"I'm not broken. I am not even slightly cracked. Not yet. I have no intention of letting any of you break me.”
This bravery is coming from the same place as his desire to punish me before them all. I do not want to lose face in front of all these korabi. Or Lyric. I was raised to believe in dignity and respectability, and Tusk is attempting to strip both from me.
“Then you should not have disobeyed me.”
“I’m not sorry for what I did. I never will be. You could beat me for a thousand years and I will not be sorry.”
"She's more rebellious than any Megarean scum,” Rath observes. Lyric elbows him with a scowl. She does not approve of his admiration of me. I find that interesting. Lyric does not seem like the sort of person who is given to insecurities, but this situation is fraught with intensity, and I seem to be at the center it, in spite of the fact that I have little to do with any of it.
“Unchain me,” Krush growls. “Bring me my mate and my baby and I will rule here in this palace. I will even allow Rath to live.”
“What is the change of heart due to?”
“You, Tusk. You can’t even control one little human housewife from planet Earth. If you are not aided by us, then Megaris will soon crumble. I thought I could destroy you all and rule alone with my band of outcast korabi. But we have several million humans living in this city, and when Tusk, master of all korabi, ancient prophet, and puppeteer of kings cannot control one human, it is obvious that we cannot continue to fight this way. They will overrun us.”
“I can control one human," Tusk growls. “Margaret. Come here.”
“No, thank you.”
“Margaret! Come here this instant!” He repeats the order, but with a snarling, growling angry tone.
I am even less incentivized to go there than before. Tusk does not like to be disobeyed and I’ve done very little other than disobey him since the short-lived war with and capture of Krush.
“I don’t want to.”
“Margaret!” He snaps my name for a third time, and I know that he is reaching levels of annoyance which bode very poorly for me.
"I can’t!”
"Why not?”
"Because you’re going to…”
“I am going to discipline you, human brat.”
“Exactly. I don't want that.”
Even if I wanted to obey him, which I do not, there is no way my brain will allow me to. Walking toward Tusk right now would be like walking toward a stack of angry tigers. My brain is very much against all of that.
“Unshackle me!” Krush makes the demand yet again.
“I will deal with you, prisoner," Tusk says, growling at him. “For now, I must deal with her.”
“Help,” I gasp at Lyric. She must know some way out of this. She is Rath's mate. She must know how to defuse an angry korabi. There has to be a technique. She is intact, after all, and I do not think I will be intact for much longer.
“There's no helping you now,” she whispers. “You could run?”
Tusk is coming around the table to catch me. I could run, but he would catch me because he is faster than I could ever be. There is only one way out of this.
I dash over the table, one hand making contact with the tabletop as the rest of my body goes up and over in a one-palmed handstand.
“Acrobatic housewife,” Lyric observes.
I stand panting on the other side of the table. All eyes are on me. Suspicious, augmented, perhaps even jealous eyes.
“She moves like an assassin, does she not?” Tusk extends his hands in a gesture, as though he is presenting me as evidence to a jury.
"I took gymnastics."
“You took a life," he says. This time there is no accusation in his voice. There is something far worse: conviction.
“I… I didn’t.”
Krush is staring at me, having forgotten his own captivity in the drama of what they're mistaking for a revelation. Every single one of these korabi is looking at me as though a single-handed front flip makes me a murderer.
“You did.”
“Because I can do a simple cartwheel, I am an assassin? I hate to break this to you, Mr Tusk, but that makes every five-year-old on planet Earth a prospective killer.”
Big hands grasp me from behind. I turn my head to see that it is Rath who has grabbed me. Another betrayal, or maybe an attempt to appease Krush. Either way, I am caught.
“Put her down!” Lyric calls.
He does not heed her, or me, for that matter. Our combined objections are quite vociferous, but they make no impression on this massive korabi.
“Trust me," Rath murmurs. “I’m making this easier on you.”
He delivers me, kicking and squirming, to Tusk. I let out a cry of fear as Tusk takes possession of me, his hands wrapping around me and making further escape absolutely impossible.