Carrion Dawn

[DotCom]

Carrion Dawn

An Original Story by Gulliver and DotCom​

"But his humor was that wry, desiccated kind soldiers whisper, all their jokes subsurface, their laughter amounting to little more than a tic in the corner of the mouth, told as they wait together in their outpost, slowly realizing that help's not going to reach them in time and come nightfall, no matter what they've done or what they try to say, slaughter will overrun them all. Carrion dawn for vultures."
​

---​

Four months before the start of the Sectid War, Mahlia's parents died in a transporter crash heading back to Earth from a weekend on the moon. It'd been their twenty-fifth anniversary gift to each other. Because that's what you got the person with whom you'd spent over thirty years of your life, had three children with, and vowed, mid-espionage career, to love and to hold forever and ever, amen: a big, floating rock.

She guessed she couldn't blame them. That had been almost twenty years ago now. Trips to the moon were common. Weekend trips, not to much. The eight-hour shuttle rides had been new and shiny and riddled with wiring issues. Like spontaneous combustion upon reentry of Earth's then-restabilizing atmosphere.

Now? Half of Earth's population had resettled on Mars. Shuttle rides to the moon from Earth went for a couple hundred creds a pop. They were new-fashioned 'stay-cations', for families whose wallets couldn't afford a cruise out to Jupiter. Taking a shuttle out eight hours and back was safer than walking your dog across the street on some podunk Mars suburb. Lucky for the newbies. Shitty timing for former NUN pilots, Aime and Gadin Chaudry.

As it turned out, they'd gotten lucky and retired/died just in time. Back on Earth, six-year-old Mahlia Kajri Chaudry, and brothers Taj and Ashwin, then twelve and four years old respectively, were swiftly tucked away into the system, labeled 'war orphans' before the war had even officially started. Their status as new-age army brats meant they got to stay together. Their parents' combined penchants kept them floating above the foster system for the first few months, until all extra funds were being shunted toward war efforts, and the fact that both Aime and Gadin had been super spies for the New UN meant nothing.

Taj, Mali, and Ash lived together in a London orphanage for two months after the war started. Until Ash noticed his younger siblings were essentially starving, and elected to start looking for work on his own.

That was the first time Mal had run away.

The second time was after eight months trapped in a work camp. Mali was hardly seven years old, working alongside her five-year-old brother, even then, painfully shy, and with none of the spirited backtalk that had earned his older sister so many tongue-lashings (and worse) before their parents had died.

Every day, Taj, three weeks into his thirteen years, would climb out of the sleeping bag he'd stolen for himself, teeth still chattering from the morning dew coating his hair, and start out to comb the streets for contraband with men twice his age and three times his size. He would come back starving, half frozen, usually with a black eye or two, and Ash would cry, and Mali would rage, until Taj made some stupid joke about how he'd beat up one of those bigger, older men to steal something for them. And he'd hold out a crust of warm bread, smiling, and Mali could never be angry when she saw that smile, so she ate, and never realized how often Taj went without.

Then, one night, Taj didn't come back. One of those men came in his place, looking for where the bread had gone, looking, he claimed for the two children whose eyes could spot bullets in a gutter quicker than anyone else's.

That was the night Mali had learned her trade.

Ash fought back. Quiet, sensitive little Ash who'd never raised a finger against even a flea.

Later, much later, Taj told her he might have never found them, found her, if he hadn't heard Mali screaming. It was twelve hours later, and the pool of blood they found Ash in looked almost black by the cold, gray light of morning.

Taj never forgave himself for that. Neither did Mali.

But twenty years later, the war still raging on, red-hot hatred cooled to a slow deep loathing, Mali was still honing her craft. She went by Molly now, because even black market traders and war profiteers still liked little girls. And while Molly, at twenty-five, was anything but, hadn't been in two decades, she was a good actor. And a good liar.

She lied all the way to the cell when they finally caught her.

"I never sold anything our side didn't already know," she said coldly. With her hands cuffed behind her back, there wasn't much she could do between the two huge officers who'd found her early that morning, waist deep in a general from the other side.

One of the cops behind her laughed. "Our side. You say it like you believe that."

"No more than I believe you jackasses got my brother killed."

Taj had died in the war two years ago. Molly had been selling secrets with her body ever since. She'd been good at it. Until someone turned her in.

"He got himself killed," said the other officer, and stopped in front of a cell. She couldn't see much through the window slide in the heavy steel door. A couple figures. None of them moving. All of them men. She smiled. Perfect.

