Keir couldn’t quite decide whether she wanted to scream or cry, so she wound up doing a little bit of both. She paced out the perimeter of her holding cell, kicking aside the overturned desk chair she had already hurled uselessly at the door, throat burning in anger and despair at the betrayal she still couldn’t quite process, the words playing over and over again in her head.
“Take her,” in thickly accented Galcom. “Protect her. I spare you.”
Keir screamed, not for the first time, and kicked the wall. That *slag-sucker*! That *fornicator*! That big *idiot*, that complete and utter fool…!
She screamed her throat raw, letting herself sink down into a tight ball on the floor, shivering, pressing her wet face into the soft fabric of undersuit. Abandoned her. He had *abandoned* her. He had handed her over, in some kind of plea deal she simply could not understand, barely a word exchanged between them.
”~I love you,~ his voice sang in her memory, the warm orange of his eyes holding a deep regret, a deep pain as they beheld her. “~You must trust me. Keep your eyes open, little one. Be still. Be safe. I know you will make me proud.~”
LIAR! Keir screamed the word within her mind, throat aching too much to scream it out loud, her claws digging into her thighs. A LIAR and a monster to boot! She was trapped here now, in resistance hands, surrounded by the hated enemy, the ones who looked at her with such disgust, such venomous acid…!
He…!
He had promised! He had told her — he had promised…!
Oathbreaker! Liar!
He had promised never to leave her. He had sworn to her, she would always be safe.
The chill of the ship’s tiles crept up through her bare feet and she pulled her knees close, trying to warm them with her core, too exhausted, too hurt to make her way to the cot, to curl herself up beneath the threadbare blanket.
He had promised.
“…liar…” she croaked, voice muffled against her legs.
They were all of them the same.