Held In Starlight

Prologue

Darkness changed to blinding light as a rough hand jerked the hood from her head. Harper squeezed her eyes shut against the glare, groaning at the searing pain crackling through her skull. Her tongue felt twice its size and tasted of grit and chemicals. As the cheap drug they’d doped her with began to drain from her system, panic replaced the stupor.

The last thing I remember is stepping outside of the Hospital and turning towards home.

She tried opening her eyes again but the glare stung and she clenched them tight. Through the ringing in her ears, she heard a buzzing that could be people talking but it sounded muffled and she couldn’t make it out. The muscles in her shoulders and arms ached from the being pulled behind her back. She tugged at the bonds tight on her wrist but they held fast. Whatever she sat on was hard and thin, digging into her thigh.

The panic grew, turning her mouth to ash. She needed air. She didn’t know where she was or what was happening. And her head hurt so badly she thought she might vomit.

Breath. Focus. Focus on What you Know.

My name is Harper Elliston. I’m 20 years old and I live in the Verint sector of Bethnali. I’ve worked for eleven years at Triton Chemical Industries.

“Wake up, chicky!” The gravelly voice punched through the fog in her brain.

Someone with hot breath leaned over her, and cut her bonds. Her shoulders throbbed in pain and she rubbed her hands and wrists, trying to restore feeling.

Another pinch in her arm, a hot rush under her skin, and suddenly her headache and fog disappeared. She blinked and looked around her.

The room sprawled wide and shadowed, its high walls cloaked in rich, embroidered crimson fabric that shimmered under the dim, amber lights. Deep-grained wood panels gave the room an old-money opulence, warm and unyielding. Slender, glass-fronted cases lined the room, filled with rare, precious artifacts. Between them, low garnet-colored couches crouched, muted but undeniably plush.

Two men lounged on one of these couches, their worn worker clothes clashing with the intensity of the sharp blue insignia tattooed high on their left cheekbones—a silent, unmistakable badge of allegiance. One of them took a long, pull on a brass-fitted water pipe resting on the floor by his feet. He exhaled the vapor in a slow, controlled cloud, the movement eerily smooth, practiced, and confident.

A third man stood a few feet away, near a small, polished table. A black medical case lay open in front of him. His hands moved with mechanical precision as he slid a gleaming syringe into its designated slot beside rows of vials filled with colored liquids, each one glowing faintly under the lights. The blue of his tattoo matched the color of his medical uniform.

But it was the figure behind the vast, dark desk at the far end of the room that turned Harper’s blood to ice.

Don Chadia – one of the most powerful Dons on Bethnali. Petite, with almond eyes and glowing silver hair styled in an intricate mass of curls and braids, she studied Harper with glacial eyes almost as silver as her hair.

The savory aroma of roast meat and fresh bread drifted up from the plate in front of her, reminding Harper it had been days since she last ate.

Despite the fear, her stomach cramped in hungry. With an entrancing elegance, Don picked up gleaming silverware, cutting into a thick meat and took a bite, chewing slowly, almost leisurely. The silence stretch, making Harper’s pulse pounding in her ears all the louder. The woman set the utensils down with a light clink, and wrapped her manicured hand around a glass goblet filled with an aromatic amber liquid. Taking a sip, she flashed Harper a dark, angry glare over the rim.

“You know who I am?” She said, cold malice dripping from each word.

Harper nodded with a jerky motion. Her tongue felt too thick to answer.

“Do you know why you are here?” The undercurrent of cruelty in her tone sent claws of fear skittering up Harper’s spine.

“I…I’m behind in my payments.” Harper managed, her voice hoarse. She licked her lips, her throat raw and dry.

“Quite a bit.” Don Chadia said, taking another sip. “You have borrowed money from several lenders across Verint. You owe, frankly, a staggering sum for one with so few…prospects.” She said the last word with a touch of disgust and revulsion.

Harper swallowed. Her mouth tasted like hot metal and her stomach churned. She had specifically avoided mentioning to each lender that fact she’d borrowed from others. No one would lend to someone who already owed vast sums to competitors.

“I…I…” Harper stuttered then shut her mouth with a snap at one cold glared from Don Chadia.

“I have taken the initiative of consolidating your loans.” She took another leisurely bite of dinner, another sip of wine, and then delicately dabbed her mouth with a red cloth.

“I…what does that mean?” Harper rasped.

“I own you.” Don Chadia and flashed her trademark smile. It was terrifying.

Harper’s breath hitched. A cold sweat prickled her skin, yet her face burned as her pulse hammered in her ears. Own her?.

“I paid off all your other lenders,” the Don continued, her voice sweet like posion. “Your debts are now consolidated—under my name. Which means,” she leaned forward slightly, her smile widening, “I own you.”

Harper licked her lips, “I will pay you, I promise.”

Don Chadia studied her for a moment, “I believe you.” She said, her tone almost magnanimous, “But I’m not in the business of getting a credit here or there.”

“It’s just a matter of time before I make Team Lead, and then I’ll be making more money and I promise I’ll….”

Don Chadia held up her hand, frowning, her eyes narrowing. “Not enough.”

“But, that’s it – I…that’s all I have.” She stammered, mind too wild to think rationally.

“I am aware.”The Don lifted the glass to her lips again, her dark eyes staring at Harper over the crystal rim.“Between the loan and the interest, even if I took every credit you made until you died, I still would not see any substantial return on my investment. Frankly, I don’t have the patience to wait for that. Therefore, I have arranged a more…progressive payment plan for you.

Don Chadia pulled a tablet from a drawer and typed into it. “You are being sold.

“Sold?” Harper’s mouth moved but almost now sound came out. There was no air, no air in here.

