In Enemy Territory - Shannon West Page 0,27
so much like his father and older brother, but he was probably much more like his human omak Blake than most people gave him credit for. Larz had been decent to him and saved him and Tibiel from execution at least. Now he was giving Rasc this get out of jail free card, and he planned to make the most of it. He was maybe even grateful for it, which was a new emotion for Rasc that he hadn’t experienced very often.
He didn’t look forward to the time spent in prison on Gatifrey, but now he’d at least have some options, not to mention some power. With any luck, he could get this nightmare over with quickly and get the hell out of the Tygerians’ sphere of influence. He’d have to go a long way to do that, but surely he could find someplace that was out of Davos’s reach. And then he’d never have to look at a Tygerian again as long as he lived. Not even beautiful ones like Bonnett.
Kroman was still a constant presence in Rasc’s life, as the colonel seemed to be everywhere. He was in charge of the prison as a whole, so naturally, he was around, checking on things. And though he was no longer in charge of Rasc, he still had been harassing him on a daily basis around the grounds where he was working. There was some measure of peace in knowing that Prince Larz was going to arrange transport for Rasc and Setin within the next day or two to get them off Laltana. He’d be going to a far worse place in some ways, but there was one comfort—Colonel Kroman would be nowhere around to keep tormenting him.
The next night after the meeting with Larz, the hated Kroman and his men staged a shakedown. Many aspects of the daily grind of prison life sucked on Laltana. That was a given. But the thorn in the flesh of inmates that was most despicable and disgusting in all their eyes and held a place of honor on the top of their most hated list, was the dreaded shakedown. It happened two or three times a cycle, during which the inmates’ personal property was shuffled through recklessly, thrown about haphazardly, and sometimes even purposefully torn up in vengeful glee. The inmates were also humiliatingly strip searched and treated with the utmost contempt and suspicion.
The ultimate goal of any shakedown was to confiscate contraband such as drugs or homemade weapons. And if reliable word was passed among the majority of inmates concerning the exact time they were going to be hit by the guards, then the drugs were quickly used up, the illegal cash was sneaked out through visitation, and other contraband was hidden so ingeniously that the guards could be looking right at it and not even realize what it was they were seeing. But this time, there had been no reliable rumors or any word at all. Apparently, the colonel just woke up one day feeling ambitious, so the inmates had no chance to hide the drugs, cigarettes, cash, and other contraband. That meant it would be confiscated, and the inmates, knowing everything they had was about to be taken away, were in an ugly mood.
The guards had roared in just after midnight like the wrath of god, beating their little sticks that looked like the old fashioned billy clubs back home on the bars of the cells and yelling at the prisoners to fall out of their beds and get the hell out into the yard. Two of the meanest guards stood by the doors to the dungeons to “hurry” the prisoners along. One of them hit Rasc on the back of the head with one of those fucking sticks as he passed by. Rasc, already in a bad mood because he was about to lose his cigarettes, drugs, and no doubt his fucking fan once they found it, decided to retaliate. And the rest, as they say, was history. The fight was on, and it soon engulfed the entire population of prisoners and guards.
It went on for so long and was so noisy, in fact, that lights began going on all around the palace grounds, and in the crowd that began to gather, Rasc saw the governor and Janos themselves. Larz had obviously been roused from their bed by all the noise and commotion, and neither of them looked at all pleased.
When the crowd shifted a little, he was shocked