I can’t see much of the house, except that it looms up like a fortress in front of us. Compared to most homes in the Moon Realm, and particularly in our humble district, it is as big as a palace. I can’t wait to see it when the dim daylights are turned on.
We reach a medium height wall separating the back from the front. Raising one of her long legs, Tawni clambers over it easily, like she’s done it a thousand times. Following her lead, Cole hops over the barrier swiftly and looks back at me, as if he is considering offering me a hand over. I pretend not to see him and, against my better judgment, place my hands firmly on the top of the wall and push off hard, using it to vault over the top. Although I clear the wall easily, I pay the price on the landing, feeling the jolt of my feet on the stone through my entire body, particularly around my battered ribs.
It hurts like hell, but I grit my teeth and dare myself not to show any discomfort. Cole is watching and I don’t want to look weak in front of him. I don’t know why. He’s already seen me fight, knows I’m tough, knows I’m strong and capable. I guess maybe it is just silly pride that makes me do it. If he was a girl, I wouldn’t care one bit, but for some reason with guys it is different. I always feel like I have to try to be equal to them, like I have something to prove. Maybe I am just trying to prove my toughness to myself. Although I know I look tough when I fight, I never really feel that tough.
Regardless, I don’t think it works. Cole pretends not to notice I am in pain, but I think I see a twinkle in his eyes and a casual smirk on his lips. I brush past him and follow Tawni around the house.
The backyard is even bigger than the front, possibly bigger than my parents’ entire property. In the center of the space is an in-ground pool, probably the only one in the entire subchapter. The still waters glow an eerie blue, lit from beneath by underwater pool lights which evidently stay on all night. I try not to think about how much that would cost—and that it is funded by the sweat and blood of people like my father.
The shed is past the pool. It isn’t what I expected. When you live in relative poverty, the word shed fosters an image of a tiny stone cubbyhole, crumbling around the edges and filled with rusty tools, spiders, and the occasional bat. Not a four-room building with running water, electricity, bunk beds, and shelves of food. Maybe I am going to get a bed after all.
Tawni pushes open the door without a key and slips into the darkness. We can’t risk turning on the lights, so she gives us a brief tour using the soft glow of her digital watch. Then she breaks out a can of beans, which we eat at room temperature, a box of salty crackers, and a tube of some kind of mint jelly. Although it shouldn’t be, the food is amazing, and we eat frantically. It is a good thing there are no lights, because I don’t even stop to wipe the crumbs or juices from my mouth.
We risk turning on the faucet and cupping our hands to drink. My throat is so dry the water burns slightly on the way down. The second gulp goes down better.
No one speaks until we finish all the food.
When the last cracker is gone, Cole says, “Will your parents come in here in the morning?”
“No,” Tawni says. “Never. I’ve never seen either of them in here.” Her voice is thick with distaste. “They think it’s beneath them. These are the servants’ quarters. They used to live with us, but it became too expensive, so now they just come during the day to clean and cook and maintain the place.”
I am shocked. Disgusted. The rest of us are barely scraping by and Tawni’s family has servants. Seriously! I want to say something but I hold my tongue, because I know she is uncomfortable with the set-up, too. It isn’t her fault. Like I said before, you have no control over what situation you are born into.
Cole changes the subject. “What happened to you guys in the Pen?”
I’d almost forgotten that he only saw the butt end of our escape from our cells. It feels like all three of us have lived through the entire thing together.
I give him a taste of his usual sarcasm. “See, Tawni and I were playing poker, Texas Hold’em, with a few of the guards, when it came time to meet you. We thought they’d let us go because, by that point, they owed us a bundle of money. Instead, one of them whipped out an Uzi and started firing away. We ran out of there like bats out of hell, leaping bullets and fighting guards the whole way. It was crazy.” Maybe not all true, but it was crazy.
“Mostly lies,” Cole says in the dark. “But a hint of the truth, the crazy part, right? Oh, and I expect you did get shot at, too.” He is good, all right, but I’m not about to tell him that.
“Okay, the true story is…”
I tell him the full story, downplaying the incident with me and the guard who stepped in front of me, but totally milking the “barrage of bullets whipping past our heads, tearing our clothes—I think I felt one trim off a lock of hair.”
“Let me see where the guard hit you with the stick,” Cole says when I finish.
I don’t want to. Don’t want the sympathy. Don’t want them to worry about me. I know it is bad, but probably not as bad as it looks.
He won’t leave me alone until I show him.
Even using only Tawni’s watch light to see, my side looks awful when I raise my tunic. Already it is marbled with purple and blue at the top, and is green and splotchy at the bottom. The shape doesn’t look quite right, like I am missing a rib or two.
To my surprise, Cole laughs. If I am expecting sympathy, I don’t get it. “You’ll live,” he says. And then: “I’ve seen worse from a single punch on the schoolyard.”
I thought I didn’t want sympathy, but then when I don’t get it, it makes me mad. It is probably just lack of sleep, the pain I am in, the gamut of emotions I’ve felt this night—or I’m just a head case. Probably that, too.
Tawni is nicer, immediately tearing off strips from one of the bed sheets and wrapping them around my stomach and side to support my battered ribs. I grumble about her pampering, but afterwards I’m glad she does it, because my ribs stop hurting temporarily.
The servant’s bed I sleep on is more comfortable than the one I’d slept on growing up. I practically melt into it. Although I am too tired to be excited about having escaped the Pen, I do smile in celebration just before I fall asleep.
Tristan’s face fills my mind and I drift away to a better place.
Chapter Ten
Tristan
They are surrounded with no hope of escape. I don’t know why of all nights they’ve chosen this one to attempt to gain their freedom, but I know if we don’t help them they won’t make it. She won’t make it. For all I know, the guards might shoot them, rather than try to apprehend them. For all I know it might be another policy, like no visitors allowed outside of certain hours. The gunshots we heard earlier certainly point to that conclusion. I can see the new guards on the first day of training. Lesson 1: Always shoot guests attempting to escape.
Not a nice way to treat your so-called guests.
I can see her halfway up, frozen in place, eyeing the guards on the outside of the fence. Even between the tightly woven chain links, her beauty resonates from her like radiation from uranium. If she was a type of energy, she would definitely be nuclear. Although I suspect that even from this closer distance Roc isn’t able to make out her eye color, I can see her emerald beads shining forth with an immense amount of passion and strength.
I am coiled tighter than a snake ready to strike, my muscles tensed and flexed, my fists balled, my feet naturally assuming a runner’s stance. I start to sprint toward them just as the bomb explodes. It sounds like a cannon in the quiet night, and I can feel the shockwaves from the force so strongly that they stop me dead in my tracks.