“What’s happening?” I asked Odex.
He scowled. I didn’t know why he’d taken such a dislike to me.
“Nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about. The Athion slave you watched fight the beast the other day has gone, that’s all.”
“Gone? What do you mean by gone?”
“He took down a guard and ran. The guard’s body was already cold, so it must have happened hours ago. He’ll be miles away by now.”
My stomach sank. Diarus was gone? Had he abandoned me? I felt sure he would have done whatever he felt was right, but it still felt like a betrayal. Perhaps, after the fighting pit, he’d decided it was too dangerous for him to stay. It wasn’t as though he’d been able to keep an eye on me, like we’d hoped. He’d been locked away and was no good to anyone like that. Even so, a sense of loneliness settled over me like a thick fog. Just knowing he was near had given me strength, but now it appeared I was in this completely on my own.
Odex left, and I forced myself to eat the meal. The news had sapped my appetite, but I didn’t want to give any sign of there being anything wrong. I tried to read but couldn’t concentrate. I was tempted to call out to Zoe and see if she knew anything about the Athion slave escaping, but I didn’t want to risk the Trads finding out about our ability to communicate. If they overheard us now, I wouldn’t be able to put my plan into action.
Finally, everything fell quiet. From my experience of previous nights, I shouldn’t be disturbed again until morning.
I could barely believe I was going to do this, but I knew I had to. How much time would I have left until Borys tried to impregnate me? I didn’t know what the success rate was, but, at some point, he’d realize I wasn’t falling pregnant, and that I was effectively useless to him. What would happen then? Would he hurt me? Kill me? Or perhaps, even worse, would he simply keep me as his plaything?
I hoped Nad and Miko would step in before that happened, but I didn’t know what kind of power they had and if they even had the ability to get me out of here. I grew lightheaded with panic at the thought of being trapped in this soulless place, at the mercy of whatever Borys wanted to do to me.
Aleksy had promised that if I found the plans, he’d find a way to get both me and the plans out of here, so that was what I had to do.
Would Borys keep the information online—or whatever the Trad version of online was? I didn’t think so. If this was information he wanted to keep hidden, having it online was too easy to hack into. So, I was searching for a file of some kind. I wished I had a better idea of what I was looking for.
Glancing back at the closed door of the bedroom, insuring I couldn’t hear anyone coming, I turned away and went into the bathroom. My stomach roiled with nerves, and my breath came quicker, even though I hadn’t even done anything yet. I climbed up onto the side of the tub and reached up to push open the panel. I was tempted to call out to Zoe and tell her what my plans were, but I was worried someone else would hear. Previously, I’d only tilted one edge of it up to create a gap, but this time I pushed the panel the whole way to one side. Should I pull it back into place once I was inside the vent? It would hide my escape route, should anyone come into the room while I was gone, but leaving it open would give me some light, at least at the start of the vent, though it was going to get a whole lot darker the deeper I went.
I tried not to think about that.
I reached up and hooked my fingers into the vent. I glanced down at my feet to make sure I had at least a decent balance on the side of the tub, and then bent my knees slightly to give myself some momentum. I was going to have to jump, and if I completely misjudged it, I was going to fall into the tub, and it was going to hurt like a bitch.
One, two, three... I counted in my head, sucked in a breath, and jumped.
Somehow, I managed to get my elbows and head up. My lower half dangled into the space above the bath, and I gritted my teeth, hauling myself up with all my strength.
I slithered into the vent and lay there panting, trying to catch my breath. At least I hadn’t fallen.
Looking ahead, there was mostly darkness, with a couple of faint glows in the distance, which I assumed came from lights from the rooms below.
Mentally, I fixed the position of Borys’s private rooms in my mind. I had no idea what kind of labyrinth I was going to have to negotiate to get there. I hoped there weren’t going to be any weak points in the metal either. I imagined crashing through one of them to find myself in a room full of sleeping Trads—all the ones who worked for Borys.
There was enough room to get onto my elbows and pull myself along. If I was much larger, there was no way I’d be able to fit, and there was little chance of one of the Trads fitting. At least it meant they wouldn’t be able to come after me if they suspected I was up here.
No, but they might shoot their weapons up here and get you that way. I imagined the metal vents would do an excellent job of conducting the electricity from their lasers. If I was lucky, I’d be killed instantly.
Since when had getting killed instantly been a matter of luck? I had no idea my life would ever get so complicated.
Forcing myself to focus on the task ahead, I kept going, one elbow over the other. I tried to move as quietly as possible—one bumped knee or foot was enough to send a loud clang resonating. I didn’t want to alert anyone who might be below me to my presence.
The space was narrow, the metal walls pressing in on all sides. I fought against waves of claustrophobia, purposefully slowing my breathing to keep myself calm.
What if it gets narrower? What if you get stuck? You could die in here, and no one would ever know. Only the smell would eventually lead them to your body.
“Shut up,” I hissed at my own internal monologue. Why did it seem to only think the bad things?
