thank you for being so patient with me in waiting for this chapter to be written. its been a little hectic trying to get through university course work and projects. next chapter is written and will also be posted shortly.thanks again and please REVIEW
Chapter Four
It was a little after 0200 when the door to the apartment opened to reveal eyed slightly worse for wear Raven. She'd managed to rip a stitch and blood trickled slowly down from her temple, she also had a blooded lip and swollen right eye. He was up and across the room in an instant.
"Are you alright? What the frack happened?"
She accepted his help as he guided her into a nearby seat.
"The nerve of that little schutta – to try and accuse me…Me! of cheating! He must have been out of his fracking mind. No don't fuss I'm alright."
She complained as Carth pressed a damp cloth against her face to clean off the blood.
"You don't look alright. You look like you got the snot beaten out f you"
"Nah…you should definitely see the other guy and his friend…and his other friend."
"Three against one? And your still standing?"
"Hey I'm not the one whose going to be needing a new limb – the jerk. As if I could cheat with the deck I picked up I don't even have a full side deck – not even a half full side deck. Why did he have to blame me for his ineptitude?"
All he could do was smirk as he patted away the blood. She was going to have some spectacular bruising but otherwise she looked alright.
"It's good to know that your good with overwhelming odds."
"Well as some very wise Corellian once said 'Never tell me the odd'. That was the most fun I've had in – well the last time I was behind the controls of a starfighter."
"You think being jumped by three schutta's is fun?"
He watched fascinated as her eyes twinkled with mischief.
"Okay never mind, why don't you go clean up and hit the sack. We've got a busy day tomorrow. You need to look your best for your 'date'."
She gave him a frosty glare before dissolving into laughter.
"Seriously you should of seen that hairy Bantha Carth, he was all indignant and stuffed up I nearly wet myself laughing."
"Maybe that's why he thought you where cheating."
His look of mild disapproval had her standing and backing away towards the refresher, her hand held up in a sign of appeasement.
"Okay, okay I get it…maybe I can get the footage off of the cantina's security holo's"
She muttered as she turned and entered the refresher, closing the door behind her, all he could do was smile. She'd obviously had quite a bit to drink and yet she'd still managed to deal with a bunch of schutta's. She was an intriguing mix of toughness and vulnerability combined with a wit and determination, no matter how hard he tried he was drawn to the unusual mix she represented. Moving back to his bed he lay down and tried not to think of her in the other room, but the more he tried not to think of her the worse he failed. Closing his eyes tight her pretended to be asleep.
The sun was shining through the tiny window woke him, that and the smell of caffa drifting across the room. Sitting up he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes trying to focus. Raven was sat by the interface terminal her tools laying within easy reach, along with the fresh cup of caffa. She stopped what she was doing and turned to look at him as he sat up smiling, the split lip from the earlier that morning a vivid slash against her skin. She also had extended bruising along the side of her cheek not to mention her eye. He felt a sudden surge of anger at the person responsible
"What time is it?"
He asked turning to place his feet on the floor.
"A little after 1140 sir. I nipped out about two hours ago to grab some supplies."
He nodded as he made his way to the tiny kitchenette and poured himself a cup of caffa. Taking a deep sip he sat down in the opposite chair to Raven's, letting the heat and caffa hit his system.
"How long have you been up?"
He asked taking another sip.
"A few hours, thought I'd see about hacking into the holo-net link. See if it turns up anything. At the very least it'll give us something to do."
She turned back to the task and he was left staring at her back, her very shapely back that ended in her… He stood abruptly discarding the now empty caffa cup along with the inappropriate line of thought.
"I'll go get dressed."
He murmured, he could do with putting as much distance between them as he could. Not that it would help any. She didn't look up as he moved to the refresher, just sat focused on the electronics before her. At least she hadn't noticed him staring at her – yet.
It had been a pretty uneventful day, after Carth had gotten dressed they'd headed out to the local cantina in an effort to discover any more information. Mainly though she noticed that Carth just wanted to get out of the apartment. She's managed to win a few more credits from the locals playing Pazaak but otherwise she was bored. At 1730 they headed back to the apartment to get ready, although why she didn't know. Carth was nervous pacing back and forth, fingering the trigger of his blaster not so casually ever few minutes as though he was dying to shoot something.
She'd managed to pick up some clean clothing from the owner of the weapon's shop – they where more like armour really but she didn't mind as long as they didn't have holes in and the looked clean enough. She'd even managed to grab something to brush her hair with. A feat on this pit of a world to be sure. At 1955 they left the apartment and head to towards the direction of the apartment Yun had mentioned.
As they where approaching the elevator she spotted two thug's harassing an old man. She stopped, eyeing then both before turning to give Carth a brief glance.
"I know we can't afford to attract attention, but I can't just let them hurt him."
She mumbled under her breath. The nearest thug turned and caught sight of them stood watching.
"What do we have here? Witnesses? Perhaps you should move along."
"I don't think so."
The words came out gritted her left hand reaching back slowly to grab the hilt of her blade.
"I think you should back off of the old an before you have to deal with us."
The thug's eyed each other before completely ignoring her warning and reaching for their weapons. She was moving instantly her blade out and already on the down swing towards the first thug, while Carth had drawn his blaster and waited for a clear shot. The first thug went down a moment later the blade slicing cleanly through his torso while at the same time Raven ducked to avoid the shot of the other remaining thug.
Carth managed to catch him in the shoulder causing the creep to turn just as Raven swung her blade and caught him cleanly beneath the arm, cutting upwards. The faint gurgling all that remained as he fell to the concourse, she turned to the old man while at the same time expertly cleaning her blade in the thugs pant leg.
"Are you alright?"
She asked him after a moment
"thanks to you two I am, for now at least. But it wont last long if I can't pay Davik what I owe him. He'll only send out more."
She eyed Carth a moment before she continued.
"How much do you owe him?"
"100 credits, there isn't a chance that I'll be able to come up with that much money anytime soon."
"Here…take it."
She pressed the 100 credit chip into his hand watching as the light of hope sprung to life in his eyes.
"Bless you child – bless both of you."
He moved off towards the elevator looking back every now and then to make sure they hadn't changed their minds.
"That was generous of you."
"Well what can I say? Help me would you"
"What?"
"We don't want to just leave them here. Their bound to draw attention and if this Davik guy is who I think he is then we definitely don't want his kind of attention."
She watched him fight his inner battle in silence before he moved to help her. She'd already stripped the thug's of credits and any useful weapons stashing them in her small backpack. Together they unceremoniously dumped the two over the edge not bothering to stop and watch them fall down into the abyss of Taris.
"We should go, we don't want to be too late."
They stepped towards the elevator and she lapped he palm down on the call button, at the same time turning her head to face Carth with a grim smile.
"Of course we do. All the coolest people arrive late at a party. Anyway the ale should have been there 30 minutes ago, this is going to be worth seeing."