Ryan Wisp was sitting in a prestigious chair on the opposite side of the desk that was separating us. Honestly, it was less a chair and more a throne, that he was ruling his delusional empire in. He was ignoring me, reading through the papers scattered wildly on his desk. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Wisp seemed distracted by the reports in his hands but I wasn’t brave enough to do more than slightly test the wiggle room of my tied down arms, which unfortunately turned out to not be a lot, which meant I couldn’t get rid of all the nervous energy furling inside my chest, which had me more agitated by the minute. My ankles were tied to the chair legs and rubbed raw by my constant shifting. My cheeks were chewed bloody, making me grimace when the metallic flavor hit my tongue, then Wisps half-lidded eyes flicked up from the papers, meeting mine. He didn’t seem interested in me, yet his gaze held a certain intensity. It was as if he could hear my heartbeat, smell my fear. He felt like a predator in the small room, then his eyes flicked back down and my tense muscles uncoiled a little. A shuddering breath left my mouth.

I couldn’t take the tension anymore, so I broke through it.

“What is your plan with us.”

He didn’t show any visible reaction, instead, he grabbed another page to read through. It took about another full minute until he set the papers down, crossed one leg over the other, and dropped his hands into his lap, leaning back on his throne. He looked down his nose at my hunched form.

“My plan? I did not plan for this. The better question is what was your plan,”

he tilted his head a little, then continued, “What is interesting to me is how this unlikely friendship came to be. Weren’t the two of you on quite the bad terms last we met?”

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

He raised an amused eyebrow at my response, a crooked smile forming on his face.

“Enemy hm? Fine then, if that’s the decision you’ve made,” my eyes bulged as he stretched his legs out and got up from his seat.

“Wait hold up-,” he chuckled as he grabbed the back of my chair, interrupting me, “Too late.” He tilted the chair and started dragging it, me still bound on top, out of the room behind him. I was struggling in my shackles as we passed by members of his crew in the winding hallways. Some of them were chuckling at my pathetic display, some, that I may or may not have shot into the stomach before, were sneering at me, making me pull my head between my shoulders. Then, Wisp stopped, making me try to sneak a glance behind, where he was typing a code into a keypad to the door we were waiting in front of. It slid open and the atmosphere changed. It was a lot darker in here. Cells appeared in front of me and I realized where he was bringing me. Leaning forward in my chair I was hoping to catch a better look into the barren rooms, trying to find Temos alive and well inside one of them, but apparently, Wisp hadn’t been holding onto the chair properly anymore and so, with my weight shifting I slipped from his grasp, all four legs of the chair dropping back onto the floor and I came to a startling halt.

Everything was silent.

Wisp stepped around the chair until he was right in front of me and dropped down into a kneel, putting himself at eye level.

He was considering me for a while, then he smiled.

I flinched as his hand got closer and I turned my head to the side, pinching my eyes.

He chuckled at my reaction, then pushed my bangs away from my face, combing them back to the side.

“Where’d your bravery go? I remember you having a lot more fire in you.”

A clank, like something hitting metal, made my attention shift away from him.

“Jace is that you? Are you okay?” I huffed in relief, my body relaxing a little at hearing Temo's voice. He sounded okay. Captain Wisp lifted his head to peer over my head to where the Temos seemed to be clinging onto the bars that were keeping him locked away.

After a couple of seconds where Wisp seemed to be thinking something over, he got up and started towards the cells.

I panicked at the thought of him going to hurt Temos. Wisp was right, he was my friend. So, I acted without thinking and shifted my foot to the side, thankfully the shackles allowed me to move it that far, actively tripping up a notorious pirate captain. Admittedly not my proudest moment. Temos made a choked sound as Wisp's foot hooked on mine but before he could stumble or even fall, the resistance of his weight against my foot disappeared. I nearly pulled something in my neck craning my head back. I was trying to catch a glimpse of what had happened but I couldn’t see Wisp anywhere. Instead, I flinched hard, sliding down in the chair as far as I could go as I noticed blue mist floating on top of me. The Captain materialized not a second later, leaning over me from the back of my chair.