“Yes.” The woman flicked her gaze up from the tablet and then returned to whatever was on the screen.

“Who?”

“Yeard-Williams-Langley”

“I…I don’t understand.”

Don Chadia frowned and looked up, pinning her with glaring eyes, “You are going to join YWL as a contract hire. The signing bonus, which would normally go to you, will instead be used to make a down payment on your loan. From there, a portion of your salary will be directly deposited to me. Enough will be left for you to pay the standard living expense required by the job, plus an allowance left over for general necessities.”

Harper shook her head, trying to make sense. Too much was happening at once.

“So, it’s a job? You aren’t…selling me into slavery?

The Don’s lips curved into a sardonic smirk, one elegant eyebrow arched.

“If I could get enough by doing that, I would,” she replied bluntly. She leaned back in her chair, tilting her head slightly as if appraising Harper anew. “But you… how do I put this delicately?” Her voice turned faintly mocking. “You lack any real value on that market.”

Harper blushed. It was true.

Scrawny, her growth stunted by years of semi-starvation and hard labor, plus working in the palicite factory, breathing in the fumes, gave her a sallow complexion and gaunt frame.

She kept her hair shaved close to her head, for safety, making her look even more skeletal. She wasn’t particularly intelligent, had no education or training – couldn’t even read – and no skills.

At one point, she’d considered joining a brothel, but learned, quickly, that with her…lack…she wouldn’t earn any more money than she did working in the factories.

The Don took another long sip of the wine, “You’ll leave immediately for YWL headquarters, on Cafinta V”

Panic flooded Harper. Leave Bethnali? Suddenly, it got hard to breath and she tried to suck in air that just…didn’t seem to be there.

“I can’t leave, I can’t leave Bethnali, I have to stay here!” She cried, sudden hot tears pricking her eyes as the panic clawed at her throat, stealing the air.

“Because of your sister?” The woman’s lips curled into a cruel grin.

“How…How did you know…” But even as she asked the question, Harper knew the answer. If Don Chadia knew about the lenders, she knew why Harper borrowed all the money.

“She’s currently at Bethnali Imperial Hospital, undergoing an extremely expensive treatment program – a program far out of reach for a factory worker such as you. And yet, the expense is paid in full with extra to spare.”

Harper’s heart twisted at the threat hidden in Don Chadia words.

“I can’t leave.” She said again and forced herself to look up, “She needs me. She had no one else to care for her.”

“She won’t be your concern anymore.”

For the first time, the fear turned to anger. Harper staggered to her feet, fists clenched, “She’s eleven!” Harper shouted, “She is always my concern!”

Leave Arli? The thought sent a jolt of paralyzing fear through Harper’s chest. Leave her sister, with her frail body, sweet witty smile, and cheerful determination, all by herself? Arli, who lay so patiently in that hospital bed, enduring the steady stream of masked medical personnel as they injected her fragile veins with treatments that caused agony even as it healed. Arli, so brilliant and full of promise that she could have easily tested into the free secondary school—if not for the cruel disease that now ravaged her body. Even as that disease stole her strength and turned her bones to fire, Arli studied. She clung to her hope like a lifeline, determined to pass the entrance exams and earn a scholarship for one of the prestigious Academies. If she survived, those Academies would be her way out—her escape from Bethnali, her path to a life outside the factories and choking yellow fumes and a slow death. Harper had always known – and accepted - that she herself would be live and die as a factory worker on this shithole planet. But Arli was different. Arli was destined for greatness – and Harper determined years ago she would do whatever it took to see Arli had every chance to reach that future.

“No, I won’t.” Her voice tightened, barely steady. She repeated it, louder, as if by saying it twice she could convince herself. “I won’t.”

Before she could register the movement, a sharp kick slammed into the back of her knee, and she crumpled onto the cold floor with a gasp of pain. One of the men from the couch slipped up behind her without a sound, his shadow now looming over her.

“Oh, but you will,” Don Chadia purred from across the room, a thin smile curling her lips as she watched Harper’s resistance with a kind of cruel amusement, as if it were an endearing act from a helpless insect.

“I can’t,” Harper whispered, struggling to her knees, raw desperation cracking her voice. “Please, let me stay here. I’ll work, pay you whatever you want, my whole life if I have to! Just don’t send me away from her!”

Don Chadia arched a brow, her voice glacial.

“I own you, remember? You sold yourself to me the moment you lied about the money you borrowed.”

“I had no choice!” Harper’s voice shook. “No one would lend me that much!”

“With good reason,” the Don replied, her tone dismissive.

“She was dying!” Harper’s words escaped like a broken plea.

Don Chadia sighed, as if bored by the excuse. “People die all the time. Why is she so special?”

“Heartless bitch,” Harper muttered, fury clawing its way through her fear, tears pricking at her eyes, blurring her vision. Rage and terror churned inside her, her mind spiraling into a storm of chaos.

Desperately, she lunged forward, hands reaching for the edge of the desk, but a strong arm caught her by the back of her shirt and hurled her back down. She crashed onto the carpet, pain slicing through her as she tried to rise again.

“Yes, I am heartless,” Don Chadia said, her voice like ice as she looked down at Harper. “That’s why I’m the top Don on Bethnali, and you’re nothing more than a pest beneath my heel.”

She gestured to the men beside her. One moved forward, gripping Harper’s arm with bruising force as he dragged her backward.

“No! Please, don’t, please don’t send me away from her!” Harper screamed, her voice raw as she kicked and clawed in a desperate attempt to free herself, hot tears streaming down her face. “I’ll pay you, I swear, I’ll do anything, just let me stay—please, don’t send me away! I’ll-”

“Shut her up.”

A swift, brutal blow struck the side of Harper’s head, and the world faded to black.