want to get in the organ selling business you should look at krogan testacies," she said, her nose wrinkled in disgust, but if it was at the thought of a krogan's quad or at Nihlus himself he didn't know or care. "Now stop with the intimidation attempts, you won't cut out my organs, too much of a risk of losing me."

Nihlus shared a laugh with her, "You're right," he said and slammed the scalpel deep into her thigh. She cringed, biting her lip again to stop herself from screaming. "Besides I have methods I like better." He put a clamp around the scalpel and another on one of the metal pins.

"No," she said as he smiled and flipped a switch, flooding her body with electricity.

Nihlus watched as her whole body tensed. Drool dribbled down her chin, her eyes started to roll back into her head, and the room filled with the smell of urine. The smile was gone from his face now, his eyes and subharmonics betraying his true emotions. He hated it, hated doing this. When he was still being mentored Saren took care of this sort of thing, Nihlus sometimes thought the man actually enjoyed it. He shook his head to rid himself of the distracting thoughts and flipped the switch off. Her head fell forward once the electric current wasn't locking her muscles in place. "Where are the humans?" he asked, his voice completely calm and even.

"Go to hell," she growled, not lifting her head to look at him.

"At this rate you'll go there before me," he said, turning the switch back on.

Her body went ridged again, a scream finding its way past her clenched teeth. Nihlus looked down at the clock on his omni-tool, keeping track at how long the electricity was on for. When he deemed it time he switched it back off. Her head fell forward again and she gasped to try and catch her breath.

He moved behind her, pulling her head up and back enough that she could see him. "Humans?" he asked again.

She glared at him, but did not speak.

He sighed and covered her head with a towel. She jerked against her restraints, knowing what was coming. He poured a bucket of water over her, soaking the towel and filling her mouth, cutting off her oxygen. Nihlus waited until she stopped thrashing and went still before he pulled the towel off, leaned her forward, and turned the electricity back on, restarting her heart. She jerked back to life, her lungs unable to suck in air with the electricity constricting them. He turned it off after a couple seconds.

"Humans?" he asked, watching as she spit out water and desperately sucked in air.

When she didn't answer he leaned over to the switch. "Wait," she gasped. "Please."

"Tell me where the humans are and we can be done here, I'll drop you off on a nice station and we will never see each other again," he said, moving his arm back and crossing them.

"I don't…" she swallowed, her breaths finally calming down "I don't know where… but I know who… Elisa T'Nole."

Nihlus removed the metal pins without any real bedside manner, untied her, and dragged her into the adjacent cell. "Thank you, we should be at the Citadel in a couple days."

"What?" the batarian spat, cradling her hurt hand against her chest. "You said—"

"That I would drop you off on a nice station, I never said which one," he said before shutting the door to the cell room and headed up to the main part of the ship. He had his omni-tool already up and searching for information on this Elisa T'Nole. "Joker, set us a course for the Citadel," he called down the bridge.

"Finally," Joker said on the ships com and the ship shifted under them.

Nihlus plopped down beside Shepard on the couch. She was on her knees staring at the fish as they swam around in the tank. "Still having withdraws?" he asked, pulling her down and against him.

"Yeah… Kolyat gave me these pills… a sedative… Everything is so colorful," she said, curling up to his side and slipping her hand under his shirt. He wasn't wearing armor so his wounds wouldn't be agitating as much. "And you're warm and…" she trailed off as her finger tips traces along his plates.

He purred, "If you keep doing that I am not going to be able to concentrate." She didn't respond and her hand stopped, falling limp under his shirt. He looked down at her to find her fast asleep. "That must be a good sedative," he chuckled and went back to his omni-tool.

xXx

"Nihlus are you sleeping?" an angry voice shouted at him.

He sighed and shifted his weight so he was standing up right and gave the furious council members a big yawn. "Just trying to let your every word sink in." he said, giving the asari council that had shouted at him a grin.

"You think this is a joke? You tortured a prisoner," she barked at him.

"And got the information we needed to find the remaining human hostages," Nihlus counted.

"A task that is supposed to be your hobby and not interfere with your job," the turian councilor interjected.

"It isn't," Nihlus defended.

"We sent you a mission to survey that base, not to go in guns blazing and destroy the best lead we had on the red sand cartel that is plaguing Citadel space."

Nihlus went to speak but paused. "Ok maybe I did adlib a bit there, but they stopped producing red sand and we got the intel," he defended.

