by Chele Cooke
“That’s what I heard,” a man was saying. “The guards are all riled up about it.”
“Yeah, you heard. From who?” a woman asked. “Who tells you anything, Owain?”
“Jurou. He was by the door while they were talking about it,” Owain replied.
Georgianna gave her patient a smile and a roll of her eyes as she gathered up another two fingers of salve, reaching towards his face.
“What do the Vtensu care about a drysta escape? Just more fuel for the fire,” the woman replied cynically. “Anyone who thinks they can get out is deluded.”
“You don’t get it, Nori,” Owain insisted. “It’s that girl, the blonde they sold not long ago and some other guy. Apparently the owner is some big shot.”
Georgianna’s fingers froze, not two millimetres from the man’s face, her heart giving one resounding thump before it stopped dead. She could hear the huff as all her breath left her body, her legs trembling against the flimsy matt on the bed.
Nyah.
“Well, if it’s true, she’ll be back here by sunset,” Nori answered.
Not two moments later, the woman called Nori passed in front of the cell, not even glancing in to see Georgianna frozen in shock. The Adveni knew. They knew that there was to be an attempt to get Nyah and Landon out. Georgianna swallowed the lump in her throat. She’d forgotten where she was, forgotten what she was doing until the bruised man clicked his fingers in front of her face.
She shook her head quickly, taking a deep breath as she smoothed the salve haphazardly onto the bruises and rubbed the residue off onto the side of her leg.
“You alright there, Med?” he asked.
How could they have known? There had probably been more than one blonde sold from the drysta yard, but it was too much of a coincidence that they would be escaping today. It had to be Nyah. Georgianna nodded, glancing at her patient and attempting a smile. It came out more like a grimace and she quickly grabbed up her bag.
“You’re all done. I’ve got to go!”
She was already half-running through the cell block as she dug the tsentyl from her bag and pressed her finger and thumb to opposite sides of the cube, sending the signal so that a guard would let her out of the block.
It took Edtroka a few minutes to reach the door and unlock it, something that Georgianna didn’t usually notice. Tapping her foot impatiently as she wrung her hands together in front of her body, she was barely able to force the reassuring smile onto her face as the thick metal door opened with a resounding scrape. Perhaps if she hurried, she would be able to get to Keiran and Taye in time. If she ran north from the compound towards the Adveni quarters, not returning to the tunnels, she might be able to catch them before Nyah and Landon left the house. If they couldn’t see their back-up, surely they wouldn’t run.
Submitting to the search was torture, trying to stand still and not look like she was screaming obscenities in her head. She had to get back, she had to warn them. She didn’t know how an Adveni had found out about the escape and she didn’t care: she just needed to make sure that they weren’t caught.
By the time she stepped out of the compound and into the bright sunshine, it was already past sun-high. Not by a lot, but it was definitely too late to call off the escape. They would already be on the move, Nyah and Landon would have already made a run for it. That was, if they hadn’t been caught already, the moment they stepped out of the house.
With the fear that her friends were already on their way to the compound burning through her body, she couldn’t wait until she reached the tunnels before breaking into a run.
Her sides were in a stitch, the muscles in her legs beginning to burn as Georgianna sprinted through the tunnel back towards the main line. The rumour she’d heard in the compound had set her mind racing. Not that what she had heard between the two prisoners could really be considered a rumour. There was far too much truth to it, too much information already known. It was no hunch the Adveni guards had—they knew about the escape. They knew who was escaping, which could mean they also knew who was involved.
The tunnel travelled underneath the expanse of open ground between the city limits and the compound, and then the eastern side of the city. It ran directly beneath one of the broader streets, where a number of large Adveni buildings had been erected, holding everything from shops to military training facilities. Javeknell Square, where it ended, formed the buffer between the Adveni districts and the Veniche, a place where rebels and criminals were executed for their crimes. The Adveni made a spectacle of it, important men giving speeches about the importance of their laws. Georgianna avoided it as often as possible, as did many other Veniche, but she had seen enough to know that Javeknell Square was not where you ever wanted to end up.
With her thoughts passing to and fro within her head, Georgianna considered checking the square for any news, but she quickly dismissed the idea. Prisoners were always taken to the compound before being executed, the Adveni taking their time in asking questions and getting all the information they could before they killed someone. Belsa, especially, were kept for days or weeks at a time before being taken to the square. If they were lucky, or if they cooperated, they were given the rope, a quick death. If they held out, however, or if they were especially important, like Beck would be, they were collared.
Georgianna knew that it involved a cinystalq collar, but she’d been told that it was stronger, worse, specifically designed to make a death as long and as painful as possible. Georgianna had never seen anyone collared, but she had heard enough to know that its barbaric brutality was something she did not want to witness.
Once she hit the main tunnel and was heading north, she had to stop running. The number of people walking along the line made it impossible to run unhindered. Georgianna walked as briskly as she could, weaving in and out amongst the people, dodging into any small gap she could find to overtake those who were happy to meander at a leisurely pace.
