At the end of the second day, I was handcuffed and takento the Magistrate’s office. My head was swimming and throbbing. Lips cracked. Every movement hurt. And the stone chair in his office felt too much like metal.
“Escaping is pointless,” the Magistrate said. “If you try to escape again, you will be deemed a criminal.” He slowly crept around his desk and lifted the chain between my cuffed hands with a single finger. “The people of this planet hate criminals almost as much as I do.” He dropped the chain, and my swollen hands crashed to my lap as he leaned over me. He was so close I could smell the sour odor of his breath and see the pink, raised skin around the base of his horns. “They will hunt you down and skin you alive for sport. No onecaresif a slave lives or dies. You are nothing more than a set of hands, a sack of meat, a creature of labor. Remember that the next time you see an open window.”
He wanted me to be terrified of him, of my situation, of everyone. And sure, I am scared, but not in the way he wanted. He took away his only bargaining chip. The only thing keeping me compliant. The only thing I had left.Hope.It’s clear he hasn’t realized how dangerous a person is when they have nothing left to lose, and I can’t wait to watch him figure it out.
The sound of a lock thunking forces me to a stop. I’m barely ten steps away from where Yuxta left me and already someone’s opening a cell?Why?There shouldn’t be any gladiators moving for the next hour.
My heart continues its strange thrumming as I glance around, resisting the urge to run. I want to run, but if I run the wrong way, I risk encountering whoever made that sound, and I’m not ready to get caught breaking a law. Not yet.
I press my body against the stone wall and listen.
Silence.
The most logical explanation is that the guards areopening Cell 29 to deliver the medical equipment, and if that’s the case, I can just keep walking the way I was going. But if the sound is coming from somewhere else…
First things first. Check Cell 29.
I move towards the end of the hallway, silently rolling through each step. When I reach the corner, I stop and carefully peek down the hall. Relief floods me. This lizard is opening the?—
“Were you able to get a hot iron?” someone says in a voice like rolling thunder.
My skin tightens, hairs stand on end, and the thrumming in my chest reaches a dangerous speed.That voice.I slip back behind the wall and squat down, clenching my hands over my heart. I’ve never heard a voice like that, and the desire to hear it again is overwhelming my sense of reason.
“We do not, but we have other medical supplies,” the lizard replies.
I can’t stay here, but my muscles refuse to act.
“What do you have?” the thunderous voice asks, each word vibrating through my body with a quiet hum that grows more insistent by the second until I can barely breathe.
“A needle and thread.”
“Zar’vok,” the voice booms. It’s like listening to the sounds of boulders crashing beneath a river’s surface during a flood. Both terrifying and hypnotic.
My fingers dig into my chest as the thrumming gets worse.
“This is all we can provide,” the lizard says.“I am sorry, Vexar.”
The door thuds shut and I’m plunged back into silence, feeling a sharp tension in my ribs and a pooling heat in my belly.
5
BLOOD SWEEP
AMARA
ROVEEN STARES AT me with her wide, gray eyes, antennae flicking back and forth in interest. “He left you?” she whispers in her native language through her too-small mouth. My translator repeats her words in English.
“There was some sort of skirmish happening down the hall. I couldn’t see it, but it sounded bad. People were screaming.”
She wiggles her antenna more widely this time, showing her confusion. “Strange.”
Roveen is the only other nurse willing to risk a conversation with me. The Magistrate made sure I would be seen as a dangerous pariah after my escape attempt, and it worked. I’ve been properly ostracized. But not by Roveen. She’s brave and smart and doesn’t take shit from anyone. In summary, she’s my favorite kind of person.
Pushing away my empty lunch bowl, I glance around to ensure we’re still alone, and ask, “Do you know if Naxiur was sent to meet with the Magistrate before she went to the arena?” While I don’t expect Roveen to know for certain, I’m hoping she saw the direction Naxiur was taken after she was found out.Information is hard to come by here, but if I want a shot at the Magistrate, I need to know how to get back into his office. Obviously, my last run-in with the law got me in there, but as far as I know, I’m the only nurse who’s broken a law and lived to tell about it.
“No,” Roveen says solemnly. “After Naxiur was caught, I never saw her again.”
I do my best to hide my disappointment. Whatever’s going on with my heart has lit a fire under my ass, and I know the longer I wait, the less likely I am to succeed. Every day I spend here, I get weaker and slower. Sure, I could wait for more information to trickle into my lap, but that feels less like a plan and more like procrastination.
