And that was if she or one of her clients hadn’t already taken her life from her.
That was the future awaiting her if she kept on staring and didn’t even try to escape.
That was the future awaiting her if she stayed in this prison that she belonged in even less than I did.
She needed a helping hand.
Less than three inches remained before the door would crush the device and the window would shut forever.
I didn’t know why I cared so much that she should be on this side of the door than on that one, but right then, it seemed like the most important thing in the world.
I did something crazy.
I reached through the temporary doorway for her hand.
She peered at my red skin.
It seemed to form a crack in her hesitant mind.
“Come with me,” I said softly. “What do you have to lose?”
It was what she needed to hear.
She looked into my eyes and there, shimmering on the surface like on the pool of a rich and powerful fountain of life, I witnessed the same thing I had seen the night before when she peered at me through those long lashes from her pale and beautiful face, that undefeatable resistance that would never back down, would never surrender.
The strength I saw in her the moment I looked at her—the first real time I looked at her and not her broach—but really looked into her eyes and saw who she was.
She reached out a hand. It was small and dainty but I would never mistake the strength contained within this small lady.
Zaaaap!
The guards opened fire and the bolts struck the doors on either side of us.
Agatha leaped back to avoid the worst of the attack, further from my reach.
The door had less than an inch to cover.
I bolted forward and grabbed Agatha by the arm and yanked her through the gap and into my arms.
The door crushed the device, obliterating it.
The guards opened fire and their bolts struck the security grid but did not pass through.
On the other side of the latticework, I saw the face of a guard.
He was dressed like the others but he was bigger, stronger, a more formidable force.
I couldn’t make out his eyes but through the visor, I sensed him staring at me.
His armor was dented and damaged from countless fights and matched the scars I had crisscrossing my body.
I knew without a shadow of a doubt I would be seeing more of that figure, and for some reason that drew a cold shudder from me.
The doors shut the final few inches, wiping him from view, but very much not from my mind.
I shifted my focus to Agatha, who remained clutched close to my body and looked up at me.
I had risked my life reaching through that doorway to snatch her.
I had never risked my life for anybody before.
Nobody.
Why did Agatha have such a profound effect on me?
And why was I so afraid of it?
“Come on,” I said. “They’ll open the doors as soon as they can and begin searching for us. The further we can get from them, the better.”
Agatha
I was out.
I was actually outside the prison.
I giggled and caught my laugh for fear it might give away our position.
I still couldn’t believe Egara had reached through the narrow gateway and pulled me through, risking not only his chance of escape but his life.
He had saved me from the terrible lifestyle I’d been subjected to.
I had come up with coping mechanisms that allowed me to deal with the worst of the events of the past year, but they did nothing to prevent the horrible future coming my way.
I breathed in the air of freedom and immediately coughed, sputtering around a mouthful of sand and grit that clogged my throat.
Okay, so I hoped freedom would taste a little better than that!
The sand sucked at my heels and made traversing it difficult.
Each time I lost my footing, Egara was there to pick me up and help me across the rippling plains of the endless sand dunes that stretched into the far distance.
I could still hear the klaxon of the prison riots from here and I wondered if they would continue now they knew a pair of prisoners had escaped.
I doubted they were out after us already. They had an entire riot to quell and a prison to lock down before they would come looking for us.
They might wait for the sun to wear us down first.
It was doing an admirable job of that all right.
The sun was scorching and my lungs hurt.
I puffed and panted, more than I should have been if it was only due to the exercise.
I was fit—at least, I had been before I’d been abducted—and although I got a lot of physical exercise between the sheets at the prison, I still struggled to keep up with Egara.
His strides were almost twice the length of mine and it took some doing to keep up with him earlier during the sprint through the hangar.
My lungs still hurt from that exertion and my breaths were ragged and came haltingly.
I had never been asthmatic but I had friends who were and they sounded the same way I did now.
My breaths came haggard and raw as if one of my lungs had collapsed and couldn’t operate at full capacity.
Egara was there once again, his strong hand reaching out.
He pulled me onto my feet and force me onward.
For the first time since arriving on this moon, I wondered what the makeup of the air was.
Did they have enough oxygen on this moon to support humans?
I recalled the stories of other prisoners who managed to escape but were found dead outside the walls shortly after.
Was this the reason?
We had each come from different planets, different backgrounds and atmospheres.
None were native to this moon.
They wouldn’t be used to the atmosphere of this strange and hostile landscape.
We descended down a sand dune and found ourselves in a narrow valley between
