.

Screaming at the walls of fire
They're closing in on me
I'm hungry for the burning of the silver moonlight
It's where I wanna be
Screaming at the walls of fire
But I'm still running free
In the silver moonlight I can breathe

Within Temptation - Silver Moonlight

Chapter 15 ~ The alpha on Omega

Consciousness seeped back to me slowly.

I tried to remember what happened, but every thought threatened to split my aching head right open. There was a taste of dirty pennies in my mouth and nauseating cramps in my stomach. I coughed out a handful of dust and forced my heavy lids to open. Poor light smudged every contrast into a shadowy blur. Hands and feet bound together behind my back, I lay on my belly like a stuffed turkey and could make out zip.

I wiggled my numb fingers and toes to work some sensation back into them. My limbs felt leaden. Someone, no, a batarian bartender had put something in my drink. Probably a slaver and –

Oh no.

Hot and icy dread washed over me. I struggled like a berserk against my bounds, the plastic of the zip ties cutting into my wrists.

Garrus. He was one tough bastard and without seeing a corpse I could just as well assume he was alive. He'd survived an inferno rocket, for God's sake. Certainly an idiot with a knife couldn't –

If he's alive then why are you here?

My chest constricted. With a groan I bit down on my lip to keep the rising sob inside. Pretended it was merely the sharp pain shooting tears into my eyes.

The minutes trickled by, pathetic minutes in which I wrestled with the cruel images my mind painted with frightening ease. Finally I let out a long breath. There was only so much terror you could hold in your mind. Only so many vivid projections to prepare for the worst. Eventually a blissful numbness took over. Functioning. And as long as I was trapped, my speculations were moot anyway.

I craned my neck. The yellowish light of the outside's ambient illumination filtered in through a small window. I was in a shabby storeroom that smelled like the inside of a garbage can. At the wall to my side was metal rack. I rolled sideward and wriggle about until my hands touched the frame and thank the gods, nobody had cared for deburring the edges.

Several scratches later I had rubbed through the plastic zips and patted down my thigh to find the little black throwing knife was still in its holster. I cut my legs free and massaged stiff wrists and ankles.

I tapped on the flat display that clasped my forearm like a metal cuff. No lights, no pitiful beep; nothing. Kaput. The omnitool was deader than the Prothean Empire. Figures.

I scrambled to my feet, knuckling the small of my back. My spine aligned with a crack. Yup, definitely too old for this shit.

I gave the window high up a wistful look, but thanks to my mediocre biotic mastery the art of levitation was forever out of my reach.

It made my options disheartening slim. I turned and inspected the rack that held the most irrational collection of old bean cans, moldy blankets, jars filled with screws and electronic trash. It probably would have made this MacGyver guy cream his pants; me, it only mocked with its uselessness.

With a shake of my head I tiptoed to the door and pressed my ear against the uneven steel. Silence. I fingered for a lock and found the telling slit of a card reader. My lips curled up. This was old tech and far from a high-sec lock. You fried the electronic and the bolts would snap right open.

I touched the reader; reached out to summon my biotics and –

Piercing agony stabbed from my brain through my whole body.

I dropped down on my knees and hunched over in pain; the scream only kept inside because I clasped my mouth shut with both of my hands. I gasped and fought down the nausea that tried very hard to make me barf out all the meals I ever had. Just… curl up on the floor and die.

Bastards. Not only had they knocked me out, no, they had also pumped me with Omega-Enkaphalin. Once the biotic-suppressant would have caused me merely a mild headache but with my freshly enhanced abilities it suddenly had an awful lot of active neurotransmitters to attach itself to.

Painful seconds stretched into awful minutes. I had barely gathered my wits once more when I heard footsteps approaching the door. As quick as I could I crawled to the middle of the room and lay down as I had before, pretending to be passed out. Which wasn't that hard to fake; my head felt as if someone had stuffed a handful of hot needles into it. Fainting, yeah, fainting seemed just like the idea.

