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Zoya Vitaan leans back against the soiled, decrepit wall of her cell, flipping a coin into the air above her. Its gold surface is distorted by dirt and grime from travelling with her from jail cell to jail cell. The coin is nearly ancient; the crest on the back is of the ages-old Republic. As filthy as it is, the carvings of the symbol are still visible. Zoya rubs her thumb across the etchings of the design, some crusted mud coming away on her skin.
It had remained in her pocket the whole time that fucking Mandalorian bounty hunter had had her in chains, the whole time she'd made fun of him, poked at him, tried to get a reaction from him, but never gotten anything. He'd been stone cold for nearly the entire journey, unreadable under that fucking helmet that he'd refused to remove, even upon her jibing and attempts to coerce him to take it off, "Just for one second." She'd ended up becoming so furious, either at herself for being caught, or at him for actually catching her, that she'd settled on cursing him from one corner of the galaxy to another for the remainder of the flight.
The family that had commissioned the bounty hunter to capture her had only been pissed that she'd stolen their pod. And shot their droid. Accidentally. Along with one of the guards they'd had stationed, even though he'd been the one to shoot first. It was just self-defense. She shifts further away from a puddle in the corner that had been there when she'd been thrown in, clenching her fist around the coin.
Remembering the anger that had thrummed through her veins at the idiotic family and the stupid bounty hunter who'd refused to even talk to her save those two goddamn times for what seemed like days that he'd had her in cuffs, Zoya glares at the wall, irritation burning along her arms and through her chest.
"Asshole," she mutters.
It's fruitless, as there's no one around to hear her, but she says it aloud anyway, over and over until she shouts it at the wall, anger bubbling. Deep down, she knows though he's the one who caught her, he was just doing his job. That damn rich, over-sensitive family were the ones who paid him to capture her.
"Assholes," she amends, thinking of the way the spoiled-rotten kid had smirked at her when he'd seen her in cuffs, clinging to the arms of his spoiled-rotten parents, who'd paid the Mandalorian handsomely.
A small knock sounds on the door then, so quietly that Zoya doesn't know whether she's going crazy and imagining things already or if there's actually someone trying to communicate with her. It would happen to her, wouldn't it—as if there's nothing else she has to worry about at the moment other than going insane.
"Hello?" Zoya says, feeling like an idiot, folding her fingers over the gold coin. "Is someone there?"
The knock comes again, softly.
"What the fuck," she whispers, staring at the door. I can't believe I'm losing my mind already. It's only been three days, she thinks to herself, beginning to grimace.
Before she has time to say anything else, a slip of paper emerges from beneath the cell door, dirtied from the filthy conditions. Zoya sits frozen for a moment in surprise, then she lurches forward, snatching it from the ground to read it as she thinks she might hear footsteps sounding as whoever gave her the note moves away from the door.
There's only two words scrawled on the paper; the writing is almost unintelligible. Zoya squints at them, her long, unwashed dark hair falling over her shoulder and tickling her jaw, taking a long minute to work on deciphering the letters.
Be ready.
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