"We heard you like company," said the first officer, unlocking the door and shoving her through. "Let us know when you finish with these guys."

"F*ck you," she spat. And the door slammed shut behind her.

 

[Gulliver]

The stone walls looked and felt cold. Dust and dirt covered nearly everything, and entire place was chilled and unwelcoming, even the two men there seemed rather unsavory, as far as inmates went.
"F*ckah, what's this?" The first, a lanky thirty-something year old man asked his partner, his attention drawn to their guest. When he stood, he stood bent, his spine everything but straight. The single lamp in the cell wasn't enough to shed light on all of his features, but he was dirty, his orange jumpsuit stained and wrinkled. "Oh, it's a lady~ a lady to keep us company, F*ckah," it seemed that his interest had be roused. The other man, sitting on his cot, seemed less excited, as at first he just looked up, wild and matted brown hair covering his brow, shading his eyes. There was something a bit more menacing about this man; but of course, no more so than others in the same prison. The first man, Sean, seemed more broken than menacing.
Standing then, the one with the knotted hair regarded Molly with a stoic expression.
"Vhat's your name?" He asked, looking her up and down from under the tangled hair that got down in his face. His body language wasn't as vulgar as Sean's: he wasn't bent, he wore no sick grin, and his shoulders were held back and firm as he talked to her.

 

[DotCom]

Mal didn't move as the men spoke, knowing full well it was about her. Men were always talking about her. Just as well. They were only ever useful when they were talking, anyway.

The first broke away from the shadows to stand and circle he like a beanpole cat round its prey. Mal looked up and caught his eye, her answering smile somewhere between enticing and warning. The man didn't seem all the dangerous. Most didn't up close. it was when they kept a distance that she began to worry.

She almost didn't see the second man until he was upon her. He was nothing so gruesome as his partner had been, and yet standing near him, he seemed to radiate a palpable chill that sank into her bones, setting teeth along her spine.

Her smile broadened.

"What do you want it to be?"

 

[Gulliver]

He fixed his eyes on her face, purposely ignoring her more enticing bits. He knew how to be a real predator, how to seem unfazed.

"I do not need 'vhore," he told her calmly, a thick, Russian accent rolling off of his lips, his shoulders rolled back to improve his posture. There were two rings on his bottom lip, snake-bites, and two metallic dots on either side of the bridge of his nose. "Vhat is your name?" He asked again.

"Oh, c'mon, F*ckah, we could use a whore," Sean argued, getting two steps closer to Mal, evaluating her excitedly. He addressed his partner as he walked around her, still hunched over like Frankenstien's Igor. "Besides, friend, when was the last time you had anything to get off to?" He chuckled.

The second inmate disregarded his companion. He seemed intent on learning her name. There was something he was planning, that much was written in his shaded eyes, but he'd be damned if he shared his information with a woman who ended up being a spy for the prisons warden. The two of them had an understanding, for the most part. This particular inmate was always up to raising Hell, and the warden, he could have all the fun in trying to keep the peace.

 

[DotCom]

Mal flicked bright green eyes to the more verbal, less accented of the two prisoners, her gaze equal parts amused and discerning. She had spent the last three years of her life in service to men who needed whores. Disgusting pigs did not frighten her.

No, the real conquest stood before her. His accents spoke of a pre-war Earthen upbringing, though she couldn't be certain. And beyond that, there was a stink of secrecy on him that sparked something insatiable in Mal. She had never been very physically impressive. No -- that wasn't fair to say. Short and curvy, Mal had dark skin and darker hair that fell in shiny, inky ringlets to the small of her back. But her mother's Irish blood gave her wide, green eyes that could pry the darkest snippets of truth from any man she saw fit to turn them on.

She smiled at this one and pressed herself closer. "He's right, you know. I haven't been here long, but these walls don't seem the friendliest type." She hardly came up to his shoulder, but she didn't mind that. She could protect herself if she needed to. She'd learned that much the first night.

"You can't tell me there's nothing you want, Father Russia?" She placed a hand flat on his chest and leaned into him. "Tell you what, tough guy. We make a deal. My name's Molly. What's yours?"

The rest? Mal didn't have money or power or men or ships. But she had a sharp mind and a sharper tongue. And she'd learned years ago a man's secrets were worth more than their weight in gold.