The door opened and closed again. Steps drew nearer. Through my lashes I could make out a medium sized, broad-shouldered silhouette. The figure crouched down next to me and stroked my ass. Wonderful. And there we go again.

"Hello sweetheart," a raspy male voice mumbled. "Let's have some fun as long as Narol is away. He doesn't approve, you know, but it's not as if you are going to tell him, right?"

The guard's hand slipped up the hem of my dress and I exploded into motion. I pushed off the floor and tackled him. He cursed and we toppled over, me landing ruggedly on top of him. I rammed my knee into his guts then slammed my fist against his chin. The guard's head hit the floor with a dull crack and then his body relaxed. I rolled off and lay there on my back, my breath labored, gaze fixed at the spinning ceiling. Fucking Omega-Enkaphalin!

More precious minutes passed until I finally managed to push myself up again. A quick search of the guard's body brought up three things: a scratched keycard, a gun that looked about as trustworthy as a volus black market dealer and the fact that he was a batarian. I left it at that. I had absolutely no desire to dig deeper into the pile of greasy clothes.

I checked the gun. Empty. Yeah…

I drew my knife and looked at the batarian's unconscious body. Then back at the little black blade. Damn it.

I opened the lock with the keycard, tucked it into my boot and cracked the door with the knife in one hand and the batarian's gun in the other. Outside was a storage hall of some sort, containing even more racks, lined up along the wall and arranged in long neat rows of two in front of me.

I choose to go right and sneaked towards the intersection between the last rack and the wall, wincing at each soft click of my heels. I briefly considered leaving the boots behind then glanced at the splits and rusty nails that littered the concrete floor. Yeah, not much stealth in a trail of bloody footprints.

I crouched low and peeked around the corner. Left and about thirty paces ahead I could make out the exit. It unfortunately also had a table next to it with two batarians and one turian playing cards. It was the one I had seen in the bar… lifting his blade at Garrus.

I clenched my fists so hard that the handles of the gun and the knife both bit painfully into my palms. I wanted to drag this fucker into a world of pain and I wanted to start with a generous knuckle sandwich before I carved Garrus' name into his skull. And into his chest. And...

Focus, Shepard.

I closed my eyes and counted from ten backwards. The tension left. Some at least.

"Ver'Nesh!" the turian slaver suddenly shouted. "Where are you, you misbegotten son of a stunted pyjak?"

Then he kicked the leg of the batarian to his left.

"Go and look for your idiot brother. If he's damaging the wares again, I'll rip him a new asshole."

Cursing something in his native tongue, the batarian reluctantly pushed away from the table and came down the aisle. Unfortunately, they were about to realize any moment that they would need a medium to get any reply at all, so I tiptoed past the door to the storeroom and cowered behind a crate close by.

The guard approached and opened the door. I switched the gun to my right hand and slunk out.

"Wh…" the batarian begun and I hit him with the butt-end of the pistol hard against the temple. With a grunt his knees buckled and I gave him a push into the room. He made much more noise than I liked.

"What was that?" the turian guard asked and the scraping of chairs echoed through the hall.

I had no time to search the batarian for another gun or ammo, so I hefted the knife and threw the empty pistol into the room. Two down, two more to go.

I shut the door from the outside and as quick and silent as I could, I ghosted further away from the storeroom. I skipped the first intersection and stopped at the end of the second rack, listening. Footsteps halted and I heard the happy chirp of the door lock. Ahead of me was a narrow shadowed gap between the rack running along the wall and a stack of metal crates. Three steps and I retreated sideward into the gap. I heard curses. The clicks of safeties coming off. The turian passed me by. A handful of seconds later, the third and last batarian walked into my view. I counted to two then sneaked out after him. From behind I snaked my arm around his neck, the additional height from the raised heels giving me just enough leverage to pull him backwards. He yelped and I heard the turian snarl from somewhere ahead of us. I pressed the knife to his neck.

