With all the strength that remained in her weakened body, Lena rocked her upper body left and right until her shoulders came close to dislocating. The pain made her stop. Lena calmed her mind, as struggling with panic had only brought her torment. 

She went over her options. Screaming for help was out of the question; her first guess was that she was captive on Pluviam, and if her voices reached someone, they would either end her life at an instant or deliver her to the guards. She preferred to patiently stay low. 

Her other option was to wait until Arrakis would return to execute his plan. Whatever that may be. 

Or, her third option: Fight the knots until either the ropes or her arms fall off. After some more wrestling, and at the feeling of a stinging burn on both of her wrists, she eliminated her third option.

Whether her eyes were opened or not made no difference; the room was pitch black, and the air stood in it like a thick cloud of dust. Panic tried to suffocate Lena once more when she rapidly breathed but reached nothing more than dead-air-space. 

Navigating her thoughts away from the hell she had found herself in, resulted in thinking about Finn. How he had fled with her from the reaper when poisonous berries purposed to choke her to death.

The events of Lena's last memory, before she fell senseless, happened at Kassiopeia's treehouse. She had just been looking out of the window, her fingers glided over the soft fabric of Finn's sweatshirt, and her head was free of concerns when she heard a familiar noise behind her. 

She remembered turning, in expectation of finding her friend standing in the frame of the door, but no, it had not been Finn who had snuck up to her. It was her fiend she had to confront instead. The incubus she had always sensed, ever since their first walk on Demeter. 

But what she remembered more than anything now, was his smile; traumatic and demonic to say the least.

To avoid the nightmares, she let her mind wander off to the people she loved but kept coming back to one person in particular. Finn. His charming voice, his dreamy scent, the sound of his adorable laugh, and his eyes—those heavenly winter-day eyes. The only thing that could allow her memories to forget the diabolic dead eyes of Arrakis when he gave her that unholy smile. The smile that caused her body to freeze unconditionally.

Lena had no information regarding Finn's well-being, and him having left this world through the brutal actions of Arrakis was a thought that her heart could not bear. She desired answers, but there was no way of knowing if Finn was still alive. She was certain that she was. Knowing that, another question arose: Why?

The door opened without warning, and a quick breach of light fell into the room before the door shut again. Not enough time for Lena to make out her surroundings. Arrakis had entered the room, now standing in the dark that had the power to utterly conceal his presence if it wasn't for his gruff breathing and the goosebumps forming on Lena's skin. There was something sinister about his entrance.

She wanted to ask what he wanted, or what he planned to do with her, but fear left her speechless. The light turned on and Arrakis approached the bed she was strapped on.

"I see you're awake," he said, with an underlying quality of threat. He stood next to her now, looking down at her struggling body. He looked pleased. 

Arrakis' fingers stroke her cheek gently but were missing any sort of affection. Lena wondered; was Finn's blood on these hands of his?

She jerked her head away from his fingers and felt the coarse strings slicing through the skin of her wrists.

"Give it up. If you try to run, you will die trying."

"I'd rather die trying than give up!" she quoted Finn and looked right into his demon eyes. She said it with outrage and disgust and blinked not before he did.

"Why didn't you just say so? I can easily arrange that."

Arrakis unsheathed a machete attached to his belt and bent over Lena. He wore a black tank top, and with him being this close, Lena could make out one of the tattoos that he wore above his chest. 

It represented an animal that did not live on Pluviam, but she recognized it because she had seen it in Kassiopeia's home; a raven. Its wings were rolled out and the claws spread for an attack. 

Lena believed it would be the last thing her eyes would ever see, but she was in the wrong. Arrakis cut the ropes and freed her hands and feet.

Lena, in shock and chaos, collected her thoughts. The room was small, and she saw nothing in her prison, not even windows. The only two objects it seemed to contain were the stiff bed beneath her and the light bulb hanging from the concrete ceiling.

The door caught her eyes, and although hesitant, she did make a run for it. Arrakis dissolved into laughter as Lena twisted the knob and found out she was locked in. Locked in with her kidnapper.

"What do you want, Arrakis?"

"Excuse me? No thank you? No appreciation at all? Where are your manners? I freed you just now, and this is how you thank me? How rude."

"You kidnapped me! You locked the door! You did not free me!

"Now now, little gull, that's not the way to behave."

"Where the hell are we?"

"You just answered your own question," his diabolical laugh relapsed, and satan's fire burned in his eyes. 

As much as she hated to agree with him, she was in hell indeed. At least a wry representation of it, according to her personal opinion of what hell may have looked like. 

"I'm kidding! Haven't you guessed it? You're on Pluviam. No, wait, you are not on Pluviam, silly me, you are inside of Pluviam. To be more precise; you are in one of its secret vaults."

That's when it hit her. It was irrelevant whether she screamed or not, for no one upon the earth would be able to hear her through the dense walls of the underground shelter.

"Are you going to kill me?"

"Don't flatter yourself. Your life has no importance, and ending it will have no impact on anyone or anything. But don't think I won't do it. One wrong move, and it'll be your last."

Lena's hand still clutched the handle of the door. "If I'm worthless as you say, why did you bring me here?"

He grinned, "Bait."

"Bait? Bait for what?" But then she understood. She wasn't the bait for something——she was the bait for someone. "Finn! But why?"

"You see, while everyone on Pluviam, including the KSP nerds, seemed to have lost their brain cells, I knew right away what Finn was after. And I will not let him get away with it. I planned to assassinate him, but I didn't know where he hid the drive. And I could not risk someone else getting their hands on it after I had killed him."

"But why take me to Pluviam? Why not finish Finn on Demeter, if that's what you wanted?"

"Three against one? Don't you think that's a bit unfair? Especially with that hideous creature. At first, I thought: How can I force him to give me the hard drive? How do I pass the beast that guards him? But then he mounted that animal and left you all alone! What a chump! It couldn't have been any easier. I had the perfect plan to get the hard drive. All I had to do was to let him feel the fear of losing someone he loves more than anything else. Someone he wants and needs to survive. Yes, I'm looking at you. He may be brave, but jumping between you and my gun was pretty dumb. I realized that he cares for you more than he cares for himself. Therefore, he will come to trade the hard drive for the life of his girlfriend."

"That's all great, but you made a mistake. Well—two actually. First of all, I'm not his girlfriend, and secondly; we don't have your stupid hard drive!"

One truth and one lie. One delivered with confidence, the other with obvious equivocation.

"Aren't you just adorable! But I watched the tape of the security camera. While everyone else focused on their beloved Phineas, I discovered something rather interesting. I rewatched the tape later on and paused it to confirm my theory. The computer and desk may have been in the blind spot, but I saw a black box in the hands of the thief. That's right, it was you! Ha! When you stormed out of the room, you moved your hand just enough to make it visible, and apparently I was the only one to notice it. So I went over to the offices to check the hard drives on the table, and sure enough, one was missing. The one that was related to the lost spaceship." 

"Okay. Fine! I lied about the hard drive, but Finn doesn't even know what information it contains. We never got a chance to open the secrets within. And that's the truth!"

"Is that so?" Arrakis smiled in satisfaction. A new piece of information had come to his knowledge, but it did not seem to change his plans.

"What secret is great enough to kill for it?" Lena asked with fury.

"Sorry. If I told you, I'd have to kill you."