"By torture,"

"Yes torture, one of those not so pretty methods that get all those nice and timely results that you love so much. I'm a Spectre, my methods may not be the nicest or have the best morals, but they save lifes of innocent people, and I'm not going to apologize for that," he growled before turning around and starting down the long stretch of steps the council used to help make them seem superior.

"Nihlus, we aren't done here," the asari shouted at him.

"Yes we are, mail me the rest of your fucking complaints, I've got my job to do," he laughed, sliding into the elevator and started the decent to the presidium where Shepard was waiting. He offered to take her with him, but she said she didn't want to listen to the council chew him out. "Lucky bitch," he grumbled, crossing his arms and leaned against the elevator. She didn't have to answer to anyone. Well right now, he was pretty sure she was going to have to answer a lot of things when they found her planet.

Shepard was sitting beside the lake, her shoes and socks beside her with her bare feet in the water. "You know people drink that, right?" he said, coming up behind her.

"Adding flavor," she joked, knowing there had to be some sort of purification process. She took her feet out and pulled her socks over her wet skin and slipped into her shoes. "They mad?"

"Yeah, they mad," he said, giving her a hand to her feet. "But they generally are. Nothing comes out as nice as they would like."

Shepard walked beside them as they started towards the elevator that would take them to the docking bay. "The world—or galaxy I guess- isn't nice or neat. My country supports its war yet they don't want to hear about what we have to do, what doesn't get shown on the propaganda… Shooting kids, stealing from a farm because the provisions don't last, putting another soldier out of his misery… If that part of war made the papers more… if they knew what it was really like there would be fewer wars."

"The worst of it though is when the battle is done and they expect you to just… turn it off, to not be a soldier and just be a civilian," Nihlus added, a haunted look deep in his eyes. "It's one of the reasons I became a Spectre. There is always something to fight. No 'be a regular person,' just soldier all the time."

"I thought you joined to fuck women," Shepard said, pulling out a cigarette.

"Yeah, that was fun for a while, but this I had this crazy woman find her way onto my ship…" Shepard shoved him and both of them snorted a laugh.

xXx

The day started early, as it always did, with a buzzer going off through a speaker on the wall. Adams sat up with a groan, his back sore from sleeping on the thin mattress. He looked at around the bare room, finding Chakwas still asleep on her mattress across from him and the mattress in the opposite corner empty. He sighed and got to his feet, going over to Chakwas and gently shaking her awake. "Come on, we better go find him before he gets himself into trouble again."

Chakwas mumbled her displeasure at being woken, but didn't need any more explanation, this happened a couple times a month. She quickly got up, dressed, and followed Adams out of the room towards a backyard surrounded by a large twenty foot wall. She rubbed her neck, pushing the metal collar up as best she could to get at the skin underneath.

They slipped into the far corner behind a tall shrub and sure enough found Pressly waist deep in a hole. "You got pretty far this time," Adams commented. "Find the bottom of the wall yet?"

Pressly dropped his handful of dirt and looked up at Adams, panting slightly. "No, but it can't be much further. Why don't you help me rather than criticize me?"

"Because, Charles, you get beyond this wall and then what? We don't even know what is on the other side of it, and even if we did we have no transportation, no way to get home," Chakwas said, a sigh heavy on her lips "And no one is looking for us."

"You don't know that," Pressly snapped as loudly as he dared.

"Come on Press… it's been a year, maybe more…" Adams tried to reason.

"Well, unlike the two of you I am not content being that… thing's pet," he barked before he went back to digging.

There was a shout from the main part of the backyard that made them all turn their heads and freeze. An asari came around the shrub and looked at the situation, her expression showing her anger, despite the difference in species. She pointed back in the direction of the house and Chakwas and Adams quickly went without a second thought. Pressly though, stayed in his hole and went back to digging. She grabbed him by the back of his neck and they both glowed blue. With biotics aiding her she lifted him out of the hole and half carried, half dragged, him back into the house.

She dropped him in the middle of the living room. He tried to get up, but she pressed a button on a small remote that she pulled out of her pocket. All three of them bit back cries of pain as the collars they wore sent an electric shock through them, forcing all of them to their knees. With all of them down she took her finger off the button and moved to stand in front of Pressly. She said something as she took his chin in her hand, her other hand in a fist, raised before he slammed into his temple. He grunted in pain and tried to shake off the dots dancing in his vision. She gripped the front of his shirt and kept punching him, busting his lip and leaving a decent size gash beside his eye. Chakwas and Adams watched helplessly, having discovered in the past that if they tried to help it would only be worse.

