“I will find him for you,” he vowed, guilt tugging at him. “But you must look after yourself. You will be no good to him if you are weakened by hunger.”
“I’ll eat—but you must let me know what’s happening.”
“Of course.”
Before he left, he tugged her gently into his arms. She didn’t protest but he felt her reluctance. He kissed her just long enough to feel her lips soften beneath his and her body relax before he pulled away.
“Trust me, little girl. I will find him. Behave yourself while I’m gone.” She gave him a reluctant nod and he forced himself to leave so that he could return to the Khaichi and arrange the search.
Chapter Thirteen
As soon as T’chok left, Rachel began to pace. Rationally, she knew that one person wouldn’t make much difference to a search that would have to extend for miles, but every instinct demanded that she return home. Her steps took her out onto the balcony and her eyes went immediately to the wall. A good twelve feet high, it completely surrounded the hotel grounds. There had to be away past it. Her abortive escape attempt on the ship had made it clear that there was no hope of getting away there, but here on Earth, surely she had a better chance.
Surveying the rest of the property within the wall, she saw four guards on the terrace and two more along the waterfront path, although, she noticed that they stayed well back from the water. From what Lizabet said, two guards on each floor observed the hallways and she could only assume more covered the front hall and entrance. With an enthusiasm she hadn’t anticipated, she set out to find out where the rest of the guards were located. She couldn’t discount any monitoring they might be doing but T’chok had indicated that it was still limited so she would focus on physical locations for now.
By the time Rachel joined Lizabet and Sarah for dinner that evening, she was starving. Her cheeks glowed from cold air and sunshine. The combination of physical activity and her efforts to find an escape route gave her a sense of purpose. Her friends were seated at a small table near one of the windows and happily pulled up another chair for her as she brought her plate to the table.
“Rachel, I’m so glad to see you.” Sarah had come by several times yesterday, but Rachel had closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. She didn’t think she had fooled the other woman, but she hadn’t been able to put on a happy face.
Now Rachel surprised herself by grinning back.
“Why are you so happy?” Lizabet demanded. “Is it because T’chok came to see you?”
“No.” She sobered. “Actually, he brought some bad news. My brother is missing.” She told them what had happened, and their anger and grief on her brother’s behalf filled a part of her that she hadn’t realized was empty. Ever since she could remember, she had been the weird girl who hadn’t had time to play or date or hang out with the other girls. She wouldn’t have traded the time with her brother for anything, but it was nice to have two friends supporting her.
“So why were you smiling?” Lizabet asked, determined as always to get to the bottom of the matter.
After a quick glance around, Rachel leaned forward. “I think I know how I can get out of here.”
“What?” the two exclaimed in unison and she hushed them.
“Have you noticed that none of the guards get close to the lake?”
“I don’t think they know how to swim,” Sarah said. At Rachel’s inquiring look, she blushed. “I walked with T’gana when he was doing his rounds this afternoon.”
“I knew it!” Rachel smirked.
Sarah scowled at her. “You don’t know anything. It’s just nice to talk to a man. I mean a male. I mean… Dammit, you know what I mean.”
“Sure I do,” Rachel laughed. “Wait a minute. Did you say he talks to you?” She remembered that he was one of the guards with the limited ability to speak English.
“Yes.” Sarah’s face turned a deep shade of pink. “He upgraded his interface so that he could talk to me.”
Suppressing her amusement, Rachel gave her a serious look. “Sarah, remember what I said. No touching and no kissing. Once you do, it’s almost like an addiction—on both sides,” she said ruefully. Even now she was aware of the pull T’chok exerted over her. Her clit pulsed just at the thought of him.
“It’s not like that.” At Rachel’s raised eyebrow, she insisted. “Really. He’s very conscious of the Forbidden Cycle and I… I’m not sure that I’m ready to move on yet. We’re just spending time together.”
“Okay, I get it. I’ll stop teasing you about it.”