She glanced over her shoulder continuously, chewing on her lip and the inside of her cheek as she scanned for Adveni around her. Agrah soldiers walked the lines regularly looking for those who would try to pick pockets or ambush people using the tunnels, or simply to get from one place to another, and Georgianna couldn’t risk running into one of them now, not when she could barely keep her breath on an even keel.
The first tunnel heading west was quieter than the main line, and Georgianna broke into a run. She dodged around people as she ran, occasionally bumping shoulders and tripping over her own feet. Furious calls pursued her.
The sun was blinding after the tunnels’ darkness, despite the tall, oppressive buildings. Once she stood outside one of the western tunnel entrances, sometimes known as the Camps Line, it took Georgianna a moment to gather her bearings before she set off down the street, still having to avoid the crush of bodies as she went.
What if they were already caught? What if she was running into a trap? She knew that she shouldn’t be thinking the worst, but she couldn’t stop herself asking the questions over and over, not when people she cared about were involved. Nyah and Taye would be hauled to the compound. Keiran and Wrench strung up next to Landon as a warning to those who would attempt the same.
The building Keiran and Wrench had decided on for removing the collars was further north in the district, closer to the Adveni dwelling quarters so that they could reach it quickly and get the Adveni off their tail. However, Georgianna took a sharp turn east, running along the street that ran parallel to one of the tracks leading out towards the camps. It was still early, but maybe they’d made faster work of the tracking cinystalq collars. Perhaps she was overreacting, everything had gone according to the plan and though the Adveni knew of the escape attempt, they had acted too late to catch anybody.
All along the street, Veniche were returning to work after being given a short time to get something for their lunch. Georgianna darted between them, slipping through large crowds in the hopes that the sheer number of people going about th
eir daily business would stop anybody giving her a second look.
The building she wanted was old and rundown, the Adveni not paying enough attention to the disused buildings in the Oprust district to attempt fixing them up. Georgianna slipped down the gap between the building and its neighbour. She brought her hand down to her hip, moving her bag further behind her.
Coming to the thick wooden door in the middle of the side wall, Georgianna finally paused. With her hand on the handle, she took a few deep breaths, steadying her nerves. If Adveni were inside, if they knew enough of their plan to know whoever turned up here could be involved, she had to look like this were simply a mistake.
Georgianna took another breath, holding it behind pursed lips as she turned the handle, pushing the door carefully open. Dust from the uneven wooden floors billowed and swirled at the burst of new air, catching in her nose and making her sneeze. Then she stepped into the shadows.
Georgianna stepped into the bare room, pushing the door closed behind her and locking out the shards of light that had thrown themselves across the floor. The glass pane in the door was so thick with dust and grime that only sparse drops of reflected sunshine sprinkled across the wooden slats.
Her heart was racing, thumping so fiercely in her chest that she could feel the pain of it below her breast, her breath coming in quick, shallow pants that she couldn’t control. The building stood far enough away from the main street so that the bustle of activity in the district was dulled to a deafening silence. Only the sound of her breath and her heart hammered through the void.
She glanced behind her towards the door before she looked around the room again. From the looks of it, nobody had been here in months. She knew Keiran had been here before, he had to have been to have told her where to go, but the layer of dust on the floor looked as undisturbed as fresh freeze snow.
She called in the quietest whisper:
“Hello?”
Slow, nervous steps led her across the bare room, further into the small, dark building. Everything was silent, nothing disturbed, and she could only hope that it meant the Adveni had at least not known about this meeting place. She was just about to turn around and head back towards the door when next to the wall, in the shadows, a movement caught her eye. It shifted, bright eyes gleaming at her through the dark, and after a moment of staring at her with a suspicious gaze, a body materialised as if out of the brickwork.
She jumped almost a foot into the air, covering her mouth with both hands as a scream threatened to spill from her lips.
“George?”
Georgianna took a step backward, then another as the man remained in shadows, a dark silhouette framed by brick. The voice was so familiar, yet impossible. She’d not spoken to Landon in a long time, but he was almost a decade younger than the man she had heard. There was no way they could sound exactly the same.
Another step and she would be at the door. She reached out, grasping through the gloom for the handle. They could see her, but they remained hidden in shadows. It was a trick, it had to be. Her fingertips hit the handle and she grabbed it, wrenching the door open. She turned away, foot already outside before he stepped towards her.
“Georgie, wait!”
“Don’t call me Georgie.”
The words came before she had to think about them, ingrained into her through years of mockery. He refused to stop using the name, even though he knew how much she hated it. Sometimes she’d wondered if he only did it to annoy her. Other times, she didn’t even have to wonder.
She didn’t dare move. She couldn’t even look at him. The lump in her throat exploded in a desperate breath of air. She wanted to scream, to run away or crumple into a ball, because there was no way in this world or the next that the man stepping towards her, staring right at her, could be Alec Cartwright.
