THE GUARD DOESN’T give me a chance to keep fighting. He grips my hair and drags me back through the door as I try to break his grip. It’s no use. We reach the hall, and the stone cuts into my legs as I scramble for traction. My scalp burns. We come to an abrupt stop a few feet away, and he shoves my head forward. Stars burst behind my eyes.
“Get up!” The order is booming and sends a terrifying chill through me.
Reality zooms back into focus.
What the hell did I just do? Fuck, fuck, fuck.He’s gonna kill me.
Still seeing stars, I get to my feet, squeezing the muscles in my thighs and abdomen like a fighter-pilot, trying desperately to keep from passing out. Trying to stay focused. Trying to stay alive. Spots cloud my vision. Everything hurts. I wobble, but before I fall, rough, angry hands dig into my arms, and something solid slams into my back. I wheeze. A sharp pain radiates through my torso. It’s a knee. The guard has his knee pressed to my stomach, and he’s holding me against the wall.
My eyes tear up as I try to take a breath, but can’t.
“You should not have done that,” he growls, and my heart breaks.I know that voice.
The tears fall as cold metal seals around my wrists, digging into my flesh. Then I’m on the ground, released into a puddle of shaking regret with my hands raised in the universal sign for ‘stop’.
“Yuxta,” I choke out, “please.”
He makes a hissing sound from behind his mask before he grips the chain between my hands, pulls me to my feet, and starts marching me down the hall. After a few minutes of silence, Yuxta stops and turns to me. “Why would you do that?” he asks, his voice low and dangerous, even through the translator.
“I…”
“You are lucky he wants you alive, or I would have had to—” he cuts himself off and tenses. “Do what you are told, and you might survive.”
My mouth opens and closes a few times as I search for words. Is Yuxta warning me because he doesn’t want me to die? Or …? Then it clicks. “Workers.”Allworkers. That’s what Gaius said. My tears fall more freely as I ask, “Are you here because you want to be, Yuxta?”
He grunts, grabs the chain between my hands, and we continue down the hall.
Even the guards.
I lose track of everything as my mind fumbles with this new reality. I wouldn’t have thought it possible before—that enslaved guards would be willing to commit such violence against other enslaved people—but after hearing Gaius’s explanation, it seems plausible. Willingness to commit callous acts of violence is definitely a trait the Tusku could screen for, and as much as I want to believe they missed the mark on Yuxta, I’m not so sure anymore.
A whisper pulls my attention back to him, and if not for mytranslator, I doubt I would have heard him at all. “I am sorry,” he says, “but they are watching.”
My mouth opens to ask what he means, but before I get a chance to speak, he’s opened another door, and my focus fixates on what lies beyond. Darkness. Complete darkness. A small, dark space, just big enough for a person.
I panic. It’s the box all over again. I try to dart away, but Yuxta’s grip is bulletproof.
“Please. Please don’t—” I beg, hoping he’ll listen to me.
With a shove, my hope turns to horror.
I collide with something metal and unforgiving. The darkness swallows me whole. Pain radiates through my shoulder, and I slide to the floor as the last sliver of light disappears with a dull thud.
33
THE ONLY WAY OUT
VEXAR
AMARA IS SUFFERING. Alive, but suffering.
If she does not survive the day, I do not know what I will do. It will break me. Every hope burned in a single breath. I want to find her. Make sure she is safe. But I cannot. If I leave the preparation chamber, the trail of death left in my wake would seal her fate long before I could reach her.
The only way out now is through. I just pray I am right about Gaius, and that he will bring her to the arena.
“Ten minutes,” a voice echoes through the darkened room.
Discipline and control.