The door to the asari's right opened and another asari came in, making their owner pause. They talked briefly before the second asari turned on the TV, to what looked like a news station. On the screen was a press conference and who was speaking left the three humans wide eyed.

"Shepard," Adams said, getting to his feet. "It's Shepard, she is alive!"

Their owner turned to them and yelled something in her language, pointing to the door that would lead them back to their small quarters.

"Fuck you, Shepard is alive and she is coming for us," Pressly said, getting to his feet and moving towards the bitch. Chakwas and Adams both grabbed him and quickly left the room, their heads bowed respectfully to not incite her anger more. "Let me go," Pressly growled, jerking free once they were alone in the next room. "What's wrong with you two? Shepard is alive, you know she is looking for us."

"And what a search it will be if she finds us dead because you pissed off a woman who can literally kill us with her mind," Adams spat back.

"We have to be patient," Chakwas said, grabbing the end of her sleeve in her hand and dapping it against Pressly's bleeding temple. "If Shepard is alive nothing with stop her, that woman is a force of nature."

So they waited. Days turned to weeks, weeks into months, and though none of them would speak it, they were starting to believe that she wasn't coming at all.

xXx

"Damn it," Nihlus growled, pushing away from his desk in frustration. "It had to be asari space," he sighed as the chair rolled across his bedroom floor. He had found T'Nole, she was a fairly wealthy asari at the start of her matriarch stage living deep in asari space. It was far enough away from the main planets that getting in and creating a ruckus wouldn't be impossible, but it was going to be a pain in the ass and create a political mess.

Technically asari space was part of Citadel space and he shouldn't have a problem operating in it. In practice the asari unofficially ran everything and pissing off their government was… problematic. Still, it had to be done. He wasn't about to let slavery take place in Citadel space, even if he doubted he would ever be able to prove that it had occurred under asari government noses. He grumbled as he brought up his omni-tool and synced with the ship. He connected himself to the cockpit. "Joker, I'm sending you some coordinates, please starting heading for them and tell me when our ETA is an hour out."

"Will do," Joker's voice replied through the omni-tool.

Nihlus spent the next couple of hours informing Shepard of the situation and forming a plan.

"I don't get it, you've never hesitated to run into enemy bases before," she commented, blowing out a puff of smoke over the digital blueprint of the estate.

"Yeah, slavers, mercs, drug dealers, and stuff like that I don't give a shit about," he said taking her cigarette and putting it out in the ashtray beside them. "They eventually stop coming… mostly. This is an asari on a colonized world in asari space—one of the heavily guarded areas in the galaxy—who has managed to keep the local police force in her pocket.

"I've already contacted them with the information that she is harboring slaves, and they wouldn't even entertain the idea or follow up on the lead. It is likely to assume that if we charge in we will only have maybe five minutes before the police swarm on us. My Spectre status can keep us out of jail, but not until after we get taken into custody in all the chaos, if that happens T'Nole will move the humans or dispose of them all together."

Shepard frowned, "You know quiet isn't exactly my style," she commented.

"No, you prefer to take everyone out singlehandedly to reduce any chance of your allies getting hurt, which is something we have in common, but police aren't like mercs, they don't stop coming and we can't just kill them." Nihlus sighed and stood up. "Non-lethal means it is." He hated non-lethal, not because he loved killing, but because of everything that could go wrong when you are trying to not kill a hostile. He pulled out a large crate from under a trap and popped it open. Inside were smoke grenades, grenade launchers, tasers, and a whole lot of disrupter rounds.

They both loaded their armors up in silence, the same thought going through both of their heads. This was going to suck.

xXx

Joker pinged them that they were coming up on the planet and were being flagged on coms to identify themselves. "Where did you have me take us?" He asked them over the ships intercom.

"Don't worry about it," Nihlus said as he opened up the cargo bay's doors.

"See, you saying that just makes me worry."

"Joker, everything is going to be fine," Shepard assured him standing beside Nihlus at the edge of the mass effect field stopping them from getting spaced.

"But what do I tell the angry woman yelling at me?"

Nihlus shrugged, "Tell her that you want to fuck her eye socket for all I care, she probably can't understand you."

"Even with this being Citadel space and them giving that universal upgrade to the omni-tools?" Shepard asked, somewhat shocked.

"Yeah, asaris get away with not doing a lot of things everyone else is told to do," Nihlus said with a look that told you it was a known fact of favoritism. "Just take us into the ozone layer, Joker, we'll do the rest."