"Sorry, pal. Just one of those days when about nothing goes right..." I whispered, then shifted my grip and slashed his throat. Hot wetness splashed my arms and I dropped him the moment the turian came out of the aisle.

He hissed and lifted his Shuriken SMG.

I scrambled backwards and around the corner, a rapid salve hitting the rack. I ran back the aisle leading to the storeroom, hoping fervently that the turian would be too mad to think about cutting off my way by coming around the other side of the rack. Bullets sizzled around me; I ducked my head and skittered around the edge of the last rack. I ran towards the exit, aisles opening to my left, heels clacking too loud in my ears, the turian behind me cursing.

Aww, fuck this.

I would have never made it to the exit, anyway. And I still had a bone to pick with that sonovabitch.

I chose one of the six aisles at random and halted at the next intersection, breathing heavy. The adrenaline in my veins was the only thing that kept me upright, the unhealthy cocktail of knockout drops and Omega-Enkaphalin still messing around with my body. My heart beat like a triple bass drum. Black tendrils and bright blotches crept into my vision. My head felt like stuffed with hot wool.

And then I realized I couldn't hear the turian slaver any longer; and whatever he was doing he sure as hell wasn't flipping through a Fornax issue.

Goddammit!

When backed into a corner, with all your ammo and options gone, your fingers slowly slipping from the end of your proverbial rope, mouth off.

"Hey dickhead!" I was so done playing nice. They probably should engrave it on my next memorial plate. "You missed! Say, do you miss with your other gun, too?" I shouted, slowly moving back to the aisle that lead to the exit.

"Shut up! Shut the fuck up, you little whore!"

I tried to locate him despite the blood rushing in my ears. Left. He was on the other side of the rack to my left. Gotcha. I ducked and peeked around the corner, blinking and forcing the black haze to retreat.

He was just a few paces away, his back to me. I wouldn't get a better chance so I rose and took on step in his direction. Something cracked under the sole of my boot. The turian swirled around with a snarl. And pulled the trigger.

I dodged to the right, red hair obstructing my view, splitters of concrete hitting my legs. Frantic, I threw my knife. It drilled into his hand and he dropped the gun with a yell. I jumped forward and kicked the gun under the rack and out of his reach. The small black asari blade still stuck in his hand. I had a split second to decide what desperate move to pull next. I chose to go for my knife. I yanked at the slender handle and the turian howled. It also brought me into his immediate reach.

The turian grabbed my arm and then the rack to our right raced towards me. Shoulder first I crashed against the metal frame. I gasped in pain, my left arm numbing. Somehow I managed to scramble out of broken cardboard boxes and swayed to an upright position, left hand brushing the hair off my face, right still clasping the knife.

"You will die in pain!" He growled and closed in on me, bloody murder in his eyes.

Boy, was I tired of this particular threat.

Before he could reach me, I dropped low and cut away his footing with a kick. Turians were usually fist fighters, and therefore relayed on their strength and ungodly reflexes rather than footwork, and the move caught him by surprise. He fell on his back and I hurled myself forward.

"Rest in pieces, asshole!" I hissed and drove the throwing knife through the hardened skin and deeply into the turian's jugular vein. I ripped through hardened skin and his protests died in a soft gurgle. I drew out my knife, straightened from my crouch and took another ragged breath. My knees almost buckled. But I made it. I frigging made it.

Until someone chuckled behind me and I almost jumped out of my skin.

"Rest in pieces? Really, Shepard, you should have become a poet."

I turned around not believing my ears.

"You're alive…" I said softly, feeling dizzy, light-headed and on the brink of passing out.

And there he strode along the aisle, like a fucking hero. He lowered his sidearm. My gaze scanned over my turian friend but aside from a tear in his jacket he looked pretty much unharmed.

Garrus snorted and raised the hardened skin above his eye. Somehow I had the weird feeling that it was gesture he had picked up from me.