 

[Gulliver]

He looked down at her, his heart drumming in its cage under the palm of her hand. He wasn't impervious, but he did have restraint, evident by how he swatted her hand from his chest. "Foka," he told her simply, his own, blue eyes falling from her onto Sean, who he gave a scolding glare.

"F*ckah is just easier to say," Sean shrugged, looking over Mal's shoulder. It wasn't hard to figure out what he was looking for.

"Vhy are you here?" Was Foka's next question. He seemed a stickler for information. As far as prying it from him, a person would most likely have an easier time getting it from his physical body. 'Father Russia' had more metal on his persons than what could ever be normal, and it was as though every time he was seriously examined, there was more to be found. In addition to his lips, there were three spikes on the top and bottom of his brow, and a black nub on either cheekbone. Something was likely awry with his mind.

 

[DotCom]

As 'F*ckah' answered, Mal straightened, standing back to look at him. Her gaze was light, impish, raking over the studded visage gentle and coy as a lover's caress. But anyone who knew Mal -- and there weren't many, either side of the prison -- knew she only studied when something was worth her time. With his strange, terse answer, Foka had gone from person of interest to target. There was something to be mined there, and before she busted out of this filthy hellhole, she was going to unearth it.

Step one was figuring out what kind of man her new cellmate was. And it was clear enough he wasn't going to share anything useful with her. Not on purpose, and not out loud.

Flirting with him would do no good. She'd have to beat him at his own game.

She studied his face a moment longer, her own expression unreadable, then shrugged, stretching. The officers who'd accompanied her here had been none too gentle.

"Liked the decor," she said, tugging a rubber band off one brown wrist to tie her long, dark locks out of her face. "Wanted to redecorate."

Bored, or appearing to be, with Foka, she turned to the other man, and then their shared cell. Thirty years ago, shit like this wouldn't have passed, locking a girl her age up with two older convicts of the opposite gender. But people were sick of the war now. POWs were at the bottom of the scrap heap of life, and no one wanted to give them any more time than necessary.

She pointed at the bunks, then the peeping Tom behind her. "Which one's mine?"

 

[Gulliver]

At first, Foka let himself be annoyed with the smaller figure, realizing then that she was going to play hard to get. He knew those tender looks, with the hint of suggestiveness. Then he let his attention be drawn to the bunks, his cot on bottom, Sean's on top. He still wasn't sure how much longer they were going to be sleeping on those old, battered beds; he was sure it wasn't going to be too much longer. Still though, he knew better than to give up his bed to Molly and appear just that much softer.

"You can have top one," Foka said, mumbling somewhat as he turned back to her, placing a calloused and rough hand on his right hip. On the inside, he wondered what this would do to his schedule, but he kept his face grim and his eyes cold. It had taken practice to hold a look like that.

"What the f*ck?!" Sean protested, turning suddenly on his fellow inmate and raising his hands in an exasperated motion. "That bunk's mine!" It became apparent that Sean had plain, brown eyes.

"Not any more," Foka replied, calm and cool, just like the last several minutes. "Though, perhaps, you two may vork something out..."

Sean turned back on Molly then, frustration shone on his unimaginative face. He had been convicted of crimes against the New UN(?), mostly simple things, things that an average Joe could be convicted of, such as speaking out against war efforts. Then there were acts of terrorism. Then robbery, murder, rape, the whole shi-bang. He was difficult to get along with, but, mispronunciation of names aside, Foka seemed to put up with him rather well.

 

[DotCom]

Mal shrugged, unperturbed by the lewd suggestion.

She had finished flirting with Foka. That would get her nowhere. And she wasn't all that certain the other one had much to share, or at least nothing that would be worth her time. Gathering and selling war secrets was moot for the moment, anyway. Granted, prison housed some of the best whispers out there, both in craft and trade. But they wouldn't help free her from this place, and none of it would bring Taj back.

If her expression darkened at the thought of her dead older brother, it was only momentarily, and then Mal was back studying the cell. Not much. Four walls. Heavy door. Two bunks, both reeking to high heaven of decades of sweat and worse. A sink in the corner, tap rusted, the mirror over it broken, the glass long gone. Kill or be killed, some things never changed.

The prison was not well kept. Escape was rare and unlikely, but only because the guards were paid a piss wage, and they preferred to kill the insubordinate, rather then escort them to solitary, or whatever passed for it here. Mal would be no good selling her bodies to the guards. They were the type who got off on begging, she could tell. Mal would no good here at all. Even Molly was too hard for the challenge. Sex was not the way out here. Secrets were. Blackmail. Tiny, tender truths dipped in arsenic, sharpened to a needlepoint.

