Fire

by Jim Heskett

  FIRE

  The Slave Games Book 3

  Jim Heskett

  Contents

  Denver CBD

  Offer

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  EPILOGUE

  Afterword

  Books by Jim Heskett

  About the Author

  Offer

  Want to get free dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction in your inbox? Check out www.jimheskett.com/free now for free fiction.

  Chapter One

  This place wasn't a prison, but it might as well have been. Yorick knew the walls the minute they been transferred inside. Shackled, corralled in a small room at first. Standing room only with two dozen other new slaves as they’d processed into the facility. The stink of fear and lack of bathing had made Yorick’s stomach turn several times.

  He, Rosia, and Tenney had only been here a few short hours. Long enough to know there seemed to be no way out. They were in holding cells inside Denver, the First City. Not that they’d had much of a view on the way in from inside the van driven by Yorick’s father.

  They were waiting for their transfer paperwork to put them on the auction block, to be sold to the highest bidder. Or to be given as a reward to some high-performing member of the king’s government. Yorick didn’t know for sure. Lots of rumors rolled around in the chatter among the other prisoners.

  Unlike the tiny cell where his parents had kept him only hours before, they had room to roam here after the initial processing. They were housed in an open, warehouse-like structure, with side rooms for offices and bathrooms. Yorick appreciated the small measure of privacy in the bathrooms because it had allowed him to keep his secret.

  He examined the cuts on his arm he’d received when stretching to open the cell door back at the transfer facility. None of them looked infected. Achey, but not a permanent problem. Best to keep them clean, though, if possible.

  Now, he just needed a chance to tell Rosia and Tenney about his secret so they could plan. So they could start to work getting out of here, and then figuring out what was next.

  There were twenty or thirty other people inside the holding facility with them. These poor souls wandered around, slept on the cots, or sat on one of the rows of benches and stared at the walls. No windows to gaze out.

  Most here were young, but a few were old and grizzled. The rumors were the old ones would fetch no price at auction and would probably be executed. By the looks on some of their faces, Yorick assumed they wouldn’t put up much of a fight.

  "As pretty as you are," said one man who'd been staring at them for the last hour, “I would expect I could buy the fanciest house in town for what they'll pay for you." He'd said it directly to Rosia, and Yorick positioned himself between this man and her. Not so much to protect her, but more like to prevent her from attacking him. They were both on benches only about ten meters apart.

  And they had all had enough. After an exhausting trip across Wyoming, after Malina's death in the tunnel into Colorado, after the betrayal by Yorick’s parents. Enough. The fire in Yorick’s belly had fizzled to burnt sticks, and Yorick could see the same in the eyes of his companions.

  The warehouse was like a giant cage, with a metal grated ceiling four meters off the ground. Armed guards strolled along the top of the ceiling, their boots clanking. A watchful eye at all times. Enough of these guards patrolled that there didn’t seem to be a blind spot anywhere out here in the main room.

  Yorick needed to get his two friends alone to share with them his secret. His bit of hope. Maybe it would light their fire again.

  "I'm talking to you," said the man across the room. Tattoos ringed his neck. He was wearing a dirty yellow shirt and brown pants lined with pockets from hip to floor. Very much the same style of dress as the White Flames they had encountered across Wyoming.

  "Well," Yorick said, "we’re not talking to you, old man. We have no business with you, so go bother someone else. This is not a good time.”

  The man across the room gave them a wry smile. Yorick didn't care. He wasn't intimidated by this guy one bit. All he had were his words and his intent to project fear. Yorick knew better than to let words puncture him by now.

  The man coughed a wet gurgle. “Where did they catch you? Up north, in the industrial district? Trying to sleep in a warehouse you thought was abandoned? Or did they snatch you in town, stealing bread out of the dumpster of a restaurant?” When Yorick and his companions didn’t answer, the man grinned. His face changed. “No, it’s not that, either, is it? You’re not from here. You were brought in.”

  Yorick did his best to ignore the man, but he raised his voice and waved his hands around, swirling them to indicate the entirety of the room, as if trying to catch everyone’s attention. “Well, well! Welcome to the great kingdom of the First City of Denver! His Majesty, King Nichol, would like to welcome you himself if he were here. Which, he ain’t, as you can see.”

  A couple of guards on the top level clanked across the grate and paused overhead. Weapons pointed down through the grate at the loud troublemaker. The man looked up, waved a hand, and adopted a contrite expression on his face. After he’d quieted down for a moment, the guards strolled back to their posts.