“I won’t,” Lizabet said with a grin. “If you’re gonna neglect me to spend time with Mr. Old-and-scary-looking, you know I’m going to give you grief.”
“He’s not old. Or scary looking.” Sarah protested immediately. They both grinned at her, and she rolled her eyes. “Oh, stop it. Anyway, as I was saying, T’gana doesn’t know how to swim. I don’t know if any of them do—they seem to spend all of their time in space or on military missions.”
“Which is why they aren’t paying much attention to the lake,” Rachel said. “Most of the guards are in front of the hotel and where the road enters the property.”
“There’s a road?” Lizabet asked before smacking herself in the head. “Well, duh. People had to get here somehow.”
“Exactly. You can just see it from the upper floors. It looks kind of overgrown, but I thought I saw some soldiers there and I definitely saw a few military-type vehicles. I’ll have to leave from the other side and stay away from it.”
“And go where?” Sarah asked. “We’re surrounded by wilderness.”
“This is a huge hotel, right? As Lizabet said, they had to get here somehow. There must be a decent sized road somewhere nearby.”
“That could be miles away. What if you get lost?”
“I used to go camping with my dad. I’ll be okay.” She didn’t mention that it had been ten years ago.
“Even if you do find a road, what then?”
“Hitch my way home,” Rachel replied. “I’m pretty sure these are the Rockies. I just need to head north.”
“Awesome plan. When are we leaving?” Lizabet asked.
Rachel looked at the younger girl’s excited face and bit her lip. “Lizabet, you can’t come with me.”
The excitement faded into a scowl. “Why the hell not?”
She took Lizabet’s hand. “Lizzie, I’m not sure that I can even make it off the grounds, let alone reach a road. If I get caught, I don’t know what they’ll do to me.” She shuddered, remembering Bambi being carried away. “If I knew it would work, of course I would take you with me, but I can’t let you take that chance. You have to stay here with Sarah. She’ll take care of you until T’chok can make some other arrangements. He promised to look after you and I believe him.”
“So you’re definitely going?” Sarah asked. “When?”
“Not tonight. I need to see what happens after dark. I suspect that once we’re all tucked in our beds, most of the guards will come inside except for the ones by the entry doors and the front of the hotel.”
“You’re forgetting the ones in the hallway. How are you going to get by them?”
“That’s the part I haven’t figured out yet,” Rachel said ruefully. “But assuming I think of a way, and if everything checks out tonight, I’ll make a break for it tomorrow after lights out. I need to gather supplies tomorrow as well.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something? How are you going to get around the wall?”
Rachel grinned. “I’m going to swim around it.”
“Are you crazy? The water’s fucking freezing,” Lizabet protested. “One of the new girls splashed me and it was like being hit by fucking ice cubes.”
Rachel suppressed a grimace and kept her face calm. “It’s a mountain lake; I expected that. I’ll carry my clothes with me, so they’ll be dry when I get out. As long as I can get warm again, I’ll be fine.”
“If you’re sure, what can we do to help?�
� Sarah asked. Lizabet nodded in agreement.
“Thanks, guys.” She swallowed a few times to clear the lump in her throat. “I want to know if they have some kind of warning around the wall and where it’s located. Maybe one of you can just casually walk in that direction and see when someone notices.”
“I’ll do it,” Lizabet said immediately. “I can get one of the other girls and we’ll just goof around down there.”
“That would be great. I also wish I knew how much monitoring they had in place,” Rachel added. “T’chok said something that made me think everything wasn’t set up yet, but I don’t really know what’s covered and what’s not. I’m assuming that, like the guards, they focused outward first, but I don’t know for sure.”
Sarah sighed. “I can probably work it into conversation with T’gana.”
“You don’t have to do that if you feel uncomfortable about it.”
“No, it’s okay. You’re my friend. If I were in your position, I would do anything I could to get to my brother, too. Is there anything else you need?”