She needed Foka, not his friend.

The 'friend' was pouting about his bed being stolen. Mal snorted and rolled her eyes.

"Sure, we can vork something out. You stay on the floor, I won't kick you ass. That 'vork' for you?"

 

[Gulliver]

Foka scowled at the both of them before returning to his bunk. He mulled it over a bit in his mind; there was relief to be had now that he was seeing Molly honestly irritated. How much relief, was still to be decided.

"It does not 'vook'," Sean snorted back, mispronouncing Molly's imitation as he put his fists on either hip, glaring knives into Foka's back. "I am not spending god knows how long, on the floor, while you take all f*cking year to plan your g*dd*amned jailbreak, F*ckah!" While the bent man seemed somewhat short on intelligence, he knew better than to shout those words, and instead hissed them angrily.

Foka's head whipped around, and Sean's daggers were met with a rage that spoke of murder. His jaw tightened as he took the few steps to Sean and launched his fist into the other mans chin. Sean hit the floor hard, his jaw having come out of place. It took a moment for him to orientate himself, and a moment longer to set his jaw back. By then, Foka had calmed down, and was returning to his cot. The plan was going to have to be changed.

The floor it was.

 

[DotCom]

Mal was very careful to keep her face expressionless as the hunched man went off, venting steam...and much more valuable fare in hopes of getting his bed back.

Well, well, she thought as she turned slowly to see whether or not Foka's expression changed. Perhaps Tweedle Dipshit does have some secrets to share. And all it cost me was a good night's sleep.

Of course, she doubted they'd have laid out a presumably top-secret escape plan quite so plainly. Not for the new girl, and not ten minutes into her stay. No, more than likely, this was part of some plan to test her allegiances. Or her desperation. Too bad for them Mal had gone a lot longer with a lot less in her twenty-three years.

She smiled to herself at the silent exchange between the two men. False bait or not, the rage that went between them was anything but a feint. She was just about to ask coyly whether or not the hunched man thought she was as young as she looked -- when Foka's fist shout out like a blur and put the second man on the ground. She could see from here his jaw had been dislocated, and cleanly by the looks of it. Either the hunched man had a tendency to piss people off...or Foka had a violent temper. Both were invaluable in and of themselves.

All she'd needed to do to buy some leverage, it seemed, was wait.

Mal turned from the hunched man to Foka as he sat on his bunk, the angry tension from seconds before having slipped away with the punch. She watched him carefully, trying to decipher the look on his face. Something had happened here, even if it was not so simple or obvious as an escape route. The phrase had broken the metal-studded man's cold calm, forced him into quite introspection, and Mal wanted to know why.

She watched Foka for a moment longer, then went to help the hunched man, her green eyes wide and afraid.

"Jesus," she hissed, cautious in her approach. "Are you alright? I didn't mean for you guys to start fighting, I just...Well, here. C'mon. Let me help you, I feel like it's all my fault, anyway..."

She looped an arm around his waist and another over his buckled shoulders and led him to the corner with the sink.

"Just hold still a sec," she said, looking around for a rag before tearing a strip from the bottom hem of her shirt, revealing a flat -- if lightly scarred -- midriff.

She stuck the thing under the faucet, soaked it with cold water, then reached up to tenderly touch the cloth against the man's rapidly swollen jaw, all the time her eyes light with sincere concern...while the rest of her focus remained on Foka.

 

[Gulliver]

Foka snorted, wiping his tongue over his teeth and toying with a metal ring in his mouth. It hadn't been a fight -- it began and ended with a single blow. It wasnt her fault, she wasn't the one with so little of a mind who blurted out plans without any thought. According to the way things went, the idiots and the weak were punished. Sean was an idiot.

Don't be stupid, boy!

His thoughts finished gathering and he laid back on the cot, rolling onto his side, facing the wall.

"Not your fault, lady," Sean murmured, sending another glare against Foka's back. He was ignored, so he turned his eyes to Mal's exposed midriff. "That's a nice belly, y'got there," he said, slurring slightly. He reached down and patted her, something resembling an awkward smile crossing his swollen face.

 

[DotCom]

Mal's flinch away from the bent man was nearly imperceptible. She felt her muscles tense slightly at the same time, instinct born of years honing a near-perfect fight or flight system. In the end, she let it go, let the stranger touch her, because she'd been so caught up in the act, she hadn't seen it coming, and even minor indiscretions deserved punishment for rules broken: never let a man touch you unless you want him to.