  The man leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I’ll bet this is your first time, my little muchachos1. Not for me. I’ve been chewed up and spit out more times than I care to count. Bad knees, bad back, bad everything. They’ll sell me to a factory owner and work me to death in a year or two. But you strapping young people… you have so much to give. They’ll put you to work for a lifetime of some lord's pleasure. All kinds of pleasure. You can’t even imagine…”

  “Enough,” the bearded giant Tenney growled. His eyes flared, and the man relented for a moment, then he regained his smirk. “Welcome to the slave life,” the man said as he sat back against his bench. After that, he closed his eyes and said no more. He didn’t need to.

  Yorick pivoted on the bench and beckoned Tenney and Rosia to lean in closer. When they were within whispering distance, he said, "I have something I need to show you. Let's meet in the bathrooms in one minute.”

  Tenney nodded but said nothing. In the short time they'd been here he had said little. Understandable. Perhaps now, the full weight of his girlfriend’s death had settled on him. Yorick had a hard time reading his large friend, especially since the events in the tunnel.

  "We should go separately," Rosia said. "One at a time."

  Yorick agreed, and he set out first. The White Flames man across the room eyed him as Yorick made his way toward the
bathroom. But, he made no further comment.

  Above Yorick’s head, boots clanked on the metal grate. He kept his head down and his hands in his pockets as he left the main warehouse area and entered the side bathroom. He stood in front of the mirror and waited. The face in the mirror stared back at him, haggard breaths coming from between chapped lips. Brown skin, brown hair, brown eyes. He looked like almost anyone else here. How had the man known he wasn’t from Denver?

  Thirty seconds later, Rosia joined him. Yorick checked the position of the nearby guards. While the bathrooms were separate and had a wall keeping them from the main population of the room, the overhead was still grated, and the guards could look down at them at any time. Rosia took up a position at the sinks and mirrors next to him. She splashed water on her face, ignoring Yorick.

  A minute later, Tenney joined them. He stood in front of the sink on the other side of Yorick and waited.

  "Why are we here?" Tenney muttered, his voice gravelly and strained. Even though the big guy looked like a solid hunk of invincible concrete, Yorick had no doubt he was hurting. Not only from Malina's death. There were legit physical reasons. Tenney had taken a bullet about a week ago on the run in Wyoming, and then his foot had almost been crushed during their escape attempt in Colorado.

  But, Tenney kept it together. He had said nothing about his concerns or problems.

  "I have something to show you," Yorick said. "A way out of here."

  Tenney and Rosia both frowned at him. Yorick held out a hand and beckoned them both closer with a little flick of his finger. They pushed in, shielding him from view overhead.

  Time to show them.

  Yorick dug a hand into his shorts and removed from his inner pocket a small black device, no bigger than his thumb. He opened his palm to show it to them, but only for a moment. As quickly as it had opened, his hand snapped shut again around it, and then he shoved his hand back into his pocket.

  But it'd been long enough for both Tenney and Rosia to see it. Rosia gasped. "You didn't smash all the control chips."

  Yorick nodded. "I kept one. And this is going to save our lives."

  1 Muchachos: kids

  Chapter Two

  Rosia’s eyes lit up when Yorick showed them the control chip in his hand one more time.

  “How did you… what happened?” she asked. “I saw you smash all those chips in the holding facility.”

  Yorick shrugged. “There was just something about them. We’d been through so much, and so many people wanted to take them from us, I knew they were important. I just didn’t know how or why.”

  “You stashed it,” Tenney said.

  “Before we went into my parents’ house. Even though I thought we were going to a safe place and didn’t think we had any reason to doubt my parents, I was still nervous. So, I ate it. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. After the chaos in the tunnel, I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  The realization dawned on Tenney’s face. “You fished that out of the toilet?”

  “About an hour ago,” Yorick said, nodding.

  “Gross,” Rosia said, “but brilliant.” She kissed him on the cheek.

  “I was a little worried when my mom shocked us with that device it would’ve killed the chip, but it seems fine.” He tapped against the side, and it glowed blue for a brief second.

  “Do you think we can trade it for a way out of here?” Rosia asked.

  “That’s the plan,” Yorick said. “We need to find a sympathetic ear. Someone who can be bought or manipulated by this thing.”

  Rosia craned her neck to look out the bathroom door. Aside from the guards patrolling above their heads, there was a separate station near the northern end of the large room. And a certain guard there had been giving her the eye since they had arrived.

  She held out her hand. “Leave it to me. I know what to do.”

  “What are you going to do?” Yorick asked.

  “Something distasteful, but necessary. Let me handle this on my own. It’ll go a lot better that way.”