“A big plastic bag that seals would be good so I can carry my clothes and supplies. I want to take as much food as I can carry easily.” She looked down at their plates, for the first time paying attention to the food. “As long as it’s not this. What is this shit anyway?”
Lizabet giggled. “They’re trying to produce Earth food. It’s supposed to be lasagna and salad.”
Three greyish layers of something that bore no resemblance to pasta separated chunks of virulent orange and brown. Flaccid sheets of lime green “lettuce” were topped by more orange lumps.
Sarah laughed at Rachel’s expression. “It tastes better than it looks. Try it.”
She took a cautious bite and grimaced. “I suppose it does sort of taste like lasagna. I promised T’chok I’d eat, but honestly, I think I would rather have Yehrin food. Thank God, I can’t take this with me.”
“They still leave out fruit and crackers,” Lizabet said. “We can all get some. I mean, it’s not like they keep track, but you don’t want to seem like you’re hoarding food.”
Sarah nodded agreement. “Anything else we can do?”
“Not unless you know how I can get out of my room after lights out. Any ideas?” They both looked at her and shook their heads.
By dinnertime the next day, Rachel was in a state of nervous panic. Sarah had confirmed that the monitors pointed outward along the front of the hotel, although she thought one covered the terrace doors as well. Lizabet talked another girl into playing catch with her and discovered that the guards seemed to pick up any movement within about fifty feet of the wall, even when the guards couldn’t see them. Rachel found out by accident that the laundry bags they had been issued were waterproof when she spilled a glass of water on one. All three of them had contributed to the growing cache of food hidden in Rachel’s nightstand.
T’chok had left several messages throughout the day, reporting no progress. The sheriff had spread the word to all of the ranches in the county and had his deputies making inquiries. Tom had blustered and protested, but finally agreed to have his men to search the Triple D since that was the most likely place for Benji to hide. In T’chok’s last message, he promised to fly to Gold Creek personally to investigate. She was grateful for his efforts, but her instincts were urging her to go home—just as soon as she could figure out how to get out of her room.
As soon as they finished the evening’s experiment in earth cooking—slightly green hamburgers on orange buns—she jumped up. “Let’s go for a walk.”
Sarah and Lizabet exchanged puzzled glances but followed her outside. The wind off the lake sent icy fingers straight through their clothes.
“Fuck, it’s cold,” Lizabet said. “How are you going to keep warm when you’re out there?”
“I know how to start a fire,” Rachel said firmly. At least, I used to. “I’ll be fine.”
“But that water is so cold.” Sarah’s brow wrinkled.
Rachel shivered. “I know.” She had gone down to the dock earlier and even in the full afternoon sun, her fingers went numb after only a brief time in the water.
“Can we go back in now?” Lizabet’s teeth were chattering as she pulled the flannel shirt tighter around her body.
“Go ahead,” Rachel urged. “I just want to double check and see if there’s something I missed. You can go too, Sarah.”
“I’ll walk with you. It’s less suspicious if there are two of us.”
“I’ll grab some more food and meet you in the room,” Lizabet said, and ran for the doors.
“I hate to think how she’s going to be when winter really comes,” Rachel laughed and then sobered. There was a good chance she wouldn’t be here to see it. Either her escape would be successful and, pray God, she would be holed up somewhere with Benji, or she would be caught and sent to a real Yehrin prison. She sighed. Of course, neither option was possible unless she found a way out of the hotel.
The terrace curved out from the hotel in a great oval. They wandered out to the balustrade and turned back to look at the hotel. Lanterns along the facade illuminated the first floor and the massive windows that marked the public spaces. The upper floors were dark except for a few windows where someone had returned to their room and turned on a light.
“What’s that?” Sarah asked, gesturing at a metal ring above the ground floor which just caught the edge of the light. It was tucked into the corner next to the tower that marked the transition from the main hotel to one of the wings that angled along the lake. Rachel’s room was located on one of the upper floors of the tower.