“Unlikely friends indeed,” he chuckled, then his gaze shifted down to my strapped tight gauntlet and his eyes took on a dangerous glimmer. With a smirk, he flicked out a weird-looking tool and in seconds had it jammed it into the small gap left between the blue covering of my gauntlet and the gauntlet itself. I seized as strong currents of electricity started to flow through my body and just as my body gave out and I sunk into unconsciousness, I heard Temos crying out my name in panic.

Deep humming pulled me out of the darkness. I groaned as I tried to move my head but gave up as my fried nerves started protesting almost immediately, making me groan in pain.

“Woa calm now, don’t move too much”, Temos came into my field of vision and helped me sit up, propping my body against the wall.

“Is this what this feels like?” I grunted, letting my head fall back, my eyes closed.

Temos chuckled, “Yeah, pretty much. It should be better in a few days.”

“I don’t remember you not being able to move at all.”, I grumbled.

“Well, I probably have a higher pain tolerance than you, being a pirate, in constant fight and all that, you know.”

“How long have I been out for?” I looked around the bare cell. There was nothing inside of it, just metallic walls.

What a bad customer experience, they surely won’t get a good rating from me.

“I wish I could tell you, it’s kind of hard to tell the time in here. I’d guess maybe half an hour. Wisp dropped you in here and left straight after.”

I struggled to lift my sore arm to my face and took a look at my wristwatch. Thankfully, it seemed like it didn’t take damage from today's misadventures. I wasn’t entirely sure when I got knocked out, so it didn’t really help me to see that it was 5 pm now.

I was getting hungry. I haven’t eaten anything since I left this morning, and the prospect of not knowing if we’d even get food, or if we’d just be left to rot away in this cell, was an uncomfortable thought on my mind. Especially, as starvation wasn’t even the worst of the outcomes that could happen to us. Ryan Wisp knew that I had been working for the Space Force before I ran off. I was hoping he would somehow try to strike a deal with them. I have been working with these people since I was a teenager, they couldn’t just drop me after one misstep, -right?

Maybe I could tell Wisp that I would slip false information to throw them off his trail if he let me go back. I just had to figure out how Temos would add to that equation. I wouldn’t leave him now, which was very surprising. Usually, I didn’t care about anyone but myself, but somehow Temos slithered his way into my heart. I think he was my first friend. Of course, we weren’t real friends. It was obvious we still disliked each other.

“Do you want to lay down on my coat so you can rest a little and let your body heal?”

Yep, we definitely still disliked each other. That’s why I selfishly took his coat, to use it as padding against the hard floor, and closed my eyes. I was still completely drained of energy. Trusting Temos to wake me up in case anything happened that needed my attention, I slowly let myself drift off to Temos' calm humming.

The next time I woke up, I was feeling a lot better. My headache was close to gone and my muscles weren’t as strung up anymore, but I have started getting more and more hungry and thirsty. I was sure that Temos would’ve warned me if Wisp had paid us a visit, so I assumed no one had stopped by. It was 8 am now, Temos was slumped against the wall dozing and I felt kind of bad that he had to sit on the hard floor, while I got to rest on his coat.

All was quiet.