"You sound surprised. I'm hard to kill; you should know that by now."

I laughed. I just couldn't help it. I clamped my mouth shut; quickly, before it turned hysterical.

"Last one?" He pointed at the turian.

"So far. But how did you get here? I thought you were… you know…"

"Dead?" He finished, far too amused. "Well, our friend here, had me in quite the…hmm… predicament, so I told him I was a debt collector and you owed me."

"And they believed that?"

He shrugged. "I'm a good actor."

"What? You're a horrible actor; last time we played Skyllian Five you couldn't have fooled someone blind, deaf and brainless."

"Maybe because that was what I wanted you to believe."

"Uh-huh. Because losing your first-born to Tali is part of some devious master plan?"

"Yah, let's not go there now. I told them that your debt wasn't worth the trouble they would give me, so I ordered a drink and waited until this one left with you. Then I investigated where they would bring you and followed at a safe distance." He stopped and rubbed the back of his neck, looking around almost wishful. "Hmm. Had I known that the party would be over that fast, I would have picked up the pace."

"Sorry. I'm afraid we're out of 'damsel in distress' today and..."

I trailed off because I noted the turian's unnerving stare on me. I spared a moment for an objective reassessment of my appearance; blood-splattered and rolled in dust, red wig disheveled, standing with my knife over the dead body of a turian slaver in fuck-me-boots and a dress hiked up to my crotch. Uhg.

"Are you hurt?"

Damn, the bloody man could probably outstare a bloody stone with that gaze.

"No," I said, rubbing at the red stains on my arms. "See? It's not my blood."

"I mean this," he replied, crossing the distance, then pushed back a red strand to brush over the spot where my collar bone and shoulder connected. The contact sent a jolt of pain down my arm and I flinched. And there it was again. The sweet little tension that slithered through me despite the fact that I felt bruised down to my bones.

"It's nothing." I retreated a step. "Just a scratch."

The fighting and the adrenalin had already pushed buttons and the Omega-E wasn't helping either. If he kept touching my body, looking at me like that… Ah yes. Better not go there.

His gaze dropped. "Damn, what happened to your leg?"

I looked down, the ragged scar on my thigh beautifully exposed with the dress' hem not even remotely where it belonged.

I shrugged and nestled the leather back in place. "Haestrom happened."

Because you weren't there…

Not helpful, Shep.

Fortunately, a shout from the exit interrupted whatever questionable way the conversation would have wandered next.

"For the last fucking time, Quintus, if I call I expect one of you lazy bastards to pick up!"

"Boss," a second voice said. "They're not on their post."

"You, you, and you. Search them."

Great. This had to be Narol. And he brought friends. I shared a glance with Garrus, shaking my head at his unspoken question. I was in no shape to fight more of them.

He nodded and gestured at me to follow.

Garrus led me to a narrow door hidden between two racks not far away from where I stabbed the last batarian. He swept a keycard through the lock and we hastened through. Outside I almost stumbled over another batarian body sitting in the doorframe. Was this…

"Wait, is this the barkeeper?" I asked aghast, looking back over my shoulder. It was kinda hard to tell because someone had been intent on rearranging every bone in his face. Sure, I had seen and dished out more than my share of violence, yet the two bloodied mushy sockets where his primary eyes had been did make my last meal back up into my mouth a bit.

"Yes," Garrus simply said, while we jogged over a fenced parking lot, my boots clicking smartly on the ground. None of the vehicles we passed looked roadworthy even by the loosest definition. "Barkeeper, Shepard. Shepard, Barkeeper. I think you two have met."

"Haha. Very funny. Didn't you say 'you investigated'?"

"I did. He refused to tell me where they brought you. I had to investigate what would give him an incentive."

"Are you fucking insane?"

"Maybe. Come on, this way," he said and steered directly towards an opening in the fence.