“I don’t know. I looked at it earlier, but I couldn’t figure out why it’s there. It’s just a bunch of metal rings.”
Sarah’s eyes lit up. “Let’s take a closer look.”
Rachel shrugged and followed her, turning over plans in her mind. She’d noticed that each floor had a fire alarm. If she could get to that—and if it worked when she pulled it—could she escape in the confusion? Her chances would be better after lights out, but the guards didn’t allow them out of their rooms. Sarah had tested that last night and had been firmly instructed to return to her room.
“That’s what I thought,” Sarah whispered. “It’s a fire escape.”
“That thing?”
“Yes, you can climb down from ring to ring—they act like steps.”
Rachel stared up at the so-called fire escape, lost in the darkness above her. A sudden vision of her falling down that long expanse made her stomach clench. It didn’t help that the bottom ring was just above the ground floor, a good six feet above her head.
“Assuming I could climb down, do you think I could jump from up there?”
“Maybe?” Sarah didn’t sound confident. “Or maybe you could bring a sheet with you. Then you could tie it off there and slide down it.”
“Okay. Then all I need to do is figure out how to get on to it from our room.” Rachel tried to sound confident, but her stomach still churned at the thought of the descent. Heights had never been her strong point.
“Let’s go up to your room and take a look,” Sarah said, then sighed, her earlier excitement fading.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just worried. Of course, I’m worried about you but also… I know it’s selfish and stupid, but I’m worried that when you turn up missing T’gana is going to think I was just using him.”
“Oh, Sarah, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make trouble between you.”
“It’s not your fault. This whole situation just sucks.” Sarah tried to smile but her attempt didn’t reassure either of them. Silently, they turned to head back inside. Before they were even halfway to the doors, the object of their discussion appeared.
“You should not be out here without proper clothing,” T’gana chided Sarah. As an obvious afterthought, he included Rachel. “Either of you.”
“We were just coming back in,” Sarah said, and gave him a watery smile.
&n
bsp; “What is wrong, S'rah?” T'gana’s craggy face softened. His concern reminded Rachel of T’chok and she fought back a mixture of guilt and sadness. She hoped that her escape attempt wouldn't damage the budding relationship between Sarah and the older warrior. On the other hand, she knew that her own relationship with T’chok would be irreparably harmed. The thought of never seeing him again tore at her. Maybe if she could find Benji and make sure he was safe, perhaps… But no. Her brother was only ten. He would be dependent on her for many years to come and by the time she was free to seek out T’chok, he would have no doubt moved on.
Sarah told T'gana that her eyes were watering from the cold wind, but he obviously didn’t believe her. He accompanied the two silent women to Rachel’s room, still casting worried looks in Sarah’s direction. Rachel slipped into the room to allow them to speak in private, but Sarah followed her almost immediately.
“I couldn’t talk to him,” she said as she dropped into a chair. “It felt like our plans were written in big red letters across my face. No, don’t apologize again.” She held up a hand as Rachel opened her mouth. “If it was meant to be, it will be. And if not…” She shrugged unconvincingly before changing the subject. “Now, let’s see what the situation is outside your window.”
It took Rachel and Sarah a good fifteen minutes to pry up the window nearest the fire escape. Fortunately, the age of the hotel meant that the window was operable, but it was too stiff with paint and age to open easily. Lizabet came in just as they finally managed to get it open and collapsed on the floor in exhaustion.
“What are you bitches doing?”
“Trying to see if Rachel can reach the fire escape,” Sarah panted.
‘You’re gonna climb out the window? That’s so cool.” Lizabet stepped over them and leaned out the window. “You mean that metal thing?”
Rachel hauled Sarah to her feet and they both joined Lizabet.
“It’s further than I thought,” Sarah said. “You can see the outline of the door but that must only be accessible from the corridor.”
Alien Prisoner Page 10