And she did, she supposed. Eventually. For the right price. But then, there, still easing him into her trap? No. Too soon. And for nothing at all, save a sliver more trust on his part. That, only if he hadn't noticed her flinch. Every man had something to sell, even the bent man, but the way into his head was not through simpering cowardice. This man wanted respect, soothing kindness, and a happy ending. Flinching was not the way to his heart.

Instead, she swallowed the sudden burst of anger and fear the simple touch had brought and giggled at the wayward compliment.

"I try," she said shyly, moving the cool, wet rag from his face so she could see him better -- and vice versa. Dark hair fell into light green eyes and she shook it aside, with a coy grin before wincing in sympathy.

"At least you can say he earned you a decent battle scar." She looked over her shoulder surreptitiously, then back to the bent man. "I'm Molly," she said again. "I missed your name." Then, a forced whisper. "So, is that guy always such a jerk? What did you call him? F*cker?" She giggled. "That's really funny."

 

[Gulliver]

Sean chuckled back, nodding as much as he could bear. "Man's a good F*ckah," he mumbled, not bothering to look over his own shoulder. "But, when you've been here 'long as I have, you see a lot of good f*uckahs. See a lot'a good f*cks." He almost seemed to purr on the last sentence, taking a moment to look Molly up and down again. "Name's Sean."

Foka continued to ignore the both of them, kept quiet as though he had already fallen asleep. He knew that when you were almost asleep was when ideas came to you -- and Foka needed a new one. He needed a new, faster way to escape, to get out of there, now that this "Molly" could figure that he was honestly going to get out. Paranoia was something Father Russia was good with.

 

[DotCom]

This time, Mal took the slimy looks in stride, looking down almost shyly, before peering back up with a coy smile.

"Oh?" she said, toeing the line between interest and practiced skepticism. "And what about out there? Any good f*cks out there? Sean?" she added, when he told her his name.

When he didn't pause to look at Foka, she did, making her expression dubious, and a little concerned.

"Hey, Sean, you were kidding before about...getting out of here, right? The...um...jailbreak? Was that it? Is that why he hit you?" She leaned in close, her lips brushing his neck. "You can tell me. I'm good at keeping secrets."

 

[Gulliver]

Sean began to break down then, almost unable to contain the excitement that, at least as of that moment, affections were being returned. His awkward smile broadened a bit more, and he ignored the fact that he felt childish. He was fine with it, especially if he was going to get some.

Foka shuddered.

"Yeah, F*ckah wants out. Wants it bad. Might as well've claimed abstinence, he wants it so bad." Sean grumbled, probably exaggerating. Father Russia could have gotten up and beaten his face in the rest of the way, but he was exercising whatever sporadic amount of control he had. Foka needed to think, not slaughter.

"He's got a outline of a plan; involves us, me and F*ckah," Sean went on. It became apparent then, that Molly wasn't anything. He wanted her, sure, but he didn't want her. He was an Igor of a man, unsavory and grizzled, who had been in prison without a woman for a while by then. He'd take what he could get, and leave her behind to go find more -- younger and better and prettier, and by God, fuller.

~>...<~

Sean woke up that next morning full of aches and pains, his back more sore than it had been in a long time.

"Good god, F*ckah!" He groaned, rolling onto his hands and knees on the cold, stone floor. Foka was already awake by then, his wild, chocolate brown hair as disheveled and knotted as it had been the night before. He stood by the one sink in the room, a weathered, old toothbrush half out of his mouth. He had run out of toothpaste a long time ago, judging by the fact that the only tube of the stuff was old and moldy, lying on the floor in the corner of the cell. It didn't seem to bother him though, as he continued to use the same toothbrush.

"Do not blame me for your disfigurements," he said, simply, rolling the 'r's, not even bothering to look back at the unfortunate man as he turned the rusty faucet on to rinse the brush. The water that came out was tan with minerals and particles of rust. It wasn't too terribly hard to understand why Foka wanted out, other than the obvious.

 

[DotCom]

Mal, too, was already awake. That she had hardly slept didn't matter. It was rare she slept through the night at all, let alone in a cold prison on a mattress that stank of piss and sweat, caged in with two men she knew only as Violent and Lusting. She had woken as soon as Foka rattled his cot beneath hers, and she had stayed very still, her eyes closed, her back to the wall, waiting, listening, for him to approach.

