“Lots of things don’t,” Jax says, his face clouded as he propels himself off the wall. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t true. It’s time to wake up, Sub. If you’re really up here because you claim you ran away, because you wanted to die and you had no idea people lived on the surface, then I’m sorry to tell you this, but your entire life, everything you’ve known and been told, and the way everyone in ROC lives, is based on a very well planned and well placed web of lies.”
CHAPTER TEN
That night, it isn’t Jax who brings me dinner.
“Good evening, Miss Kelsey.”
“Daniel,” I say with surprise as the grey-haired man sets a new tray of food on the floor near the door.
“Guess you wouldn’t be happy to see me all things considered.”
“Oh, no, it’s not that,” I say, because even though he kidnapped me, I don’t mind Daniel. I think, if he hadn’t been responsible for locking me up, I’d probably really like him because he kind of reminds me of Elsa. “I just assumed Jax was in charge of bringing me meals.”
“When pretty girls are involved, Jaxon can sometimes be unpredictable,” Daniel says with a wink.
“I can’t imagine Jax gives a crap if I’m pretty.”
“You’d be surprised. He is a teenage boy after all.”
“I’m pretty sure he hates me. Not that I care. He’s not exactly on my list of favorite people.”
“Either way, we can’t have him giving too much information to spies, can we?”
“I’m not a spy.”
“Which is exactly the kind of thing a spy would say.”
“Or a not spy,” I point out with exasperation, slapping my arms against my sides.
Daniel chuckles, dark eyes glittering behind bushy eyebrows. “You remind me of someone.”
“Who?” I ask, though I don’t know why because it’s not like I’ll know them.
A brief flicker of sadness passes over his face and I feel uncomfortable, as if I’ve witnessed something not meant for anyone to ever see.
“Just someone I use to know,” he says. “You are a very interesting character, Miss Kelsey.”
“How do you figure?”
Pausing for a moment, Daniel puckers his lips in concentration. “Can’t put words on it, just interesting. Didn’t expect someone who grew up being forced to conform to ROC rules being so… spunky.”
“You guys seem to know an awful lot about the O.Z.”
“When they’re your enemies, you make it a point to know a lot about them. Anyhow, there’s your dinner. You need anything else?”
“Freedom?”
“Not today, kiddo. Not until Charlie decides you’re not a threat.”
“And what happens if she decides I am?”
“I guess she’ll have you killed. Which is unfortunate cause I kinda like you, but we can’t be too careful here.”
“Wonderful," I mutter as he leaves, locking the door again. I sigh and slump down onto the bed, old springs digging into the back of my legs. Absentmindedly, I lift up my mother’s necklace and rub the charm between my fingers in the hopes it will provide comfort.
I can only assume, when I fail to provide whatever answers they’re looking for, Charlie will have no choice but to kill me. Or at least turn me out into the woods because they can’t hold me in the cabin indefinitely, having me use up valuable resources and space while contributing nothing. I guess I could lie to them, but that might end badly on my part. A part of me still wants to die, but like with Wyatt, I refuse to die as someone’s prisoner.
Once again, the anguish of Rey’s death rips through me. If he were alive, he’d come to my rescue. He was my escape.
But he’s not alive.
The thought hurts, like someone uses my insides as a pincushion, driving needles into my gut over and over again. I wonder how long it will take until his death doesn’t hurt so bad anymore. If that will ever happen. And now, with Rey gone, and considering my exit from the O.Z, I can’t imagine anyone is searching for me, or at least not to come to my rescue.
“Then I will just rescue myself,” I say confidently to the empty space. Standing, I pace through the room, observing the windows and corners and rafters. The bars on one window are a little loose, but not enough that I can remove them without a lot of noise.
However, in the far corner I discover damp, water stained wood along the wall and floor. Glancing up, I see a leak in the roof that must have gone unnoticed for years. The shingles are missing and part of the wood beneath has rotted away. Through the decayed roof, I catch glimmers of the evening sky.
Grabbing the chair Charlie has been so kind to provide, I carefully place it under the corner and hoist myself into the rafters until I straddle the beam closest to the leak. I can fit my arm through the hole and, much to my pleasure, more of the wood disintegrates at my touch, splitters and dust cascading to the floor.
I’ll be forced to work quietly or risk a passerby hearing. Climbing back down, I tug the thin mattress off the cot and drag it to the corner before returning to my position in the ceiling. I pry at the damp wood and old tin shingles, wrenching the roof apart piece by moldy piece and letting them drop silently onto the mattress below. Most are no bigger than the size of my hand, but slowly the hole widens and within ten minutes I can squirm my shoulders through.
Looking out over the compound, I know I am in the far corner about three hundred yards from the stone wall. In the darkness, no one will see me on the roof, so I wriggle myself through the opening until I squat on all fours on top of the cabin.
