Cat's Cradle

Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I lay claim to not even the punctuation marks. Not mine.

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Mal’s soaking coat slicked Serenity’s ramp. Kaylee bore the brunt of the limp man between them as the captain took most of his strength to keep himself standing. His knee was already aching to the point it affected his hearing. His head hurt like hell, and he’d just damn-near killed his first unarmed man in years. But he kept the man’s left arm on his shoulder. He wouldn’t have Kaylee carry this bun tien-shung duh ee dway-ro by herself, shaken up as she was.

Inara, through sheer force of will, hadn’t questioned Mal any further. His face was pale, jaw set stiff. He had lost a lot of blood already. He rarely showed this much weakness. And she’d never seen that look he’d first worn as she came around the corner, his arms tense as they tried to squish the man’s face into the rocky ground. Trying to drown him. Inara was scared of Mal for the first time, perhaps ever. She looked over at Kaylee. She’d almost been taken. Inara knew the things that happened to girls taken in the night by men. She could picture herself grinding the man’s bloody face through the water. It scared her as well. She shook the image from her head. She knew restraint. And yet… how could she leave Kaylee? She rushed to the intercom.

“Simon! We need you in the hold.”

Wash stepped down the stairs curiously. “Didn’t you guys leave here like, two minutes ago without all the blood or the dead guy?”

“He’s not dead…” Mal began.

“Hardly,” Inara finished.

“You know—“ Mal turned to face her, twisting his right knee a little, gasping, faint. Blood and mud plastered his pants to his leg. The laceration flushed the mud from it with a steady stream of blood. “If he hadn’t just tried to kidnap Kaylee to sell her into prostitution, stabbed me, and pulled a gun on me, maybe I would’ve been a little more easy on the fella.”

“That wasn’t being hard on him. That was murdering him.” Inara stepped over and took the man’s arm fr