Or to reveal more of the plan Sean had shared with her. She was not optimistic. Everyone in prison had a plan to escape. Until she had more details, she could not count on this plan including her, let alone its efficiency. She was in no hurry, at least. Foka and Sean were cold, hard men, but they did not frighten her. Or rather, she had known more frightening men.

Right now, her main objective was to uncover the finer nuances of this escape plan Foka had -- assuming Sean was a dumb as he seemed, and this was not a ploy to throw her to the dogs.

When Sean woke, swearing like a drunk sailor, Mal smiled to herself, but otherwise kept her eyes closed and her ears open. It would be better if they thought she was asleep, at least until they left for the cafeteria. Then she would have a few moments' peace to herself in the cell to take a catalog she had missed before.

That, and perhaps they would discuss their ill-fated plan, for what it was worth. That seemed unlikely, though. Whatever Foka was, he was not a fool.

 

[Gulliver]

Foka buttoned up his orange jumpsuit, after having groomed himself as well as he could. He retuned to the two bunks, studying Mal's "sleeping" face. That, he had seen many times before as well; but she didn't need to realize that he knew better.

I know you are avake...

"Vake up," he commanded coldly, placing a hand on the edge of her bunk. "Guards vill open door so ve can leave cell." It was informative. With Mal knowing at least something, he wasn't about to leave her by herself. Paranoia ruled for the time being.

"God, F*ckah, can't leave her alone?" Sean asked, still mispronouncing Foka's name, never mind that he had been the one unable to leave her alone. He had managed to pick himself up from the floor, and was taking his turn at the sink, rubbing some of the dirt off his face with the mineral water that was provided. "Besides, we can bring her food back."

Unbeknownst to Sean, they weren't coming back.

 

[DotCom]

Mal let herself lie a moment longer, silently trying to decide why Foka would care whether or not she went to breakfast. By now, she had guessed there was something going on, a secret much larger and more pertinent to time in the prison than she had originally suspected. She was still not certain it was an escape plan...but more and more, she was growing aware that Foka was a bright as Sean was dim. Was it possible the latter could have spilled the plan accidentally?

If so, then it was clear the former was taking precautions. Perhaps he suspected Mal was a spy, or just wanted in on the plan. One way or another, he plan on keeping an eye on her. And if that was the case, then Mal had just found her bargaining chip.

She kept the smile off her face as she began to wake. Foka was not falling for her new and innocent routine. But she could hear Sean, and knew she had half claimed him.

Going off a hunch, she weighted until she felt the weight of Foka's hand -- hand? -- on her bunk, then sat up with a small shriek. She made a show of looking around, blinking and confused, until her eyes found Foka's studded visage, and beyond him, Sean. Her face melted into a perfected mask of relief and she offered Sean a small smile, even as she glared, first nervously, then in disgust, at Foka and his hand.

"Get away from me, creep," she said imperiously. "I can find the cafeteria myself."

Then, looking over his head again to find Sean, she smiled almost genuinely. "Could you really? Thanks so much, I'm not very hungry, just a fruit or something..."

Her eyes trailed down to Foka's again, an unspoken challenge there. "Unless you think I should come..."

And you can come up with a damn good reason why I should.

 

[Gulliver]

When Mal shrieked, Foka and Sean jumped, Foka less than Sean. She still received a scowl from the Russian though, as he watched her with cold, blue eyes. He just seemed unimpressed with life, placing his hand back at his side.

"It is time for food," Foka growled. "Come here." It wasn't a request, and the fact was obvious to both Mal and Sean, who couldn't help but wonder which side of the bed Foka had woken up on.

"Oh, c'mon, F*ckah," Sean grumbled, coming up behind Foka and putting his own hand on the taller mans shoulder. Foka simply swatted him away, keeping his eyes on Mal. "The lady just wants a fruit or somethin', s'not too much."

It was then that the guards did come, two of them, one with a key, one with a baton and cuffs. "Come on you three. If you want breakfast, you had better come and get it."

Foka reached up and took Mal by the wrist with one hand, pulling her out of the bed by her prison garb with the other, hoisting her to the floor. He was able to do so, mostly by how small of a person she was; it certainly helped. It wasn't an entirely violent action though; he made sure to stand her up straight, and brushed off her shoulder even, in a gesture of mock kindness. He leaned closer to her then, his metal-spotted lips next to her ear. "If you vant out... You should eat," he almost cooed, stepping back and letting her go. Instead of leaving though, he waited for her, extending a hand towards the door. "Ladies first..."