Nora

Well, my career is steadily going from the frying pan into the fire. I got myself locked up with the infamous Zoran criminal Torin himself. However, so far he’s been the most chivalrous person on this entire cursed planet. All of the other men have been nothing but dicks, with the warden on top of my shitlist.

I’m supposed to be scared, but actually, I feel quite safe in the Zoran’s presence.

I can tell he’s attracted to me. His eyes dart over frequently, looking at my legs, my hips, my butt, my boobs, my eyes, my hair… I don’t regret wearing this dress anymore. I enjoy the way he looks at me, filled with desire and pent-up lust. I know it’s wrong, but I enjoy giving him a good view. I enjoy being the object of his affection.

If he ravaged me right now, I wouldn’t even blame him.

I shake my head. Get your mind out of the gutter, Nora. You’re in deep shit. Locked up in a prison light-years from Earth! Stop thinking about spending quality time with an alien warrior and face the music. You know what prisons are like, and Blackgate is the worst of the worst. You might not even make it out of here alive.

That thought sends a cold shiver down my spine and sobers me right up. Torin is right. If I’m the only woman in here… that means I’m like a meaty steak thrown into a pack of hungry wolfs.

About to be devoured.

Men have never fought over me before. They’ve mostly ignored me, either because they didn’t find me attractive or because they were intimidated by my success — I don’t know, I never asked. Having a whole prison lust after me, while that may seem fun in theory, now that I’m actually there, it seems rather foolish.

I focus my attention on the note I’m scribbling. This has to reach my boss, and sooner rather than later.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that being in this room with Torin might actually just be the safest place for me on this whole planet, as contradicting as that sounds. No one on Earth will believe that, but I feel it in my very core. Torin is a good man. He has a good heart.

He in no way lives up to his reputation. And that only makes my question the official story more and more…

The doors all buzz and then fly open. “Lunch!” a voice in the distance cries.

Torin gives me a look. “Do you want to go?”

“I do not.”

“Neither do I,” he answers, “but if we want get your note out there I’m afraid we have no choice. I’d leave you here if I could, but you’re safest by my side. Let’s go.”

I take a deep breath and gather my courage.

“Yes, you’re right,” I say. “Lead the way.”

I follow Torin into the cell-block. My heart races when I see the other prisoners. Every hall falls silent as we pass through them. All I hear is my heels clicking on the floor.

There are all kinds of different aliens here. Some I have never even heard of! Besides humans, I see reptilians with scaly skin and feathers on top of their heads, and hairy bear-like men with snouts, and some things that defy description.

There’s a whole universe out there. It’s easy to forget when you’re on Earth, caught up with human concerns.

The eyes of all the inmates follow me, but I don’t see hatred or anger in their eyes. Mostly, it’s curiosity. They are as surprised to see me as I them.

After several turns we arrive at a big hall with rows and rows upon tables. The lunch room. It too falls silent the moment we enter. Torin grabs my hand and pulls me along, heading towards the counter.

I am thankful for his touch. When he lets go to grab two plates of food I can’t help but feel a little disappointed. I mentally chastise myself for this. I don’t need a man to take care of me. I’ve been sticking up for myself for years! So why does it feel so good when this mountain of a man takes control? I feel guilty but I can’t help but enjoy it. It’s nice to know that someone else is looking out for my interests as well.

Slowly the buzz in the room returns as all the inmates start talking to each other again. I glance down at my plate, hoping for something good, but seeing the same goop we had for breakfast.

“Is this all we’re going to get in here?”

“Afraid so.”

I stick a spoonful in my mouth. The bad food I can deal with. It’s the other inmates that frighten me. However, I feel that as long as I stay close to my protector, I should be all right.

I want to show Torin how thankful I am for his kindness, but I don’t know how.

Well, there is one way…

Yeah, I should be working on the case, figuring out if there’s some way to fight the verdict. Instead, Torin is taking care of me. I made a total fool of myself. When my boss comes, if he comes, I’m sure he’ll laugh at me. He’ll be completely vindicated. He expected me to screw up. And screw the pooch I did…

A blue skinned alien walks up to us. His forehead has many ridges, and his ears are pointy. His yellow, cat-like eyes are focused on me, and I recoil as soon as I see him. He’s giving me bad vibes.

“What do we have here?” he slithers with a thick accent. A forked tongue licks his thin lips. “How much for a ride?”

Torin pushes his shoulders back. “I’m only going to say this once, kavii. Back off.”

The blue alien reaches out for me. His fingers are like prongs, long and thin, and I dart back. Before he comes even close to reaching me, Torin intervenes. He grabs the man’s arm and slams it down the table with a heavy crunch.

“What did I tell you?!” Torin growls. “Back off!”

He lets go and the man screams something in his native tongue before swiping at Torin with his unbroken arm.

Mistake.

My turquoise protector dodges, grabs, spins, and breaks the arm right on his knee. With a high-pitched cry that makes me wince the blue alien falls to the floor.

