by Greg Dragon
Cole dismisses me with a wave of his hand. “Even,” he says. The way he says it makes me believe my transgression is like a distant memory to him, soon to be forgotten entirely. Tawni wasn’t kidding about him.
“Can I get you something to eat?” she says.
I nod, sliding out of the booth to let her past. “Anything not green, not slimy, and not still moving,” I say wryly.
Cole chuckles. “Good luck with that,” he says.
Tawni marches off, her hands fisted and her head firm, as if she’s on a mission. Meeting my criteria will be a mission, I think.
When Tawni is gone, Cole says, “How are you feeling?”
“Feeling?” I say absently, trying to decide how to respond. In truth, I have no idea how I’m feeling. In the last twenty-four hours a lot has changed in my life. Two new friends, the strange pain I felt when I saw the president’s eldest son, my dad being alive: it’s all too much to take in, to process. I mean, I’m happy—no, make that extremely happy, ecstatic, over the moon—that my dad might be okay, but it feels weird, too. For one thing I don’t know anything about my mom’s whereabouts. Also, for the last six months I’ve been trying to come to terms with the possibility that my parents are dead, executed as traitors. Now there’s hope that at least one of them is alive…I dunno, it just feels weird. Then again, I’m not sure it really matters that he’s alive. It’s not like I will ever get to see him again. And I’m sure that the conditions for him are awful to the point of complete misery. So that isn’t much to live for either.
I almost shout at myself aloud. Thankfully, I keep it inside, opting to scream in my mind: No, no, no! You’re better than that, better than a quitter! Dad would be ashamed by such thoughts! I know then what I have to do: rescue my father and find out whether my mother is still alive. Oh, and also take a detour to find my sister, too, if I have time. Should be easy, simple, no problemo! Or impossible. It’s definitely one or the other.
I still haven’t answered Cole’s question. I’m not sure how long it’s been since he asked it, but probably awhile, because he’s looking at me strangely, like I have poo on my face. While I’ve been battling with myself in the comfort of my own head, I can only guess at what weird facial expressions I was making.
“I’m guessing you’re not sure how you feel?” Cole says.
Bingo! Give the guy a prize. I am impressed by Cole’s recognition of my feelings without me having said a single word. Maybe he is a mind reader. I hope not. With my muddled thoughts, having a mind reader around will be far too embarrassing.
“Yeah, I’m a bit confused right now.”
“But I bet you want to go rescue your dad,” Cole says.
Crap! He IS a mind reader! Or possibly just very perceptive. I’m hoping for the latter. “Yeah, and my sister and mom, too, while I’m at it. Should be easy,” I say.
“Especially with us around,” Cole says.
“What should be easy?” Tawni says, returning with two plates of gunk that are meant to be food. To her credit, the gunk on my plate isn’t green, slimy, or moving. But it is brownish and gooey. I take a bite, swallowing quickly before my taste buds have much of a chance to linger on the flavor.
“Rescuing Adele’s family,” Cole says. “It shouldn’t be a problem. Only small hurdles to get over, like escaping from the Pen, crossing hundreds of miles of cave networks while avoiding detection by Enforcers, breaking into at least one maximum security prison, and then breaking back out. Piece of cake.”
I groan. “I was trying to be positive,” I say. “In any case, I’m doing it alone, so it’s not your problem.”
“Wrong,” Cole says.
“Right,” I retort.
“Look, whether you like it or not, we’re going to help you,” Cole says.
I stare directly into his strong eyes, trying to get him to back down. About three seconds later I look away. What am I thinking trying to beat Mr. Power Eyes in a staring competition—I can’t even beat myself in the mirror.
“Why would you do that for me?” I ask.
Cole shrugs. “You’re growing on me.” His bottom lip doesn’t pout the way it normally does.
“Lie!” I declare, raising my arm in victory before it’s even confirmed.
Cole laughs and Tawni nearly spews out the spoonful of yellow goop she has in her mouth. “You’re right, Adele, you’re not growing on me. That would be disgusting. Hair grows on me, foot fungus on occasion, too, due to the shameful hygiene of the guys’ bathrooms, but not other people, and most definitely not you.”