  Yorick sighed, but he dropped the chip in her hand, and she shoved it inside her bra. Yorick gave her that look, the one meaning he trusted her, but he worried, but he also didn’t want to admit that he worried. She thought it was cute, in a way.

  With a nod, they all three split up, dispersing in separate directions out of the bathroom.

  Rosia gave her hips a little wiggle from side to side as she crossed the room. She weaved in between benches of kids and young adults. Some of them looked like they knew why they were here, some of them not. If Rosia had a small army, she would liberate all of them. But first, she had to worry about getting herself out of this building. There wasn’t a thing she could do about their fates now.

  The man who had been harassing them a few minutes before stood from his bench and wandered over to her. He walked with a limp, and one of his hands was deformed. It bent back onto itself, not like a birth defect, but probably a past injury. The man cradled the hand against his chest as he gave her a lecherous grin.

  He walked in front of Rosia, cutting off her path. “Hello, little mariposa1.”

  “Get out of my way.”

  “Why? Where do you have to go in such a hurry?”

  Rosia bit her lip, trying to keep her tone under control. The last thing she needed was to attract the attention of the guards. “It’s none of your business, old man. Now leave me alone.”

  He reached out with his good hand and tried to touch her shoulder. Rosia whipped back, out of range.

  “Make an attempt to touch me again, and I’ll break your fingers. You have no idea what I’ve been through in the last week. I have no patience for lecherous idiotas2 like you.”

  Now, he appeared wounded. “Oh, my little mariposa with your long, pretty hair and deep eyes. How you hurt me.”

  He reached out again, and Rosia didn’t hesitate. She snatched his wrist in midair and gave it a quick twist. She heard his bones snap under the pressure. When he opened his mouth to yell, she gave him a quick jab in the face to shut him up.

  He staggered back and sat down on a bench. Eyes wet, clutching his injured hand to his chest. His lip quivered, but, to his credit, he did not call out again.

  “I didn’t want to do that,” she seethed. “I told you what would happen.”

  She strutted past him and toward the east end of the room. She tried to put the man out of her mind. Would she have behaved that way five years ago? One year ago?

  It didn’t matter. Rosia met the eyes of the guard at the processing desk on the other side of the main cage area. She lowered her lids, giving him a sultry look. Of course, Rosia didn’t feel sexy. She was in a pinche3 cage with dozens of other suffering people. She had spent the last two weeks on the run after killing Lord Wybert at his plantación4. And, only yesterday, she had seen her friend Malina gunned down in the tunnel between Wyoming and Colorado.

  Not to mention having to break the wrist of a man who felt he had the right to touch her without permission. Life felt like a backpack weighted with rocks. One she couldn’t remove.

  Still, Rosia dawned a playful smirk as she sashayed across the room and approached the cage. She laced her fingers through the chain links and stared straight into the face of the man at the desk.

  He was in his own little chain link fence cage, but he had a gate he could open and close at will. He sat at a desk with a computer, and his hands were still poised above the keyboard, hovering in midair. The man wore no name tag. He had skin a deep shade of brown, with light green eyes and brilliant white teeth to offset the darkness. Were he not a slaver and a facilitator of human suffering, Rosia might have found him handsome.

  “Hey, sugar,” she said.

  The man licked his lips, seemingly lost for words. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “Can I help you?”

  “Those two young girls who processed out of here about twenty minutes ago? I think one of them stole my hairbrush. Do you have a lost and found?” She ran the tip of her t
ongue over her top lip, making sure he saw it. With everything she had in her, she projected an even mixture of girlish innocence and mature suggestiveness.

  The man gave her a little sideways grin, and the trashy nature of it almost made her gag. This guy had to be at least twice her age. But, he looked at her like she was a prize within his reach, which was exactly the result she’d wanted.

  “We do,” he said.

  “What’s your name, sugar?”

  “Jorge.”

  “Well, Jorge, do you think you could escort me to the lost and found so I could take a look?”

  “No, but you can tell me what it looks like, and I can go check.”

  She licked her lips again. “I don’t think you understand what I’m asking you.”

  Jorge stood and picked up a set of keys from the desk. After a wordless pause in which he stared at her, he left his little cage and unlocked the main cage. Then, he waved her out.

  Rosia tossed a look back to Yorick and Tenney as she left. Yorick nodded at her, although she could read the distaste in his eyes. He didn’t want her to flirt with some random guard any more than she did. But, Yorick knew what was at stake. And Rosia still felt in control. For now, at least.

  Jorge escorted her down a hall and paused in front of a door. He fiddled with his keys, laughing as he ran a hand through his hair. “I can never find the right one.” Then, he decided on a key and jabbed it into the lock. He opened the door into what looked like a small maintenance room.