I lean back, sitting against the slope of the roof so I’m concealed from view. Odds are I can jump off the back end of the cabin and make it to the stone wall without anyone realizing, but I’m not a spider and can’t scale the ten foot barricade no matter how much time I might be granted. And there’s always the small matter of the barbed wire.
Assessing the situation, I see a tree off to my right that grows on the inside of the wall. Offering low branches, I could, in theory, swing into it, haul myself until I’m parallel to the wall, carefully step over the jagged twists of metal, and then jump. It’ll be a long fall to the other side, but I think I can make it with minimal injuries. I have no idea where to go from there, but I’d rather take my chances with the woods than the possibility of Charlie having me shot.
Recognizing my only chance, I take a deep breath to still the jitters in my stomach and leap from the roof, landing onto the grass behind the cabin with a quiet thump. My left ankle twinges, but I propel myself forward, keeping low and aiming for my destination. A small smile sneaks across my lips because, for the first time in my life, I’m going to climb a tree.
I try to walk on the balls of my feet to make as little sound as possible. The tree grows larger in my vision and I only have five yards left.
“Hey! Freeze!” a male voice yells and I hear the now all too familiar cock of a weapon. Fear grips my throat as my head flips around to see a man stalk through the night, gun raised and pointed my direction.
I have exactly two seconds to make a decision, and just like in ROC, I have no intention of willingly dying as someone’s prisoner. So, I bolt for the tree and think that if I can just make it into the first branches, he won’t have a clear shot.
Zigzagging across the lawn I almost do make it too when I hear the echoing pop of the gun. It’s just a single crack splitting through the night, shattering the silence the way a glass shatters on a tile floor, but it’s enough to make me jump and run faster. For a moment, I think he missed and I almost laugh.
Then the searing pain comes, burning across my left shoulder as if it has been set ablaze with one of the torches scattered around the property. It rages across my chest, stealing the oxygen from my lungs and gripping my heart in its flame laced fingers. I cry out, clutching at my arm as I stagger forward and collapse onto the earth.
I can’t move and the agony slices me apart, my left arm immobile as I struggle to drag myself across the gr
ass with my good arm. The ground is wet, and I think it’s a puddle of water until the coppery smell of blood hits the back of my nostrils. It’s my blood, coating my hands and pouring across the earth. I gag on the metallic stench, flopping forward into its warm stickiness as my body refuses to continue.
Multiple footsteps pound from somewhere behind me and I hear more shouting. I have no idea who it is, if they mean to help me or just let me die. Why would they save someone they consider the enemy anyway?
I want to push myself up, I want to run away, I want to reach the tree, I want…
“I just wanted to see the sky,” I choke before a cloak of blackness envelopes my vision and I tumble into an empty bottomless void.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I’m swimming in a dark, murky lake. The water crushes down on me from all sides. I don’t have to breathe, I realize with relief, but I want to find the surface. Except I have no idea which way to swim and despite all my thrashing, the current tosses me under again, back into the blackest depths of its watery abyss.
***
Voices. Today I hear voices and I think they say my name, but I can’t be sure, and I can’t see anyone in the darkness. I don’t recognize the voices anyway and fighting my way toward them is too hard and I can’t move. Something hurts, burning my skin, a sharp, pulsing twinge radiating throughout my body. I retreat into the darkness where I feel no pain, where I don’t have to think or do anything other than sleep. I just want to sleep until it doesn’t hurt anymore.
***
“Kelsey,” a voice calls, and this one sounds familiar. “Kelsey!”
A face floats through the cloudy water, blond hair swirling around his head. Materializing from the darkness, he almost glows against the black world that has consumed me.
“Rey,” I whisper in startled awe. “Why are you here?” I try to reach out and touch him, but my arms are trapped at my sides. He shimmers in the water, directly in front of me, but not in front of me at all, like a hologram or a ghost.
“More like, why are you here?” he asks, crystal blue eyes sparkling. I saw a drawing of an angel once, and now I realize that Rey, with his fine skin and pale hair and a glowing aura around his face, has become that angel.
“I don’t understand,” I say. “You’re dead. Does that mean I’m dead too?”
“Not yet, but you do seem to have a death wish lately.”
Something deep inside me breaks, a wall tumbling into ruin, my emotions rushing forward in a smothering cascade.
“I want to be with you, Rey.” I weep, my tears immediately whisked away in the underwater currents. “I want to be with you so we can be together and happy again.”
His eyes are sad, a wistful smile on his lips and all I can think is that I want to kiss him just one last time.
“Kelsey, we are always together and the only way I will ever be happy, is if you live.”
“I know. It’s just so hard.”
“It’s supposed to be hard, that’s where the beauty of life comes from. I know you’re strong enough. You’re a survivor, you always have been. So you need to open your eyes now.”
I stare at him in confusion. “But Rey, they… they aren’t closed.”
