“What is it you think I want?”
“Acceptance.” Her colors shifted then, and I could see it all over her. The desire to fit in. An Earthan trapped among aliens. “Or, well, I at least promise not to yell at you anymore.”
“That’s the best I’m going to get out of you, isn’t it?”
“Afraid so.”
She huffed out a long breath. Poked at the food in front of her. Shook her head, like she couldn’t believe what she was about to say. “I think … Cora, I think I know a way to get us out of here.”
“WHAT?” I screeched. The table next to us turned and stared, and I lowered my voice. “What?” I demanded in a whisper.
“It’s not going to be easy, but I think—”
Her voice broke off in a scream and a string of curses as, out of nowhere, a neon blue tentacle shot across the table and smacked her in the jaw.
“Hey!” I was instantly on my feet as Wren’s head snapped to the side. Elio dived forward, determined to help her, but a second attack didn’t seem to be what the intruder was after. The tentacle was more than six feet long, attached to the jaw of a woman smirking two tables over, and she used it to deftly lift Elio’s heaping plate of eggs into the air.
I assumed she was going to steal them for herself—because that seemed logical. What I didn’t expect was for the tentacle to twist with a lazy ripple, dumping the food on top of our heads.
“Seriously?” I grimaced as I picked a scalding piece of egg from between my cleavage. Wren grabbed it from me and sent it flying at Tentacle’s head.
“Watch it, Calamari! Try that again and I’ll rip your intestines out through your eyes!”
“That isn’t possible.” The woman started laughing, a few companions at her table joining in.
Wren crossed her arms. “Maybe not for you.”
The woman stood. I wished I had a blaster or a knife to defend us if she came over here, but Wren didn’t seem to need my help. She held the woman’s gaze, her chin high and defiant, and for a moment I wondered if she actually was capable of pulling off a murder that gruesome.
Finally, the woman took a step forward. Her hair rustled, more tentacles emerging from beneath the silky strands. They slithered toward Wren, skimming her shoulders before flicking her chin. Then they wrenched her to her feet by the throat.
“Earthan child. When’s the next match?”
“Tomorrow,” Wren answered, her voice rough under the pressure of the tentacles.
“And have you found me a worthy opponent? The last one was too weak. I could have crushed their fragile body in my sleep.”
Wren smirked. “Let’s just say that your new opponent won’t give you that issue.”
“They better not.” She licked her lips. “I like a challenge.” She retracted her tentacles, leaving the column of Wren’s throat covered in dark splotches from the suckers. Wren was shaking, gasping desperately for breath. Seeing her start to break after acting so tough all day long made me feel something sharp in my chest that almost, maybe could have passed for sympathy.
Or maybe it was just indigestion. These prison eggs were disgusting.
Once the tentacled woman headed for the doors leading back to the cell blocks, her posse tagging along behind her like a bad smell, I turned to Wren. “A match? What match?”
She slumped back down at our table. “She just had to steal my thunder. I was getting to it, I swear. Have you ever played Snaps?”
“What’s Snaps?”
“‘What’s Snaps?’ she asks. It’s a betting game played with gems. It’s called Snaps because—”
“Because the winner usually celebrates by breaking the bones of the loser,” Elio interrupted. His eyes flickered as he ran a net search. “Created in Andilly in the year 2126, Snaps has since been outlawed in nineteen different galaxies. The average mortality rate of Snaps losers amounts to 64.61 percent, making it the eighth highest cause of death on the planet, right behind—”
“Yeah, yeah, we get it, Elio.” I patted him on the shoulder. “Snaps is very violent.”
“Only if you lose,” Wren added. “And you’re looking at Ironside’s head Snaps bookie. I rig all the odds. People only lose when I want them to. In the end, it all works in my favor.”
“Wait—you’re actually making money off this?” And how do I get in on it?
Wren shook her head. “Not money. They confiscate all our money here. We trade in gossip. Which brings me to my brilliant escape plan. Drumroll, please…” She beat a quick rhythm on the table. “I have a charter ship. The Starchaser. It’s the largest in this galaxy, thank you very much. I hijacked it from a station near Pluto—”
“The space station you blew up?”
She waved me off. “Accidentally. Point is, the station is dust, but the ship is fully functional. And thanks to all the intel I’ve gained from our gullible fellow inmates every time they make a bad Snaps bet, I now know that the warden here put it in a docking bay beneath the prison. And thanks to a few more bad bets during last week’s Snaps match between Calamari and my old cell neighbor Tito—stars rest his soul—I know the ship’s still here because the guards always complain about how much room it takes up. Apparently, they don’t have any space to set up their card table.” A proud grin split her face in two.
“So how are you going to get the ship back?”
Her grin doubled in size. “We,” she corrected, “are going to have a little fun with some of the guards. But first we need … him.” She nodded to a weight bench at the edge of the yard. Anders was sitting there, sweat pouring off the scales on his forehead. Everyone in the vicinity was giving him a wide berth, as if he were contagious or something.
“The guards will be less suspicious that he’s trying to double-cross them,” she said. “Creepy red lizards gotta stick together and whatnot.”
“Do you really think he’ll help us?” Elio asked.
“Of course, Small Fry. He’s the classic broody schoolyard bully. If we watch closely, I bet we’ll find out he has a heart of gold.” She howled with laughter.
“Can we get back to the plan, please?” I asked. Looking at Anders for too long was giving me a prickly feeling on the back of my neck. He got off the bench and started doing push-ups in the dirt. I swore his dark, pitiless eyes cut a glance to our table, and it made my stomach bunch up like I’d just swallowed a rubber ball. I didn’t trust him. I didn’t trust anyone except Elio and myself.
“So Anders helps us and then what?” I picked apart a roll until it crumbled in my hands.
Wren took a piece from me and popped it into her mouth. “You come in with your abracadabra aura-manipulating magic and then we’re golden.”
“It doesn’t work like that. I can read the guards enough to avoid running into them if we make a break for the docking bay, but I can’t manipulate them. I—”
“Who said anything about reading the guards? Listen, Cora, this will work best if you don’t know all the details. Element of surprise and all that. Trust me.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I called in sick for my trusting lesson in preschool.”