Torin stares the now silent lunchroom down.

“That goes for all of you,” he says, slowly but clearly. “Back. Off.”

Guards pour into the room, and Torin grabs my hand and escorts me out. The human guards take the sobbing blue alien away. To my surprise, they don’t even care about the disturbance. This might be more common than I had hoped…

That thought makes me shudder. I’ve studied prisons before, I must have read a hundred different papers on them, but nothing has prepared me adequately for this. This feeling of being trapped. At least I know I did nothing wrong and that I’ll be out soon. The same can’t be said for all these men.

They are stuck in here for years. Decades. The rest of their life.

I feel guilty. I’ve only experienced a small sliver of what they go through, and already I’m at the end of my rope.

When we’re about the exit the lunchroom, a small hairy man stops us. Well, not quite a man — it’s more like a rodent that’s walking on its hind two legs.

“What did I just say?” Torin growls. “Back off.”

“I just wanna help, see,” the rodent says. He talks fast, like he’s late for a train. “You two look like you could use some help, see.”

Torin glances at me, and I nod.

“You’re right,” he says. “We need to get a message back to Earth. Can you do that?”

The rodent throws his head back and produces a chattering noise. I’m assuming it’s a laugh.

“Can I? Can I? Sherba can do anything! This is nothing for old Sherba.”

“Nothing comes free. What do you want?”

The man’s red eyes fall on me.

“That’s easy, see. Her panties!”

Torin grabs him by the throat and lifts him right off the ground.

“You get one more chance,” he growls, the Zorans voice low and raw. “Use it wisely.”

“Okay, sorry, sorry,” the rat-man squeals. “Let me go! Can’t! Can’t breathe!”

“Don’t hurt him,” I say.

Torin lowers the rodent to the floor, and he gasps for air. “Thank you, miss, oh thank you!”

He tries to grab my hand and I reflexively pull it back. I don’t want to see him choked out, but that doesn’t mean I want to touch him either…

“What do you want?” Torin growls. “And remember—”

“Yes, yes, use it wisely, I remember! Sherba remembers! Just… a piece of the lady’s hair? Just a strand?”

My Zoran protector looks ready to choke him again, but I stop him.

“If that’s all… here.”

I yank out a few hairs. A bit more than I initially planned, but oh well.

“Knock yourself out,” I say as I hand them over. Sherba starts sniffing it immediately, his tail wagging about, and I feel both flattered and grossed out at the same time.

The rodent turns to walk away, but Torin steps right on his tail.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

He turns, his red eyes wide.

“The message!” Torin growls.

Oh, right! I pull the folded-up letter out of my bra, and the rodent man nearly faints when I hand it to him. Torin raises an eyebrow and shakes his head disapprovingly.

“I had no other place!” I say, but Torin is not having it.

I follow the tall Zoran back to our cell. “What do we do now?” I ask him when he plops down on his bed.

“We take it one day a time,” he answers. “One day a time. That’s all we can do.”

“To entertain ourselves, I mean.”

He smirks at me. “Nothing, human. We do nothing.”

“You mean there is no library here? No holovids to watch?”

“Not for us, no.” He stretches out on the bottom bunk. It barely contains his immense frame. “We could talk,” he offers.

“I didn’t take you for a talker,” I answer.

“Why is that?”

“Uhm, because you’re an infamous criminal?”

“Oh yeah, nearly forgot about that,” he chuckles. “I’ve had enough of silence for the rest of my lifetime. Tell me about yourself.”

I kick off my heels and climb my way onto the top bunk. “I don’t really have any interesting to say.”

“You are dead wrong, human,” Torin growls. “You are the most interesting thing that has happened to me since…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. He doesn’t have to. I know exactly what he’s referring to. We need to talk about the crime, but now doesn’t seem like a good time.

“Alright, where do you want me to start?”

“When were you born?” he asks.

“Asking a woman for her age? Shame on you,” I laugh. “It was about, say, twenty-three years ago.”

“Ah, so you’re a youngling!”

“If you want me to get you out of here you’ll never use that word again,” I say. “I’m an adult, thank you very much.”

“Noted. What about your family?”

“I was raised by my father, “I tell him. “My mom passed away when I was very young. Cancer.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you. To be honest, I have no memory of her. It’s hard to say, but… wow, I don’t think I’ve ever said this out loud, but… I don’t feel anything, you know? I literally have no memory of her. All I have is photographs of her, and all that my dad has told me of her, and she sounds like a wonderful woman, but… I can’t miss something I’ve never known in the first place. And that just makes me feel awful. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.”

“These walls will do that to you,” Torin growls from below. “You can’t escape your own thoughts in here. It’s not strange, and it’s not your fault at all. All can you do is play the cards that you’ve been dealt. What about your old man?”