I open my mouth then closed it again. Logically, I should have been shocked and disgusted but no-ooo. Whatever rational words of rebuke I had on my tongue dissipated at the warm and fuzzy feeling that rose in my chest. Oi. There was something seriously wrong with both of us.

Suddenly, the door we had come through banged open.

"THERE! CATCH THEM!"

Bullets flew. I ducked after Garrus through the hole in the fence. It opened into a murky alley framed by a windowless high-rise. I had not the slightest idea where we were, so I simply started running after the turian, my heels hitting the pavement in a wild staccato that echoed through the alley. Goddamn boots!

Dirty curses from behind told me that Narol and his mob had discovered our exit. A bullet sizzled past my head. We rounded another corner, just in time. The mouth of the alley was right ahead beckoning us with lights and noises that promised the relative safety of a crowd.

We burst out of the narrow street and quickly steered past a moderate number of late shoppers and early party goers moving along one of Omega's many entertainment boulevards. I turned my head and saw three batarians running out of the alley. The first one shouted something unintelligible, pointed at me then started to push cursing people out of his way. I quickened my steps to catch up with Garrus.

"Move! They saw me!" I nudged the turian's back.

He picked up the pace and I followed him across the boulevard, glad that most people made easily way for him. Yells rose from behind. A quick glance back revealed that for once it was a good thing to be on Omega. The slavers had bumped into two drunken krogans. Krogans being, well, krogans, they had immediately jumped at the chance for a brawl with both feet.

With our pursuer's attention diverted, we scurried into a side street. I yanked off the wig and tossed it into a dark corner, ruffling my hair. We were halfway down the block when I heard the first shots. Great. Just great. I looked over my shoulder. So far I couldn't see any batarians storming after us but certainly it could only be seconds before –

"I think we better hide…" Garrus mumbled all of a sudden and snatched my hand.

Then he pulled me sideways into a dim niche between a 24/7 laundry shop and a closed down bar. Before my dazzled mind could even form a protest I found myself trapped between his body and the side of the building. His arms stemmed against the wall next to my shoulders, head dipped to hover a few inches over my collarbone. His eyes, though, stared straight at the wall. Still, the very image of a couple enjoying some moment of privacy.

Oh boy. This was so not a good idea.

His breath tingled on my skin and I had to suppress the urge to gulp for air. My pulse pounded in my head. I bit the corner of my lip. He was so close. So temptingly close.

And still so fucking far away.

I watched the strong, inhuman angular outlines of his face. Like chiseled from stone. My thoughts went back to the sheer desperation that had befallen me when I had thought he was gone from my life forever. The twisting pain that had felt like a knife stuck into my very soul.

It made me recall all those wrong decisions in my life, all the times when proximity had led to nothing but me getting hurt. All the times when this profound emptiness had threatened to swallow me and I had tried to replace it with meaningless sex – only to find myself even emptier than before.

I remembered Alchera, and the bone-deep sadness about missing the scarce chances to give my life something beyond being a machine, trained and conditioned to kill, but Morinth's words kept echoing in my mind.

The likes of us are not meant for a peaceful life… How long? How long can you endure without fighting?

They were painfully true. Peace was a concept my rationality cherished and treasured; but which my heart had never been able to comprehend in full. And probably never would. Who was I kidding? The blood of all the lives I had taken was filling a vast lake, with me wading knee-deep through it. It was all I had to offer. Only sociopath would even considered dragging someone else into this mess.

Except… A small voice whispered in my head, Except that he is already wading through his very own lake, isn't he?

I raised my left hand. Warning bells shrieked in my head but I ignored them. Along with better knowledge, reason and all my unspoken doubts. I felt so dead and hollow inside it seemed almost a physical pain. I needed to find out. I needed to feel. Something. Anything.

I brushed with the back of my fingers over his cheek and along the edge of the scar marring the turian's face.

"What..." he begun, his eyes still glued to some spot behind me. Shouts flittered over from the boulevard and we both tensed simultaneously.