I was probably above Zoe’s room now. I wished I could tell her my plans. If I managed to get hold of the locations of the other facilities, would I be able to come back for her? Or would I need to get the hell out of here? I hated the idea of leaving her behind, but I might not have much choice. Hell, I didn’t even know how I was going to get out of here myself.
In my mind’s eye, I envisaged the location of Borys’s rooms. I hoped the whole property was all on one ventilation system. I’d be screwed if this suddenly came to an end.
I reached a T-section and took the option to go left. Several more turnings brought me to what I thought was above his rooms.
There was a grate up ahead, the light shining through from the room below. I pulled myself a little farther then stopped.
Shit.
I froze, staring down. Borys was sitting at his desk, his head bent over something. The light glinted on his horns and shimmered against the red-and-gold scales running across his well-muscled forearms resting on the desk.
My breath was locked in my chest, my pulse racing. My heartbeat hammered in my ears, my blood pressure rising. What should I do now? I’d assumed he would have been in bed by now, sleeping. I couldn’t just go back, could I? It wasn’t as though I could even turn around in the vent. I would need to propel myself backward the whole way.
I remained in place, waiting. Watching.
He sighed and rolled up the piece of paper he’d been poring over. It formed a cylinder, and he picked up what appeared to be a clear plastic tube and slid the cylinder of paper inside it. He placed a cap over the end, and the locking mechanism made a hissing sound as it sealed.
Borys got to his feet and crossed the room. He vanished out of view for a moment, and I remained motionless, waiting for his return. When he appeared back at the desk, the cylinder with the scroll of paper was no longer in his hand.
Whatever the document had been, it had seemed important.
He didn’t sit back down, though, instead straightening out his desk before switching off the desk light. The room grew dimmer, but there must have been another light on somewhere as it wasn’t completely dark.
He was leaving.
&nbs
p; I wanted to feel elated, knowing it was my chance, but I was wound tight with worry.
What if he was going to my room? He hadn’t visited me during the middle of the night before, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be a first time. If he was going there, he’d know right away where I’d gone. I’d left the bathroom light on and the panel pushed to one side, so I’d be able to find my way back again.
If you find the plans, you won’t need to go back to the room. You can just run.
Would I even be able to get out of the building? I was sure security was high, especially after they’d found Diarus gone, and Borys would have his men patrolling the place. I doubted I’d be able to let myself out of the front door.
I waited a little longer, making sure Borys wasn’t coming back into the room, and then reached out to dislodge the grate I’d been peering through. Sick with nerves, I dragged it to one side, creating a big enough space. It took a bit of maneuvering, but I shuffled forward, over the top of the hole, and then back again, lowering my legs into the air. The desk was directly below, reducing the height of the drop, and once I was unable to hold myself up any longer, I dropped down onto the desk.
I froze, my breath held, in case there was any sign Borys or one of his guards had heard me, but everything remained quiet. I released the air from my lungs, my legs trembling, and climbed from the desk.
Not wanting to waste any time, I hurried over to the side of the room I’d seen Borys go to with the document. There was nothing there that caught my attention—just a couple of framed paintings on the walls and a set of shelving.
Knowing my time was limited, I set about riffling through the contents of the shelves, searching for the plastic tube I’d seen in Borys’s hand. It wasn’t here.
I paused, my hands on my hips, my lips pressed together. He’d definitely brought it over this way. He didn’t have time to go anywhere else out of view, and I’d have seen if he’d crossed to the other side of the room.
My gaze landed on the framed paintings. Could they be hiding something?
I lifted the corner of the nearest picture and checked behind. I was hoping to see a safe or something similar, but there was only a wall. I repeated the process with the second painting, but again there was nothing.
Shit. I was running out of options.
I looked around, trying to get another idea. There was nowhere else he could have put it.
The paintings caught my eye again. Maybe I hadn’t looked hard enough.
Reaching up, I pulled the first picture completely off the wall and then turned it around. The edge of the backing appeared to be loose. With my pulse racing, I picked at the corner. Sure enough, the backing peeled away and revealed two clips attached to the inside of the frame. Held within the two clips was the cylinder I’d seen Borys placing the paperwork into.
My mouth ran dry as I removed the cylinder. A button was on the top, so I pushed it, and the cylinder released the same hiss of air I’d heard from the vent. I tipped out the paper and unrolled it. I frowned. It was a blueprint for something, but I had no idea what.
My heart hammered. Could this be it? There was nothing on the paper that indicated what any of the lines or crosses were for, and of course I had no idea about the landscape of this area of Tradrych, or any of Tradrych for that matter, but why would it have been hidden away if it wasn’t important?
The paper in the shape of a scroll was strangely old-fashioned in this world of high tech. Maybe that had been Borys’s intention all along, to distract the rebels into looking in the wrong areas. I was sure the plans wouldn’t have stayed a secret for much longer, however. If there were new imports of human women arriving soon, women who’d perhaps been in some second stage of abduction from Earth, then Borys’s would at least have needed to get one or more of these new facilities up and running.
