And I definitely didn’t regret escaping with him.
It was the best thing that’d happened to me during my entire time at Ikmal.
I wouldn’t let my own selfish self-pity get in the way of that.
I would push through this setback the way I pressed through everything else.
I was a survivor, a fighter.
Just like Egara.
Crunk!
The van came to an immediate halt and tossed the guards forward, sliding along the benches and crashing into each other.
The van sat twisted at an unnatural angle having face-planted in a sandy ravine.
Odd, I thought, considering the truck didn’t have wheels.
It floated.
“All right,” the leader said. “Everybody out.”
The guards groaned as they shoved me out the back.
The drones caught me before my head hit the ground.
They drifted to one side, taking me a safe distance.
My back was to the vehicle and it was difficult to make out what’d happened.
I twisted in an attempt to get the drones to turn with me but they were at the wrong angle.
I growled, wishing I’d kept up with yoga classes.
Then I realized something.
Just because my legs were attached to the drones didn’t mean I couldn’t bend my knees and shift my weight.
I flexed one knee and used the extra leverage to peer over my shoulder at the vehicle.
The front corner lay partially buried in the sand and one of the glowing blue engines fizzled with sparks.
Looked like a malfunction, much like getting a flat.
I guess even futuristic technology failed from time to time.
“Can you fix it?” the leader said to the guard probing at it with his tools.
“I can,” he said. “But it’s going to take time.”
“How much time?”
Please say years, I thought.
“About five or six hours,” he said.
Hours didn’t feel like enough.
Enough for what? I wondered.
Enough to escape and get out of here.
I didn’t know how I could think that was a possibility but a spark burst into life in my heart.
It was a chance.
And a chance, no matter how slim, was always better than having none at all.
The prison guards set up camp in the middle of the desert.
The moons took turns in peeking out from behind their curtains of clouds.
A prison guard removed the metal manacles attached to my ankles.
It was an awkward and uncomfortable maneuver as he released first one leg, which I could barely bring to the desert floor, and then the other.
The drones took off immediately and swung in wide arcs around the camp.
The prison guard clapped off his hands and marched away to deal with something else.
None of the guards paid much attention to me and were busy carrying out their own tasks.
I peered into the darkness surrounding us and wondered if I could sneak into the night without them noticing.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” a deep voice said.
I turned to find the leader crouched beside a hole in the desert.
He snapped something in his hands that immediately burst into flames and he dropped it in the hole where the fire grew larger.
He poked it with a knife to encourage further growth.
The leader hadn’t raised his eyes and might not have been speaking with me.
But with how the other guards paid him no attention, there couldn’t be anyone else he was talking to.
“The desert is a dangerous place at the best of times,” he said. “Even worse at night when you can’t see much beyond the end of your nose.”
He prodded the fire one last time and it belched like a baby cupped over its mother’s shoulder.
The leader’s armor was strewn with dents from the myriad of fights he must have been through in his day.
His features were covered by his helmet but I felt his eyes on me through his visor.
“I wasn’t going to run,” I said defensively.
“No?” he said. “If I were in your situation, I would have thought about it at least. I doubt there’s a prisoner who wouldn’t.”
“Well, I’m not a prisoner,” I said without much conviction.
Not a prisoner technically but what else did you call it when you were locked up in a room and not allowed to leave?
The leader’s head dropped to my legs and I shied away, nervous to be surrounded by so many men.
I’d gotten used to having eyes on me during the past year but these men were guards.
They had protected me in the past and I thought of them as nothing more than robots going about their business.
To see them surrounding me now when no one would get in the way if they decided to have their way with me, was disconcerting to say the least.
Strange, that they should be my protectors one day and potential villains in the next.
He nodded to my ankles.
“You’re hurt. I have to apologize for my men. They can be a little rough in pursuing their duties.”
He was motioning to the marks on my shins from where the drones had fastened their clasps.
“It wasn’t your men that did it,” I said. “It was the drones.”
He crouched beside me and I shied back.
He reached into his pocket and came out with a small pastel blue vial the shape of a smooth clamshell.
The leader cracked it open and dipped a finger inside it.
He reached for the marks on my legs and I pulled away again.
“It’s a cream for friction burns,” he said. “It’s nothing dangerous.”
He rubbed it over his own skin to demonstrate.
“Sometimes the helmet or armor rubs and it can be sore something fierce.”
I still didn’t like the idea of him touching me, so I extended my hand.
He gave the vial to me and smiled.
“You have nothing to fear from us. We won’t harm you. It’s our duty to protect the Prizes. One of them, anyway.”
“Sometimes you don’t do such a good job,” I snapped.
“Not when you’re in the cells, maybe. But we do a good enough job the rest of the time.”
I sniffed the cream and slipped my finger into it.
It was cool and pleasant to the touch, like moisturizer.
I applied it to my skin and hissed through my teeth at the sting it produced.
The