“He’s a tinkerer,” I say. “A builder. He’s got a knack for it. Drones, artificial intelligence — he’s good at all of it. Every time I’d come home from school he would have something new to show me.”

“Sounds like a good childhood.”

“It was. Looking back, we didn’t have much, but at the time it felt like we had the whole world.”

“So how come you didn’t become an engineer?”

I take a deep breath. Just thinking about it makes my blood boil.

“My father got screwed by the Federation, that’s why.”

“What? The Federation screwing someone over? Well, I never,” he says, his low voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Yeah, who knew, right?” I laugh.

Torin is far from the stoic, silent tough guy I feared he’d be. He’s actually incredibly easy to talk to, and I find myself spilling all of my guts to him.

“He invented a levitating lamp, using magnets and stuff. I’m still not quite sure how it worked to be honest but work it did. He showed it to a Federation clerk, and the man laughed at him, told him nobody wanted crap like that. And next year, well… next year floating lamps were all the rage. And my father never saw a single penny. It wasn’t just about the money. It was about the recognition to him. Ever since, he just lost his desire to invent. He became withdrawn, anxious. To me, it feels like they took something from my father. Something that made him whole. That put me on my path. I wanted to protect people who had no time or credits to protect themselves.

“So, you’re a rebel?” Torin asks.

“I thought I was,” I answer. “But walking around in high heels and black dresses in expensive law firms doesn’t exactly makes you a rebel — it makes you part of the establishment.”

“You then decided to slum it here for a while, hm?”

I can’t help but laugh. “Something like that. My boss and I, we didn’t get along so well, so he stuck me with this case, expecting me to screw it up. To be honest, this… this is my first case. And I did screw it up. I’m sorry, Torin. I… I failed you.”

The Zoran warrior gets up. “Look at me, Nora Baker. You are no screw-up. You have a fire inside of you. Never let them extinguish that.”

As I stare into his amethyst eyes, I do feel a fire burning inside of me… but it’s not the type he’s thinking about.

It’s the type of raging inferno that can only be extinguished by that magnificent alien rod of his.

I roll over and stare at the wall, afraid that if I gaze into his eyes a moment longer he’ll be able to read my entire soul. There’s something about him that just makes me lower all of my defenses. I’ve never been this open, this vulnerable before. What’s going on?

What are you waiting for? It’s not like there’s anything else to do in here but him. Enjoy it while you can.

No, I think to myself. I’m his lawyer. Having relations with a client is a quick-way to get fired.

You’ll get fired anyway. You got yourself locked up. You haven’t even begun to help him. You’re a liability more than a help to him!

No, this is not my fault! It’s the warden! And once that message reaches Earth, they’ll get me out of here and we’ll get to the bottom of this.

I can’t believe myself. I’ve only been in here a day and already I’m talking to myself. Go make yourself useful!

I hop out of bed and grab the papers out of my suitcase. I’ve read the details of Torin’s case over and over again, but perhaps I missed something. Anything.

The hours pass slowly in our cell as I read. After we eat dinner (more goop), I ask Torin about himself.

“What do you want to know?” he asks. “You know all about me, judging by that stack of paper. At least, I hope you do by now.”

“I know some things, sure, but I want to hear your side of the story for once.”

“Tou want me to talk about Pazar? Is that it?”

“Well,” I shrug, “it’s not completely inconsequential, no. So, if you want to talk about it… go ahead.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” he says briskly. “I was convinced I was innocent, but…”

Now this is interesting. I sit down on the side of his bed. “But what?”

His voice is suddenly trembling. “I don’t know anymore, Nora. I really don’t. I have dreams. Horrible dreams, of blood, of violence, of death. I’m starting to doubt all that I’ve ever believed. If I did it, and I’m saying if, it certainly wasn’t on purpose. I would never hurt an innocent person.

“I believe you,” I say softly.

He looks up at me, his gorgeous eyes filled with hurt. “Before you came to Blackgate, I was done. I was nearly broken, ready to give up, but you… you’ve given me strength, Nora. You’ve given me a purpose.”

“Me?” I say. “I’m just a failed lawyer. You’re the badass warrior. Without you I’d be toast in here.”

“You’re much tougher than you give yourself credit for,” he says. “I wish I… remembered more. I have no idea why we were even on Pazar, my fellow soldiers and me. My memories are so fuzzy, so filled with holes…”

“I believe you,” I say, firmly this time. I mean it with all my heart and soul. I can tell he’s innocent, can see it in his eyes and feel it in my heart. I’m not sure what really happened on that space station, and I might never know, but that Torin is an honest, good man — that I know for sure.

He looks up at me and I can’t help but lean in closer. His manly scent surrounds me, and my heart is racing. My lips part slightly — is this the moment? Is this…

“Lights off!”

A human voice in the distance ruins the moment. The next moment the lights shut off and we’re coating in darkness.

“Goodnight,” I mumble, as I climb onto the top bunk again, my heart still racing.

Chicken, I think to myself. You chicken!