I hoped that by destroying the facilities, we weren’t going to put the lives of the new arrivals in danger. Without a safe place to birth the Trad babies that they would already be expecting, would we be doing them more harm than good?
But this was about destroying the infrastructure Trads like Borys had set up to make this breeding program work. As much as I hated the idea of women suffering, I also needed to think long-term.
What should I do now? If these were the plans, I needed to get them out of here, and I wasn’t going to be able to do that by going back to the room. The moment Borys realized they were missing, he’d pull the place apart. But what if I tried to get out of here and got caught? That would make things even worse, and I’d definitely be found with the plans then.
I didn’t know what lay ahead of this office. What if I kept going? Was there a chance the venting system might lead to the outside?
It seemed like the best option, though I hated that I’d be abandoning Zoe. Maybe I didn’t need to abandon her. I could do a reconnaissance to figure out if there was a way out of here, and, if there was, I would be able to go and get her, and we could get the hell out of here together.
With my mind made up, I replaced the plans into the protective cylinder and climbed up onto Borys’s desk. There weren’t exactly many places in my dress where I could slip the plans, so I pushed them up into the vent first, and then jumped to clamber in after them. I winced at the hollow clonk of metal and prayed no one else had heard.
Reaching back, I slipped the grill into place.
I glanced toward the direction of my room and then fixed my attention ahead. I needed to keep going.
Arm over arm, I pulled myself through the vent. At some point soon, I’d reach the far side of the building, and then I’d see if there was a way out.
Another grill lay ahead, and I crawled up to it, hoping the space below would lead onto an external door. I was above another room—though I assumed this wasn’t one of Borys’s private areas. I leaned to one side and peered down through the crosschecked grill, trying to see the room from a different angle.
My heart flipped, and I could barely believe what I was seeing. Crouched against the wall, hidden behind a desk, there was no mistaking the blue skin or the scarring across his bare shoulders.
Diarus!
He hadn’t abandoned me after all.
Chapter Twenty-three
Diarus
I’D BEEN LAYING LOW, trying to stay out of sight of any of the Trad guards, while also hoping to overhear something that would give me an idea of what part of the property Tara was being held in.
I’d moved from room to room, never pushing my luck, just waiting for everything to grow quiet, and then slipping down the corridor as far as I’d dared before darting into the next room.
The last thing I’d been expecting was movement from the ceiling, and then two long, slender bare legs emerging through a grate, and the rest of Tara dropping to the floor.
“Diarus?” she said as she straightened.
I could barely believe what I was seeing. “Tara? What the hell?”
She never failed to surprise me.
We moved at the same time, running across the room and coming together in a crash of arms, legs, and torsos. I held her tight, my nose in her soft hair, and she pressed her face to my bare shoulder.
I pulled her away from me, just enough to allow me to see into her face, but without dropping my hold on her arms. Now I had her back, I didn’t think I’d ever allow myself to let go of her again.
“Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
There was a glimmer of pain across her face, but she shook her head. “I’m okay. How is your chest?”
“It’s fine. Just a couple of grazes.”
She thinned her lips and frowned. “I saw that thing. Those are more than grazes.”
I lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Don’t worry about that now.” I realized she had something in her other hand. “What’s that?”
She held up a slender, plastic cylinder with a piece of paper rolled up inside. “I think this is what the rebels need. I think it might be the plans for the othe
r facilities.”
Yeah, she’d just surprised me again.
“You’re incredible,” I told her. “We need to get out of here.”
She shook her head. “Not yet. We need to go back for Zoe first.”
“The woman you were in the facility with?”
Tara nodded, her blue eyes wide. “I can’t leave her. I just can’t.”
“The plans are more important, Tara. We need to get them out of here.”
She pushed them to my chest. “Then you take them. Get them to Aleksy and the others, and I’ll go back for Zoe. I’ll meet you on the outside.”
The idea of being separated from her again was unthinkable. “Nope. Not going to happen.”
“Then we go for Zoe together.”
I glanced up at the vents running overhead. “I don’t think I’m going to fit in there.”
She twisted her lips. “Me neither. We’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way—on foot.”
I’d managed to get this far without being noticed. It was going to be harder with two of us, however.
“Do you know the other woman’s location?”
She nodded, her jaw set in determination.
“Okay,” I relented. “Let’s do it.”
I took her hand and led her toward the door which exited out onto the corridor. I opened the door a crack and paused, trying to get a sense of anyone on the other side. When all remained quiet, I opened it farther, and we both stepped out.
“This way,” she whispered, taking the lead.
Together, hand in hand, we ran down the corridor. We both had bare feet, helping us to move quietly.
Someone stepped out ahead, and I yanked Tara back. We both pressed our spines to the wall, making ourselves as flat as possible. My heart thudded, and I held my breath, certain Tara was doing the same beside me. We remained in position until I was certain the Trad had gone, and then kept going.
“This way,” she whispered.
We’d left the front part of the property, which had somehow seemed more opulent and lived-in, and entered a section that had a sterile feel. It reminded me of something. A prison. A row of doors lined the corridor, all an equal distance apart.
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