Objective Consequence (Book Two of the Subjective Justice series)

Chapter Twenty - One: Who doesn't love a good backstabbing?

Side note: What is normally italicized has ' ' I hope this doesn't throw you off too much, I simply am barely writing so I'm not going to look for and edit those

Indra downed another specially concocted medicine she had made for herself out of the remnants of her travel mixers. Slyly, she'd been gradually making one for Hawke. Having the words in braille rather than written out made it easier for her to keep her illegal drugs under the radar. The sector declared them illegal ten years back because they were 'too efficient' and would cause problems with the economy. More like they were a medical advancement everyone wanted to bury to keep the money tucked into the pockets of the wealthy. That was how it always worked, wasn't it? Bending the rules to continue to feed into the higher level of society. Indra curled her lip in disgust.

The neck brace stood only as an adornment at this point in time. Indra had no intention of letting them know what she was doing. Then again, wasn't her and Hawke's rescue illegal? It wasn't like Hao would go: Oh well, now that you've been carrying illegal drugs my conscience is troubled and I can't protect you. And if she did, Indra could run. Hawke couldn't but now that she was doing better she could drag him. This territory was familiar. Indra could get home from here.

Unless that was what Hao wanted.

What if this was all a ruse to get Indra to lead the commander's straight to Akio? If they hadn't found her already. It wouldn't be the first time a friendly face had been a mask of deceit. Indra poured one more bottle into the cocktail for Hawke and did a theatrical performance of struggling to walk, just in case someone was watching as she made her way toward his bed. This would get him well enough to walk—but, nothing in her bag would bring back his sanity. That would take time to heal. She'd go over with him all the grounding exercises that occasionally worked for her. Everything was a process and walking forward from this level of trauma would be a long one.

Indra put a hand on Hawke's arm. He twitched. She jolted back, her heart skipping a beat. It was okay. He was sedated. He wasn't going to hurt her. Unless, what they used on him was for humans. Hawke clearly wasn't one but the knowledge of Harken's was very little. Indra and Haim had searched nearly every library in the galaxy in search of just the tiniest bits of information to help them make suppressors. Clearly, that knowledge had an expiration date. Indra knew Hawke was still taking them, the problem was they had stopped working. Now, all they could do was wait and see what this new part of Hawke would be.

Grabbing a syringe, Indra put a good amount of the concoction in Hawke's IV.

"What are you doing?" Hao asked, her voice short.

Indra cleared her throat. "He needed another dose of pain meds, I was—"

"Thinking you could lie to someone who reads your mind."

Ah. Indra had almost forgotten that Hao was just as invasive as Haim. Starshit.

"If what you're using helps, I have no qualm with you using it. But I'd rather you weren't skulking about like you're assembling a bomb to explode yourself and us as a consequence. Understood?" Hao asked, matter of fact, no indicator in her voice to showcase what she was feeling on way or another.

"Understood, Cap," Indra said with a mock salute.

Hao groaned and walked away, her footsteps retreating into another room a good distance away.

"I feel so helpless," Indra whispered, moving to smooth Hawke's roughly cut hair out of his face, only to find it so short it was no more than fuzz on her fingertips. That was right. They have to cut it for the surgery, he wasn't going to be happy about it, but what else were they supposed to do? Risk getting his long locks in his brain? He'd deal with it.