"Shh... We hide..."

He put his hand on my waist, and even with the leather of the dress between us my heart skipped a beat upon the contact. It was impossible to tell if his touch was meant to halt or to encourage, though.

"Shepard..." He said softly.

The slight disharmonies in his low timbre struck a chord of such delight inside me that it reverberated through my whole body, almost yanking me to the ground. Or maybe it was merely the Omega-Enkaphalin eating its way through my system.

"This is a bad idea..." He resumed, but his hand had started to caress my waist with tiny circular motions. Which utterly belied his words, I daresay.

"Mhm-hmm." I murmured absently, while sliding my fingers towards his neck and kneading my way upwards to the base of his skull.

The turian swallowed hard. I watched how the muscles in his throat worked and the most entertaining image of tracing the movement with my tongue fluttered across my mind. Heaven help me. The surface was so far gone, I couldn't even remember seeing it.

"We shouldn't..." Garrus tried again.

He still wasn't looking at me, but as if he could read my thoughts, the movements along my waist grew more… firm, stripping away my reason stroke by stroke.

Yep, a very bad idea.

"I know…" I said, my voice husky with things I didn't even dare to name.

He turned his head. If not for my back already pressed to the wall I would have retreated a step. The once so icy gaze was smoldering with such raw intensity that it stabbed straight into my to cupholders reduced sex organs and set them on fire. And underneath… Unable to pull away I stared back, at the savage hunger I found underneath.

A hunger, reflecting my own.

The shouts drew closer, but we were still too caught up with searching each other's gaze. For permission. For answers. For sanity. For redemption.

No going back to what we've been. But perhaps it had already been too late for us anyway.

And for the first time in my life I truly let go.

I stopped being Shepard.

I stopped being Ivy.

I just was; a resurrected, emotionally twisted madwoman with a soft spot for rebels of all kind; who would kill for coffee in the morning and always kissed her guns before riding into hell.

And then the madwoman stepped forward. My mouth met his. The hand on my waist froze. For three heartbeats nothing happened…

… and then he kissed me back.

He nipped at my lips. Ever so gently, then brushed the spot with the tip of his tongue. It was rough and yet smooth, teasing and yet promising. Alien and yet strangely familiar. He moved along my mouth, exploring its curves with a teasing deliberateness, as if to memorize each and every little detail of it.

My lips parted and I drew him in.

Feelings I thought to have since long withered away and died, exploded in my mind like a bomb of color. His arms wrapped around my back. I slid my tongue along his, not caring at all for the rows of sharp teeth, and clasped both hands around his neck, holding him close, but it wasn't close enough.

For a small eternity we hung in this magical place where time had no meaning and the universe ceased to exist. Footsteps echoed sharply through the empty street. Guttural batarian voices grew louder and louder, then died away once more as they passed us within maybe half a dozen paces. I couldn't bring myself to care. Hell, not even if Harbinger and its friends had descended on us this very second I would have been able to stop. I wasn't sure if I knew how to stop any longer.

Suddenly the turian pulled back and kissed an invisible trail along my jaw, down my neck until he buried his head into the crook of my neck. Help. Me. Someone had poured molten fire into my veins and it seethed away the last meager attempts of my conscience to cry for reason.

I felt his hands running down my back and then he stopped whatever he was doing to my neck. I could have howled with frustration. Need was tugging sharply at my groins and I pulled up my right leg to press it against his pronounced hip bone. The sniper's hand on my dress slid lower, past the small of my back and past my butt, until his rough, warm palm stroked along the rear side of my raised thigh. Then moved up and inwards ever so slowly. I bit back a moan and he flexed his fingers. The tips of his claws pressed against the sensitive skin at the base of my inner thigh, tossing my body into a hormonal overkill. Suddenly, he cupped my buttocks and the next moment I lost ground contact altogether. I wrapped my legs around his waist and yanked him nearer towards my center.

And again it wasn't even remotely near enough.