"And you're sure that our suits can handle this?" Shepard asked again.

"Yeah I used to do this all the time, only broke my leg once."

"That… That doesn't help assure me of anythi—"

Nihlus cut her off by pulling her against him. "Don't worry, I've got you," he purred.

She looked up at him and sighed, "You better," she said, laying her head on his armor.

"Two hundred feet above the ground and there are cop cars chasing us and threatening to shoot us down." Joker warned them.

"Alright, pull up and lose them, we'll radio you when we need pick up," Nihlus said as he let Shepard go and they both jumped.

Shepard had jumped from airplanes before, part of being with the military for a lot of people, but she had always had a parachute. The ground seemed to be coming up a lot faster knowing that she didn't have one. She turned to look at Nihlus a dozen feet away from her, completely calm. He was working on his omni-tool and she assumed that he was telling their armor to brace for a large impact. She looked away and back down at the city below them. Skyscrapers flowed past them on all sides and Nihlus grabbed her, making her jump, and guided them to an ally in between two of them. The ground maybe thirty feet below them now and he let her go so they could both brace for impact. Her heart pounded fast in her chest and she felt her biotics build up. In fear, she shot a biotic blast at the ground, pushing her back up only feet from the ground. She soured through the air before landing on her back in a nearby dumpster. She let out a groan as the ringing in her ears stopped and she could hear Nihlus laughing. A three fingered hand reached into the dumpster and pulled her out by her shoulder.

"Never again," she barked at him under her helmet.

"It was funny," Nihlus defended, setting her on her feet and worked to get his own helmet off. "I told you we would be fine," he said as scratched the back of his neck and flexed his mandibles.

"Yeah, and I believed you up until the ground looked like it really wanted to say hi to all my broken bones," Shepard said, sliding down to a sitting position and looked up. "Won't the cops that were chasing the ship of seen us jump?"

"Probably, but I'm jamming their radars, finding us won't be that easy."

"But they could just pinpoint the source of the jam."

"Yeah, that is why I hacked into the skyscrapers on the way down and they are transmitting the signal all over town in randomized busts. They'll be chasing their tails for a while."

She kicked his leg. "I thought you were making sure our armor would protect us from that jump." Nihlus gave a chuckle as he offered her a hand to help her up.

xXx

Adams, Chakwas, and Pressly were in the laundry room, working on attending to their master's dirty articles, their fingers pruned and backs aching from being hunched over for so long. They all worked in silence, and that was perhaps the only reason they heard the dull thud of an explosion from somewhere else in the estate. They all paused, glancing at each other. Several long seconds later there was another thud and they could see the water in their basins shake. Chakwas stood and cracked open the door to the laundry room, the two men crowded behind her to get a look through the inch crack. Outside the estates robot guards ran through the hall, all heading in the same direction.

Pressly pushed past them and bust into the hall. Chakwas and Adams watched in horror as he stood among the running robots, but known stopped to fire on him. "Come on, this might be our only chance," he said to the two still frozen in the doorway.

"He is right, Adams," Chakwas said and Adams sighed.

"I know, just stick together."

Keeping close, the three of them made their way down the hall in the direction of the robots, hoping they could find wherever the explosion happened, hopefully on an outside wall.

They walked half way across the estate, making it to the large entry room, before they stopped, staring at the battle happening in the main part of the room, below the stairs they were at the top of.

The door to the house was dented and slammed into the far wall, on either side of the empty doorway was an alien, one tall and dark drown with white face across his face, the other small, wore a helmet, humanoid, probably an asari like their master. In the room the house's robots where attacking each other. It was chaos.

Shepard looked out from her cover at the carnage Nihlus was creating with the help of his glowing omni-tool. It had been lit up all fight, even with him not paying it any attention and both hands on his gun.

"Stop sending in mechs, they are just taking them over!" She heard a voice bark on the coms that Nihlus had already hacked. She saw him chuckle and his mandibles flared into an evil smile. She shook her head and shouldered her weapon.

Nihlus had thinned the numbers, now it was her turn. She took a deep breath, gathering her biotics. She felt it crawl against her skin, getting stronger and stronger in intensity. Once she had enough she stood in the center of the doorway and charged, she slammed into any mechs in her way, making it halfway into the room, and slammed her fists on the ground, a huge biotic eruption continuing out in front of her, destroying the majority of the mechs that were left.

"Shepard, top of the stairs, eight o'clock," Nihlus said in the com that was in her ear.