His eyes are twinkling even more than before. I grin. “So what’s the real reason for wanting to help me?” I ask.
“I’ve got nothing against you, nor your magical mysterious love affair with the sun prince”—I try to interject, but Cole sees it coming and raises a finger, silencing me—“but I just don’t trust Tridlan one bit.”
“Tristan,” I say, “and there’s no love—”
“What?”
“His name is Tristan. You said Tridlan.”
“Did I?” Cole says, throwing his hands up and feigning ignorance. I realize he’s mocking me. I want to be angry, but his mannerisms make me smile.
“Yes, and I was in pain when I saw him so, trust me, I’m not in any hurry to get near him again.” Although I would like to know what caused it.
“Anyway,” Cole says, “him being the son of the president and all, it’s not easy for me to be as trusting of Triftan as you guys are.”
I ignore his repeated mispronunciation of Tristan’s name and try to focus. It’ll be great to have friends help me—at least to get out of the Pen. But I still don’t understand their motives, which bothers me. At least not Cole’s. Tawni’s probably trying to make up for the actions of her parents—to prove that she’s better than them. Also, she seems to just be a nice person, willing to help a friend in need, even a new friend like me. But Cole’s a mystery. It doesn’t help that he jokes around so much, which makes it even harder to get a read on him. He has no reason to help me.
“Seriously, why do you want to help?” I repeat.
His eyes darken. “Okay, look. I’m just really tired of everyone getting screwed over by the Sun Dwellers. I’ve been in juvie once before, when I was eleven. I had this teacher, Mrs. Witchikata. She was really kind, really pretty, always saying nice things to me. What can I say? I fell for her—head over freakin’ heels.”
“You’re joking,” I say.
“Me? Joke? Never,” Cole says. “Anyway, one day I told her I loved her. Mrs. W would never have reported it, but a nasty little Year Five kid overheard and told the principal, who told the authorities. Unauthorized flirting, they called it. I got six weeks in the Pen. Since then, I’ve always wanted revenge.”
Tawni giggles. I look at her, then back at Cole. “La la lie,” I say.
“Almost, smarty,” Cole says. “It was a half lie. All the stuff about Mrs. W was BS—in fact she was about ninety-five years old, two hundred pounds overweight, covered in warts, with a mean streak a mile wide. I hated her guts. But I did give you the truth about why I want to help you. The Sun Dwellers are creeps, period.”
From experience, I can’t argue with that.
“Okay,” I say. I believe him. It certainly fits with what little I know about the male species. Their motives are generally simple: fun, honor, sex, food, pride, revenge, sex. Pretty basic stuff.
“Okay?” Tawni says, confirming.
“Yeah, we’ll escape together.”
“And then go rescue your family,” she says.
I haven’t thought that far ahead, but I figure I can talk them out of it when the time comes. “Uh, yeah, whatever. So how do we pull it off?” I say, leaning in.
Cole dips his head forward conspiratorially and lowers his voice, half-covering his mouth with one of his hands. “I know a guy who can get one of the guards to turn off the electric fence for a few minutes, maybe ten if we’re lucky,” he says.
I gawk at hi
m like he’s an alien.
“What?” he says. “We were thinking about trying to escape once so I looked into it.”
I don’t have to confirm that he’s telling the truth—his face is dead serious. “Okay. If we get your guy to turn off the fence at say…midnight, two hours after lights out, we can sneak out of our cells and climb the fence,” I say.
“Our cells will be locked,” Tawni points out.
“There’s a trick for that,” I say. “I’ve done it before. Get a small piece of cardboard or plastic from somewhere, anywhere, and when you shut your door for the last time at night, slide the plastic between the door and the frame, blocking the deadbolt. When the door automatically locks, it will still click, but you’ll be able to open it.”
“Nice,” Cole says, nodding. I smile. I’m glad to be able to bring some level of expertise to the table.
