Eventually.
Shoving my phone back into my rucksack, I slung it onto my shoulders and eyed the wall.
I’d already yanked on the gate and found, just as I suspected, it was locked.
I staggered a little as my heart skipped a few beats, driving me closer to burnout.
I either needed to be far, far away from this place or to find a bed where I could rest because I was swiftly running out of time.
Dashing to one of the baby oak trees, I launched myself at it and managed to grab the closest branch. Scrambling in my ridiculous flip-flops and scratching my thighs on its bark, I hauled myself high enough to look over the wall.
And...nothing.
The G-wagons were gone.
No men in sight.
It was as if the selection process and wellness lie were all made up in my head.
“Please get down from the tree and join the others in the ballroom.”
I flinched in shock, looking around. “Who—?”
A drone dropped to eye level, repeating its message from whoever watched me on the other end of the camera. “Please join the others. That is not a request.”
My pounding head turned my vision hazy again. Clinging to the trunk with one hand, I rubbed my eyes with the other.
“Please join the others.”
I ignored it, wishing I was normal. Wishing I could handle panic and worry or be one of those lucky people who found they became superhuman the minute they suffered a little bit of anxiety.
Instead, I clenched my teeth against the very real possibility of throwing up.
“You leave me with no choice.” The drone made a high-pitched noise before a blast of electricity drilled through me.
It seized my muscles.
It blazed my bones.
Every ligament locked and I tumbled headfirst to the grass below.
I landed hard, winded and gasping, my limbs thrashing like a broken puppet.
As quickly as the drone shocked me, it stopped. Hovering over me, no doubt taking celebratory photos of me flat on my back, it announced, “You have two minutes to join the others, or you will be shocked again.”
I gave up.
I went back.
And the damn thing trailed me the entire journey.
* * * * *
Following the murmur of feminine voices, I made myself as small as possible and tiptoed through the palace. I didn’t even know if that word was correct for a home in the meadows of Britain, but it certainly helped encompass the grandeur.
Vaulted ceilings soared like the nave of a cathedral, yet instead of saints in stained glass, the arched windows were patterned with flowering lotuses and flying phoenixes. Light poured through them in fractured rainbows, painting the black stone floors with shifting mosaics.
Silk scrolls of cranes and misty mountains hung between marble busts of long-dead kings. European portraits of whiskered men glowered at me, while huge banners of Chinese calligraphy hung beside them.
