“We can’t leave Drako behind,” I say, tears stinging my eyes. “But we can’t take him either, because they’ll hang him for his crimes.”
“Alleged crimes,” Drako grins, not giving a semblance of a damn.
I know why Thor is happy. He thinks this is all going to be over in a matter of hours. Our ordeal on this wild, awful, deadly planet is going to be over. We’re going to go back to a planet where you can walk into a shop and buy a pie. That’s a big deal to him, and to me, I guess, seeing as that’s the first thing I thought of.
“You’ll have a fair trial,” Thor promises him.
“Oh, my gods, shut up. Do we really have to tell them that he was responsible for the crash?” I exclaim.
Thor looks at me like my head just spun around three hundred and sixty degrees on my shoulders. I’ve horrified him.
“A thousand people died,” he says.
“Nine-hundred and ninety-eight, technically,” I say, making a joke he does not find funny.
“You’ve gotten into her head,” he says to Drako.
“It’s not her head I’m in,” Drako smirks. “At least, not solely.”
Thor shuts his mouth and his jaw tightens. I can see the muscle ticking. He’s mad. He is definitely going to see Drako hang for this. And he’s going to try to keep me for his own. I can see it all already. There’s not going to be one prisoner on that ship going home. There will be two.
The day goes so much faster than I want it to. I keep begging for time to slow down, let us enjoy the beauty of the place we are probably never going to see again. Now that I know I am to be rescued, this world seems unfathomably beautiful, all the way down to the sleeping horde of horrific nightmare creatures still slumbering beneath our hideout.
“Stay close,” Thor instructs me. “The last thing I need is you wandering off just as rescue arrives.”
“What if Drako runs?”
I immediately feel guilty, because I can tell that Thor wasn’t really thinking about that. His brow furrows as he considers that as an option.
“Don’t start with me, Golden Boy,” Drako drawls.
“If you run, we will hunt you.”
“Good luck with that. If I run, you will be eaten by something far better at hunting than you are. And this time I won’t save you from your cowardice.”
Drako hits that nerve in Thor without a moment’s hesitation. I know that incident with the troll in the mountains is a source of shame for him, and I know he went to the ship in part to make up for it. And he has. He’s gotten us rescued! But Drako’s barb hits deep and true.
Thor leaps on Drako, which is stupid, but they don’t care. Two big men fighting in a small cave is a recipe for disaster. It is all I can do to try to get out of the way as they tumble around like a pair of fighting lions. Golden hair flashes, then dark, tattooed flesh and then muscular clean lines.
He did not just bring back chocolate fudge and a radio from the crash. He brought a pair of handcuffs.
The pair of them wrangle around wrestling in a rough and tumble, fighting for dominance. Drako is probably fighting for his life, because if he gets put on our ship, they’re going to try to blame him for everything. Mostly because he did it, but still.
I know I am being disloyal to the crew, but I strongly feel as though he has made some amends since he gave the order to shoot at our ship. I don’t know that he intended for almosteveryone on the ship to die, and I don’t… fuck, I know I am rationalizing something that can’t be rationalized.
By some act of amazing strength, and fighting prowess, Thor is the one who bests Drako. He snaps the cuffs on one wrist, then wrests the other arm behind Drako’s back and clicks them closed. He stands up, panting and sweating heavily, running his hand through his tangled blond mane as he looks down at his vanquished foe.
“You’re going to answer for your crimes,” he says.
“Am I,” Drako drawls, rolling over and sitting up, crossing his legs in an almost casual way. “We’ll see, Golden Boy.”
“Another word out of you, and I’m going to gag you,” Thor says. “I’m not interested in being baited until we are rescued. I might gag you anyway. You may as well get used to being captive.”
He walks outside. I stay where I am, crouched in the corner of the cave.
“You will be in chains too, soon enough,” Drako says.
He’s not wrong. I am not responsible for the deaths of an entire crew, but I was a stowaway on a ship, and that’s a crime. I am in trouble. Just not as much trouble as he is in. They’re going to kill him. They’re going to take him to the square in the middle of Weltheim and they’re going to execute him. It’s not going to be pretty.