She turned too far, habit from being so used to twelve hours, and then corrected herself. On the top of the stairs stood Chakwas, Pressly, and Adams. She smiled and started up the stairs. They all backed away from her cautiously and when she kept coming Chakwas raised a fist and punched her hard in the head.

"Oh, fuck," she spat as her head rattled around in her helmet. "Guys, it's me, it's…" she struggled to pull her helmet off, but all the humans stopped, staring shocked at being able to understand her. She finally pulled her helmet off and pushed her sweaty hair out of her face.

She didn't have time to say anything else before Chakwas' arms where around her in a hug. Shepard paused before she hugged her back.

"You came," Adams said, his voice for up relief.

"Of course," she said, going to say something else, but paused and pressed the com in her ear. "Yeah…? Fuck… Ok, you get out of there, we'll find another exit… somewhere around back… Then what do you suggest… No, we are not doing that… What do you mean you already have a hostage… I may actually kill you." She turned back to the three humans. "So, the police have shown up and what we are doing isn't actually legal so… Nihlus has a hostage so they aren't shooting us yet… Nihlus is the spikey turian, he is a good guys, and I feel really weird about saying that about someone who is holding a woman at gun point… Just stay near me." She rubbed her face.

Together, they walked down the stairs, Shepard drew her grenade launcher, filled with smoke grenades, as they approached the door. Nihlus had an asari with her arms bound tight behind her with circuits from the destroyed mechs, his arm around her throat, and his the tip of his guys shoved into her mouth, pointed up so the bullet would go through her brain. From the three human's reaction of barely contained hatred and fear Shepard guessed this sobbing asari was their master. In Front of them in the yard of the estate were over a dozen police cars, several cops at each, all asari with guns and glowing blue. Nihlus shot them a quick glance, before he started moving sideways, always keeping the asari between him and the cops, as they slowly made their way to a servant's entrance. The cops followed at a generous distance, eyeing the gun on the asari and the grenade launcher Shepard carried.

They slipped out of the gate and emerged on a small side street. There were several civilians that stopped and looked at them, a small, weary crowd forming.

"Take them to that alley half a block down, I'll be right behind you." Nihlus said quietly to her.

She didn't like the idea of splitting up, but arguing in this situation was a bad idea. She motioned for the humans to follow her and they started down the street. The cops where filling the side street now and some tried to shoot at them, but Shepard shot a smoke grenade at them, blocking their vision and making them have horrible coughing fits. "Before the smoke clears," she called back to the three and they dove into the alley. She ran through the length of it and came out on another street. "Stay out of view," she said, dragging them back into the cover of the alley.

Back on the street Nihlus shot the sobbing woman trying to beg for her life around the barrel of the gun. The disrupter round shot into her brain, making her body convulse before it went limp, blood seeping out of her eyes, nose, and ears. He dropped the body and bolted for the alley, cops firing at him from both sides. He threw out disrupter grenades at them, blowing up their kinetic shields and giving them a nasty shock. It bought him enough time to catch up to Shepard. She followed right behind him as he ran out of the alley and started hacking into the nearest parked car.

"You shot her, didn't you," Pressly asked. Nihlus nodded, not looking away from his omni-tool, and Pressly nodded, "Good, serves her right." Adams and Chakwas weren't sad to hear that the woman who used them as slaves and pets was dead, but they didn't show the same dark happiness about it.

"Get in," Nihlus said, then Shepard repeated to the humans as the car's doors lifted up and open.

The humans slid into the back, Shepard took the passenger's seat, and Nihlus took the driver's seat. In moments they were in the air and Nihlus thought they were in the clear, briefly. They didn't even make it fifty feet into the air when something slammed into the hood of their car. They all jolted as Nihlus struggled to regain control and look at what had hit them. On the hood of their car was an asari dressed in a red skin tight suit. He ran a quick face recognition software and cursed at what his omni-tool was telling him.

Name: Samara

Race: Asari

Profession: Justicar

She glowed bright blue as she ripped off the top of their car. She reached for Nihlus, grabbing his throat and trying to rip him out of the seat. In his struggle to breathe he jerked the car to the side.