“Lec?”
“Hi George.”
His hand settled on her, his thumb making a small, gentle circle against her shoulder blade. Her entire body trembled as a sob fought to break free, and she finally turned her head.
He was older. Seams of worry and work that had never been there before lined his face. His hair was longer, dishevelled and uneven. Either his clothes were too big, or he’d lost weight. Both his sleeves were rolled up past the elbows and across his tanned skin she could see the numerous marks of abuse in different stages of healing, many more than she had ever seen on one person, including Jacob Stone.
Still, his eyes were the same beautiful, bright, heat-sky blue they always had been. His lips curved in the same lopsided smile.
Georgianna took a hurried step backward, breaking the contact between them. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. They had never found his body, but after months of looking for him, months of asking questions of the right people, the Belsa had pronounced him dead. There was no way someone could vanish so completely.
“Alec,” Georgianna breathed, her hand still pressed to her lips, fingers trembling against her skin. “You’re… You were…”
“George…” he urged.
Georgianna took another hurried step back away from the ghost of the man before her.
“You were dead!”
It came out in a hailstorm of confusion and emotion. Alec frowned, and Georgianna wanted to hit him for not being surprised by the news that everyone believed him dead, or at least not showing it if he was. How could he not have found anyone to tell them? How could he not have let them know? In two years, nobody had known he was alive. Georgianna wanted to scream at him that the Belsa had held a fucking funeral.
“I’m not.”
Georgianna wanted to punch him even more.
“I… I thought it was Landon. I heard Cartwright, I assumed…”
Alec stared down at her, a tightening in his lip, but he didn’t say anything.
“Ho… How did you even get there?”
“It was fast, George,” he explained, stopping a few feet from her. “One minute, I’m on a scout, the next…”
“Ashoke?”
“Dead,” Alec answered immediately. “And yes, he is, I saw it.”
“You were never in the compound! I know. I looked for you! So how?”
“I was sold privately. I was in the compound for all of an hour before I was marched out again, this collar already around my neck. Ash’ killed our owner’s brother. This was… payback.”
He stepped forward again, but this time, she did not back away. He reached out, his fingers drifting down her arm in a cautious comfort. Georgianna let out a sob, and stepping forward, in a way she had not done in almost two and a half years, flung herself at him. She dropped her bag and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, every breath leaving her chest with a moaning sob of relief.
“Suns, Lec,” she gasped into his shoulder. “I… I…”
Alec’s arm wrapped tightly around her waist, holding her body up against his. Her toes only just reached the floor as she buried her face into the crook of his shoulder. His other hand came up, fingers lost in her hair as he held the back of her neck protectively.
“It’s okay. George, it’s alright,” he murmured.
Georgianna pulled back and looked up at him, her eyes wet with tears. He was worried, that much was obvious, but he was smiling. Shaking her head, Georgianna let out a low laugh. She brushed the heel of her hand across her eyes, forcing herself to calm down. As the tears were brushed away from her lashes, she caught sight of his neck. There were scars that wove like spiderwebs across his skin, but no cinystalq collar.
“I thought… I was…”
Her gaze swept across his exposed skin, looking for fresh marks. There was a tan line where the collar had blocked the sun from reaching his skin, there were older scars, but nothing that could have been less than a few days old. However Wrench did it, he was good at removing a cinystalq collar without any damage to the wearer.
“You panicked!” he answered knowingly.
Georgianna nodded.
“You knew I was involved?”
“Nyah,” he nodded. “By the time she told me, it was too late to stop you.”
Finally glancing away from him, Georgianna’s smile fell, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. Why had nobody else come out? Alec had confirmed that it was her, so why were they all still hiding? She turned herself full circle, peering at every corner in the hopes of seeing another of her friends hiding in the shadows. All too quickly, her gaze landed back on Alec, the only one with her in the small, dark building.
“Where are the others?” she asked, looking at Alec curiously.
Alec narrowed his eyes a little, his nostrils flaring as he looked down at her. It was almost as if he was surprised that she’d asked where the others were, like he hadn’t known that they were supposed to be here.
“Keiran and I left to check that the path was clear while Wrench moved on to Nyah’s collar,” he answered slowly. “He told me to come here and check that there were no Adveni about.”
All the relief Georgianna had felt at the sight of Alec was slowly slipping away. The warmth of excitement dripping from her body through her fingers and toes, leaving her body cold. While Alec was safe, the others weren’t. While they stood here hugging, the others could be in the middle of being dragged off to the compound.
Georgianna pulled away, wrapping her arms around her stomach as she rushed forward through the small building to look out of the grimy window. Not even bothering to cover her hand with her sleeve, Georgianna smeared her hand through the dirt, clearing off a small space to peer through into the alley. Apart from the distant activity on the main street, it was deserted.
“George, what’s going on?” he asked. “I thought this was the plan?”
“No,” Georgianna muttered, not turning back from the window. “No, I was meant to meet all of you here.”