I came to the conclusion we had to be the only ones stuck down here, which was weird considering Temos told me that there was a guard stationed here before. The bars that kept us prisoner were firmly locked in place. Taking the darkness around us into consideration, I decided that the power in the cells area must have been shut off, which would prevent Temos from hacking the opening mechanism again, thus leaving no need for a guard to check on us, as there was no way the cells would open for us without electricity. On the other hand, it also meant there was no surveillance, as the cameras were also dependent on power. The little light that was shed into our cell seemed to stem from emergency reserve-powered signs, like the ones highlighting where the fire extinguishers were stored at, as well as the ones showing the quickest way to the exit, in case of an emergency evacuation. I didn’t know of any prison blocks in ships that told the inhabitants which way to run if they ever escaped, so these cells must have been custom-installed. This hopefully meant there were weaknesses we could exploit. So far the ship was still docked to the city but our window for escape was getting smaller by the minute. Surely there were emergency escape shuttles on the ship but these always had trackers on them and we’d get chased down immediately after starting the engine. I scooched closer to the bars, checking if I could make out how the mechanism of the bars worked but they all seemed locked tightly inside the floor. Next, I checked the area from where the bars came down from. Sadly, no visible components that I could tinker with. It all seemed properly boxed up. I stretched onto my toes, gritting my teeth against the strain of my, still very sore, muscles, and tried to use my claws to lever the covering off of the surely hidden inside wires. If I could expose them I might be able to power the door with the electricity of my whip. I just couldn’t properly reach it, my claws kept slipping and my lack of balance skills made me dance around on my toes. There was one spot where the claws kept catching making me focus my efforts on it. I didn’t realize that my whole attention was taken by the hopeless endeavor of opening a panel that might not even be there, which made me notice the blue mist that had started wavering around my gauntlet far too late. A hand materialized, still blue and see-through, squishing my fingers together in its grasp, another fisted in my collar and pulled me forcefully against the bars, not even a second later the rest of Wisp appeared. This evaporating ability of his was getting really annoying.

Through the bars, the Captain pressed his forehead against mine. His golden eyes holding my mismatched ones.

“Tut, tut. You guys need to seriously stop trying to mess with my equipment,” he murmured. Then, he pulled back a little and took a peak at Temos, who was somehow still passed out. Wisp hummed and lifted his eyes up to where he was still restraining my outstretched arm. I started struggling in his grasp, but the hand on my shirt was firmly keeping me in place. I couldn’t risk letting him break my gauntlet again, it was the only means of defense I had and both of us knew it. He didn’t seem to be bothered in the slightest by my pulling and writhing. Instead, he ripped my arm through the bars towards him, the motion throwing me off balance but I also regained full use of my feet again instead of dangling by my arm.

I caught myself too slow.

The hand on my collar had let go and also wrapped around my arm, on my elbow right on top of the gauntlet. I started panicking, crying out for Temos to wake up and help me stop Wisp from figuring out how my prosthetic worked. He flinched awake, his eyes locked on my struggle almost instantly and he jumped to his feet. Wisp let go, only the hand at my elbow still keeping me in his tight grasp, as he pulled a nasty-looking handgun out of his belt, pointing it straight at Temos, who stopped dead in his tracks in response.

I tried prying Wisps’ leftover hand off of me but in my panic pulled backwards a little too firmly, making his grip slip onto the metal, where his fingers snapped tight again. The gauntlet showed little resistance to my weight pulling backwards against Wisps’ hold and immediately started deconstructing under Wisp's hands, who watched the process in awe.

I was close to hyperventilating and had started begging him to let me go but he showed no reaction to me as he pulled the, now, bracelet off of my arm. He let go and watched my arm fall limp to my side, a knowing smile spreading across his face. I immediately recoiled away from the bars now that he had let go of me, paddling backwards until I ran into Temos, who tried stabilizing me by gripping onto my arms, but I was too scared to tolerate any form of touch now that I was completely defenseless. Temos watched with pain, but also understanding in his eyes as I cramped myself into the corner the furthest away from Wisp closing my eyes, ignoring Temos and Wisp who was leaning against the bars, turning my bracelet this way and that.

“Looks like your fire correlates with your physical strength. Keep the ember going Mr. Quinn. I am far too amused by you to let you turn as dull as the others.”

He took a step away from our cell, turned the bracelet one last time in his hand before he chuckled and chucked it back into the cell where it fell to the floor with a clang and came to a stop right next to Temos feet, who bent down, picked up the bracelet and slumped down against the wall next to me. I flinched away as he took hold of my disabled arm and slid the bracelet back over it, giving me a tight-lipped smile.