Shepard had taken off her seatbelt to stand up and use her own biotics to push the woman off when the car started to go vertical, making her lose her footing and topple out of the car. "Shit," she cried, barely able to grab the twisted car frame. Nihlus looked at her and tried to right the car, but his vision was already starting to fade. He let go of the steering wheel, letting the car spin uncontrollably towards the ground. His hand fumbled for the gun on his belt. He got it free and shot it at Samara. The bullets just bounced off of her biotic barrier, but he kept firing until one finally make it through and grazed her cheek. She faltered in her surprise, hand loosening enough for Nihlus to suck in a desperate breath while he aimed the gun at her hand and fired. Her weakened biotic barrier couldn't block the point blank shot and went through her hand. She cried in pain, jerking her hand back.

"Hang on, Shepard," he cried to her before he started turning the car in barrel rolls towards the nearest skyscraper. The hood of the car slammed into the glass paneling right after Samara dropped off the hood and to the ground below, unhurt. Nihlus struggled to regain control of the car, one hand on the steering wheel, the other reaching out for Shepard, who was barely hanging on by the tips of her fingers. Their hands clasped together and he dragged her back all the way into his seat with him. "Shit," he muttered as he nearly slammed them into another building. "The controls are compromised, we are going down." He hit a couple buttons on his omni-tool and Shepard felt her armor jolt and stick to his, he had magnetized them.

"Brace for impact," she shouted back at the humans.

Nihlus managed to land them in the middle of the street of a lower class neighborhood, the kind that wouldn't really question a car crashing there that much. The landing, however, was not gentle. Shepard stayed in place thanks to Nihlus, but her head slammed against his hard, nearly knocking the both of them out. The back seat passengers didn't fare much better, jolting and slamming against each other painfully.

Chakwas was the first of the three to come around. She slowly blinked in the back seat, listening to what the two in the front where saying… Well Shepard, she could hear Nihlus talking, but couldn't understand any of the chirps or growls.

"Yeah, I'm ok, it's just a scratch,"

Chakwas managed to turn her head to see them in the driver's seat, Shepard still in his lap. The alien pressed his forehead against hers and brushed his mouth against her neck.

"Not in front of them, Nih… They might wake up. Later, I promise," Shepard said and kissed him cheek. She moved and slid off of his lap back into her seat, and then out of the car.

Chakwas pretended that she had just woken up and hadn't seen the exchange as Shepard shook her shoulder lightly. "Come on, we need to get out of here." She helped the older woman get out of the car before doing the same with Adams and then went to help Pressly.

"My leg," Pressly panted, his whole body shaking.

Shepard looked down at it and cursed, "Nihlus, Pressly is hurt, I need your help."

Nihlus came back from half way down the street and looked at him. His leg was completely twisted in a similar way to Shepard's had been when they had first met, squished between part of the car's twisted frame and the driver's seat. "It's going to hurt," Nihlus said, gripping the man's foot and jerking it up and free of the car. Pressly let out a blood curdling scream, but Shepard slammed her uninjured hand over his mouth.

"I know it hurts, but we have to be quiet," she took her hand away when she was sure he was done screaming and pulled something out of her suit. "This will help with the pain, it is called med-gel." She stuck his leg with the needle end and pushed the plunger, filling his body with the medicine. Almost instantly his eyes flickered and then shut.

"I'll carry him," Nihlus said, sliding his arm under the man's back and his other under his legs. He lifted the full grown man effortlessly and motioned them to follow him. "There is a motel this way that doesn't ask questions and rents by the hour, should be a good place to hold up until we can get some transport.

When they got to the motel Shepard stayed out with the humans while Nihlus went in and paid and got them a room key. "This way," he said, leading them to a side door. They went down the poorly cleaned hallway until they made it to their room. Shepard opened the door for them since Nihlus had Pressly again.

"Well… it… has beds…" she said, trying to find something positive to say about the room. The wallpaper was peeling, the carpet was so stained Shepard couldn't tell what the original pattern was supposed to be or if it had been its brown color when it was new, the beds had no pillows or sheets on them, the toilet in the bathroom had an "out of order" sign on it, and the shower head looked too rusted to work.

"It was cheap and according to arrest records the owner doesn't really like the police," Nihlus defended as he set Pressly down on one of the two full beds.

"Wait, you hacked into police records?" Shepard asked, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"You say that like it surprises you," Nihlus replied. He walked up to her, pulled her helmet off of her belt clip and handed it to her.

"Right, well, you three stay in this room, don't open it for anyone, me and Nihlus will go get something for all of us to eat and make sure we weren't followed by whatever the hell attacked us," she said as she put the helmet on and locked it into place. "Which was what by the way?"

"A Justicar," Nihlus answered, and figuring that didn't help explain it he continued, "I'll explain while we pick up food."