“Right,” Tawni says, “so at five minutes to midnight we leave our cells. Adele and I will be together and we’ll see you”—she gestures to Cole—“at the fence. We’ll meet in the shadows in the northeast wing. When the electricity goes out we start climbing.”
Cole’s eyes narrow and he screws up his face. “How do we tell the time?” he asks.
“We’ll have to base it off of the guards’ patrols,” I say. “Start counting from the ten o’clock lights out. Approximately every fifteen minutes a guard will go by—watch through the slot in your doors. Once seven patrols pass we’ll know it’s about quarter to midnight. Then we’ll just have to count in our heads for ten minutes—six hundred seconds. Then we go.” I’m feeling confident—probably too confident—but it’s a good feeling, one I haven’t felt in a while. Anything’s better than just sitting around waiting to turn eighteen and be transferred to a maximum security prison.
“When should we do it?” Tawni asks.
“How about tonight?” I say, feeling eager butterflies in my stomach.
“That’s pretty tight,” Cole says. “I’ll have to check with my guy to see if it’s possible on such short notice.”
“It better be,” I say. Acting in a hurry is better than taking a long time to plan our escape. That way the dirty guard won’t have time to rethink his choice to help us.
“We’ll need money to pay him,” Cole says. “You know, the guard who helps us.”
I knew it sounded too good to be true. I don’t have any money and certainly no way of getting any. But I ask anyway. “How much?”
“At least fifty Nailins I expect.”
My heart sinks. I haven’t seen that much money in my entire life. It might as well be a million. Even if we come up with a way to raise some money, we won’t be able to get that much in ten lifetimes. I close my eyes tightly and clench my teeth, trying to stifle a scream. I need a miracle.
“I can provide the money,” Tawni says.
My eyes flash open and I look at the skinny, white-haired girl beside me. I glance at Cole. He doesn’t seem surprised. In fact, it’s like he expected her response. I realize that when he mentioned the money he wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to Tawni the whole time.
I turn back to Tawni. “You have access to fifty Nailins?” I say in disbelief.
“More if we need it,” she says. “When I got caught trying to go interdistrict without a travel permit my parents were all over me, asking me why, why would I do such a thing? So I gave them a BS story about how I really wanted to see the Lantern Caverns of the ninth subchapter and how I never thought they’d let me go.” She pushes a strand of hair out of her face, grinning. “They bought it, and although they couldn’t get me out of doing time in the Pen, they were able to make my stay here as easy as I want it to be. I could have had a plush room on the third floor, five-star meals, access to a telebox, pretty much anything I want.”
“Then why do you sleep in a crappy cell next to me?”
Tawni’s face falls. “Because if I took advantage of what my parents could do for me, then I’d be just as terrible as them. They don’t know where I sleep, and the guards won’t tell them. When they visit, the guards move me upstairs for a few hours. I swear to God, Adele, I’m not like them—never will be.”
“Truth,” I say solemnly.
Tawni nods. “In any case, I still have access to an account they set up for me with the warden…I mean with the concierge.” I chuckle at her little joke. “There are more than two hundred Nailins in it.”
Cole whistles. “I didn’t know you had that much dough. How about sharin’ some with an old friend of yours?”
Tawni smirks. “We’ll need all of it if we’re going to pull this off.” She lowers her voice again. “First to pay off the guard and then to travel across the Moon Realm.”
I nod. “Thanks, Tawni. And you too, Cole. I wouldn’t stand a chance without your help.” I realize then that I don’t have to be alone anymore—can’t be alone, can’t stand it for one more second. I hit a new low the previous day and then everything started moving up again. It all started with a bit of pain. My downward spiral is finally over.
It reminds me of something my dad said one year at Christmas, when we didn’t even have the money for presents, or fancy food, or anything. He said, “Sometimes, girls, you have to hit your lowest low just before you hit your highest high. It makes you appreciate the good things so much more.” Right now is starting to feel like one of those times. Yeah, maybe meeting a couple of friends and coming up with a plan to escape from a juvenile delinquent facility isn’t the best of times in my life, but it isn’t the worst either, and for that I’m thankful.