Sneaking my hands under Garrus' open jacket, I grabbed his shoulders. Through his shirt I could sense the hard outlines that defined his lean but muscular shape. And the warmth radiating from his body. My legs tightened. I wanted him to rub his bare skin against mine; to push forward and fill the cold emptiness inside me with the fires of his soul.

I wanted him so badly, it scared the living daylight out of me.

I leaned in and the familiar scent of rocks heated by a desert sun enfolded me. There I fastened my lips on the undamaged side of his neck, tasting salt and metal and sun, circling the alien texture of his skin with my tongue. Rough, yes; and yet so much softer than the rest. I succumbed to the urge to graze the spot with my teeth and was rewarded with a low, sexy rumble caught somewhere between a growl and a purr. The sound triggered something so deep, so utterly primeval female that it made me gently bite the boney base of his jaw, just so I could hear it again.

The turian complied.

A faint tremor ran through his body and his fingers dug into my lower back. Common sense said I should be afraid of the predator crowding my personal space, afraid of the dangers that lay in his touch and yet there I was, squirming in his arms and experiencing a level of safety I've never known before. Common sense, huh? Go to hell.

"Wait," he suddenly said. "Shepard, wait."

It took me the better part of five seconds to process the meaning behind his words and another five to pull my lips away from his face. My spinning world lurched to a halt.

Now? He wanted to cop out NOW?

I stared at him incredulously? Indignantly? Yeah, maybe a bit of both.

Someone cleared his throat and I swear I almost died of a heart attack for the second time that night.

He released me with a wry grin and I magically found my footing despite my shaking knees. I looked past Garrus.

From the middle of the street the Justicar watched us, arms crossed below her breasts. I took one step away from the turian.

Kill me now, anybody.

For another long, embarrassing moment, Samara's stern expression faced me. I filled the silence with my attitude.

"Uh, this. Not how you think it looks like, 'kay?"

I sneaked one hand to my back to straighten my dress without drawing attention. Garrus snickered. Ah yes. Turns out there's no way to be unobtrusive about a hem that had ridden past your belly button.

The red ornaments on the asari's forehead climbed up. "So? How do you think I think it looks like?"

"What are you doing here, anyway?" I growled, dragging the unruly hem back to where it belonged. Commander Shepard, master of evasion.

"I was worried. You weren't where we were supposed to meet. And your omni-tool wouldn't respond," Samara said reproachful.

I glanced at my arm. A neat crack ran through the display containing the holo-projector and the main board. I winced. "Look, I'm sorry. There were those slavers and –"

That was when I realized that below the stern mask, Samara was trying very hard to hide a smirk. I threw up my hands.

"They knocked me out, kidnapped me… why don't you say anything?" I asked the turian who had grown suspiciously busy with inspecting his hands.

"Whatever you say, Shepard," he replied, hilariously amused about my respectability getting dragged out in backyard by the firing squad.

I just glared at him.

He lifted his palms in defense. "Why, I'm just trying to be helpful."

"Really? What kind of demented help is that?"

He even had the nerve to wink at me. "You're welcome."

Insufferable man.

Samara had watched the exchange silently. The corners of her lips twitched.

Ticked, I glared at both of them and crossed my arms before me. "Yeah, glad to be a constant source of amusement for you. By the way, how did you find us?"

She looked at Garrus and he shrugged. "When I knew where they brought you, I send her a message that we might need a lift from there."

Samara nodded. "That is correct. As for the rest… I told you I was worried. So I contacted Mrs. Lawson to send me the codes to your tracking transmitter."

I grimaced but ignored the prickling itch between my shoulder blades. Tracking transmitter. Why wasn't I surprised?

"I see," I said rubbing my forehead. Now that the adrenaline had worn off I only felt sore, tired and queasy.

The Justicar's omni-tool hummed softly. She opened the message console and her eyes widened.

"Shepard. We need to get back to the Normandy."