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They are… behind my back? Cold and stiff. I can barely move them, but when I do, pinpricks shoot up my hand.

I try to blink again but my vision is coated in something dark and sticky.

My hands are stuck together, my wrists bound in something tight. Something that digs into my skin, cutting off sensation and movement. Blood flow.

When I twist, sharp pain shoots up my arms, into my shoulders.

A scream is wrested from my throat and then I feel the cold bite of an open palm against my cheek.

My neck snaps back, my head bobbing, cracking against something hard. A wall.

The bones of my face explode in agony.

Tears fall from my eyes, the salty warmth stinging. One of my eyes won’t open at all. The other is covered in blood.

My blood.

My skull throbs, and I realize I must have a head wound that’s bleeding into my eyes.

“Shut up,” a man’s voice says.

A familiar voice.

Oh god. Oh no. I try to speak but my voice comes out cracked. Raw. Muffled by the gag. “What have you done?”

“Just making good on my contract,” the voice sneers.

I need to get my bearings. I need to remember what happened. As carefully as I can, I rub my good eye against my shirt, trying to clear away the blood so I can see.

That small movement turns my stomach, causing bile to rise in my throat and the room to spin around me.

No. Not room.

I shiver, just now noticing the snow drifting through shafts of light. I’m sitting on cold, hard stone. Jagged rocks surround me. I’m in a cave. Shoved into a corner with my ankles and wrists bound. Mouth gagged.

Beaten badly, by the feel of it.

And sitting across from me is the last person on Mars I ever wanted to see again.

Buddy Fischer.

* * *

MAREK

I see red. Blood fills my vision as my mind quickly pieces together what has likely happened. “Metis, where is Azalea?” I say through clenched teeth.

My heart is gripped with a crippling kind of pain I cannot fathom facing if I do not find Azalea safe and well.

“Azalea is not on the ship. Whereabouts unknown.”

“Metis, when did she leave this suite?”

“Thirty-five minutes ago.”

“Under what circumstances?”

“I do not understand the question.”