He leans closer and I can see every perfect detail of his face; the silver flecks in his blue eyes, the tiny faded scar on his chin from when he smacked it on the kitchen counter as a kid, the birthmark on the left side of his neck just below his ear.
“Yes, they are, Kelsey,” he whispers. “That’s why you need to open them.”
He vanishes and I blink. Gone is my watery tomb and instead I stare at wooden rafters; cobwebs hanging from the old beams. I realize they are the rafters of my cabin jail and I’m lying on my back in the bed, a couple springs jabbing into my spine. My body is stiff and sore, like I’ve become a block of concrete, and while the fire in my left arm is gone, it still pulsates with a steady ache.
Struggling to sit up, I wince and inhale sharply at the pain through my joints and injured arm. Gazing at the space, realizing I am once again a prisoner, and now one with a bullet wound in my shoulder, my eyes come to rest on a person in the corner. Jax. He’s asleep, shoulders slouched against the wall and his head hanging at an angle that can’t be comfortable. A lock of dark hair falls across his eyes and he snores just slightly enough that I can hear it from where I sit. He looks peaceful.
An extra pillow rests on the bed and with my good arm, I pick it up and hurl it at Jax. It strikes him in the side of the head, startling him awake. He scrambles for a moment, apparently searching for the weapon he must have left outside before his brilliant turquoise eyes find mine.
“Seriously, Sub? Were you offended by me sleeping?” he grumbles, rubbing his face with both hands. Dirt cakes the underside of his fingernails.
“You shot me,” I say, my tone flat and detached because I can’t believe I’ve actually been shot. And survived.
“I didn’t shoot anyone. Randolph did. You’re lucky it was him too ‘cause he’s got shit aim. If I shot you, we wouldn’t be having this conversation because you’d be dead.”
“You freaking shot me!”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Yeah, see, I’ve already explained that I had nothing to do with it so chill out with the accusations. Besides, I told you what would happen if you tried to escape.”
“Why wouldn’t I try to escape? Odds are I’ll end up dead here anyway so I figured I should at least try!”
“Fair enough, though Charlie isn’t intending to kill you any time soon.”
“Well, forgive me, but that’s not exactly reassuring.”
“You know you were going the wrong way, right?”
I falter for a moment. “What?”
Rising to his feet, he sticks his thumbs in his belt loops and strolls toward the bed, boots thumping on the floor. “The direction you were headed; the entrance to ROC was the other way.”
“I wasn’t trying to go back to ROC.”
His face wrinkles. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to be in ROC. I escaped from ROC. Considering the manner of my exit, I don’t think they want to particularly see me again either.”
“And what manner was that?”
Picking up the edge of the frayed blanket with my right hand, I play with the loose threads. “Remember that guy I told you I was going to be forced to marry? I stole a gun, which are illegal to have, held it to his head, forced him to open the exterior door and then knocked him unconscious. And he’s a Councilmember.”
At first Jax says nothing, then he throws his head back and laughs. It’s deep and heavy, but it’s a sound I don’t think he has made in a long time because he immediately silences himself, his cold demeanor returning in an instant. He looks as shocked over his laughter as I do.
He motions for me to turn toward him, and after great effort I manage to twist myself sideways. Pulling aside the sleeve of my shirt, he checks the bandages covering my shoulder. I yelp, then cover my mouth with my hand to stifle any additional cries.
“Sorry,” he says. “I know it hurts. It was a through and through on the outside of your shoulder, which was good because I’m not sure you would have survived us trying to get a bullet out. Our doctor stitched you up, but we’ve been giving you something to keep you asleep for a few days to get over the worst of the pain. The stuff is pretty strong. Probably gave you weird dreams.”
He reaches to the foot of the bed and picks up a cloth sling, helping me secure it around my neck to support my injured arm. I try not to flinch as a burning agony stabs through my shoulder with each movement.
“Why bother?” I ask, shifting away from Jax once he finishes. He returns to his spot on the floor, sitting with one leg outstretched and the other bent to act as an arm rest.
Cocking his head to one side, he regards me with a curious expression. “Charlie thinks we can make you useful.”
I roll my eyes and groan. “I’ve told you people a hundred times I’m not a spy.”
&nb
sp; “I know,” he says, and I sit a little straighter, my mouth opening in surprise as he continues. “Charlie knows too. I don’t think we ever really believed you’re a spy since you kind of suck at it, but you can still be helpful.”
“Then if you don’t think I’m a spy, why am I locked in here?”
“Because we still don’t trust you. Spy or not, we can’t be too careful and until you prove otherwise, you’re staying where we can keep an eye on you.”
I sneer. “Awesome.”
“You in pain?” he asks and for a moment it almost sounds like he’s genuinely concerned.
“No,” I lie. I refuse to show weakness, especially to Jax. “Why are you in here anyway? You a doctor as well as a guard?”
The Gamble (The Gamble Series Book 1) Page 9