We leave the cafeteria long after we arrived—we’re the last to go. Although we aren’t satisfied by the food, we’re still satisfied. By other things. More important things. Life-changing things. I am going to rescue my family, and hopefully myself at the same time.
Yeah, things are looking up.
Chapter Eight
Tristan
Ahhh, a holiday at the Sandy Oasis. It has everything anyone could ever want. Soft, plush beds to sleep on. Warm, sandy beaches (they even simulate waves and paint picturesque ocean views). Half-naked girls ready to throw themselves at any celebrity who happens to make eye contact.
I throw up in my mouth when we arrive.
Roc is carrying my bags while my security detail protects me from the girls.
You’re probably thinking that I’m a big wimp to let my father dictate the terms of my holiday so easily. I could’ve pushed back harder, tried to force him to see my point of view. But you see, the thing is, my father doesn’t like being pushed around. And I could tell he was in one of his moods, more stubborn than the lovechild of an ox and a mule. So I played along.
Roc and I aren’t staying in the Oasis. Not for long anyway.
We’re going to the Moon Realm. The back of my head is buzzing in anticipation. I hope the girl’s still alive when we get there. If she is, I’ll demand that she tells me how she did it. How she caused me so much physical pain just by looking at me.
We reach my room with a record low of only three girls offering to have my babies. I guess I’m losing my touch. From the looks in their eyes, I think they were offering to have them, like, right then, immediately. I didn’t make eye contact for fear that they’d rip off their clothes and throw themselves at me and my entourage.
The room isn’t really a room. More like an entire wing of the hotel, comprised of ten distinct rooms, only five of which are bedrooms. The others are sitting rooms, standing rooms, massage rooms, and kitchens. I don’t even count the six bathrooms as rooms. The cost for a single night would feed an entire subchapter of the Moon Realm for a year.
Luckily we aren’t staying long. “Quick and unexpected action is the most effective in battle,” my fighting instructor used to say. I’m about to put his advice to the test. Perhaps not in a traditional battle, but in a battle nonetheless. A battle to take back my life.
I ask my security guards to wait outside, to monitor the four doors for any fake-tanned girls trying t
o gain access to my suite. When they’re gone, I say, “Is this going to work, Roc?”
“I’m not sure, sir,” Roc says.
“Cut the sir crap, Roc, please,” I say. “We’re about to embark on a rogue mission and I want you to be with me as a friend, not as a servant.”
“I’ll try, sir,” Roc says, grinning from ear to ear. I grin back, swatting at him playfully. He punches at me and for a moment there’s a good chance it’s going to escalate into another practice fight, but then there’s a sudden knock at the door.
A guard enters: a giant with no neck and fists the size of boulders. His nose looks like it’s been broken a dozen times—it’s flat and wide. Although I expect to have to translate a series of grunts and hand signals, he surprises me by speaking perfect English in an unexpectedly high voice.
“You have a visitor. He says he’s expected.”
“Name?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Kruger.”
“He’s okay,” I say.
The guard leaves, closing the door behind him, and a minute later the door reopens and another guy walks in. Compared to the guard, this guy looks tiny. He’s about my size. Well, exactly my size actually, both in height, weight, and body type. Athletic build, six-two without shoes, a hundred and eighty five pounds dripping wet. It always amazes me how I can just snap my fingers and make things happen. That’s something I like about being who I am, living where I live. Can I really give it all up that easily? Can I really walk away from it all? Something tells me my jaunt to the Moon Realm will only be temporary. Before long, I’ll be doing my father’s dirty work just like always.
I have no idea how they found someone who so closely resembles me in such a short time, but I don’t really care about the details. His face even kind of looks like mine. If he wears a hat and sunglasses, the guards won’t be able to tell the difference. Although each member of my security team would rank well across the entirety of the Tri-Realms when it comes to muscle, their IQs would likely sit in the bottom quartile.
