AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I look at the dress dangling off the table. Great. Now I have to spend even more time here working on this stupid thing.
My stomach growls again. It’s going to be a long night, and I’m not sure when I’ll be able to eat. I think about the baby and wonder if I’ll be hurting it by starving myself for so long.
Well, another problem to put off until another day.
I don’t hear Sathior anymore, but I don’t want to risk pulling out my repair job just yet. I want to make sure she’s gone before I do anything else.
I look at the dress, and wonder what the hell I’m going to do to it. It’s actually an ugly piece, and I never did like it.
Finally, I hear the front door open and close. I rest my arms and head on the table, wondering how this is all going to work.
CHAPTER 18
GARET
As the alarm blares, Brigid clutches my arm. She’s bordering on hyperventilating, and I give her a squeeze to try to keep her calm. Out of all of us, she has the most to lose by escaping. She’s abandoning her home and her job, fleeing with little more than her clothes on her back and whatever she can fit in a bag.
The trash truck is moving, though, slowly winding its way around the prison complex and to the exit. While Dalex Arn and Danel are powerful warriors, Arn has been weakened by months in the cold and dark while Danel is still injured. Brigid is tough, but she’s a middle-aged human janitor, not a warrior. I’m the only one strong enough and trained enough to effectively defend us if we get into a fight.
The vehicle slows, and my breath catches in my throat. Every muscle in my body is taut like a spring as we wait for something to go horribly wrong.
“Why are they stopping?” Brigid whispers. I can feel her shaking beside me.
“Not sure,” I whisper back. “Stay still and silent.”
We collectively hold our breaths as the vehicle comes to a complete stop. “You know what’s going on?” the driver asks, probably about the alarms.
“No idea,” the guard at the gate replies. Their voices are muffled by the metal truck and the ambient noise around us.
I hold my breath, dreading the inevitable, “Let me just take a peek in the back to make sure that it’s all good.”
It never happens. “Someone probably burned a cannister of popflash seeds and set off the fire alarm. You’d be surprised how often that happens." I can picture the guard shrugging like a potential prison break means nothing.
"I’ll take your word for it, Kerf,” the driver says.
“It’s as good as anyone else’s. Besides, I’m just the guy at the gate. No one tells me shit. Have a good day, Prex.”
“You too, man,” Prex replies, and the truck starts moving again. We all breathe a collective sigh of relief. The air loses some of its palpable tension as we pass through the gates and to the garbage depot.
“That was close,” Arn whispers.
Danel sighs. “Way too close for comfort.”
“We made it. I can’t believe we actually made it.” Brigid lets out a giddy, almost hysterical laugh. “We’re free.”
I shake my head. “Not until we reach the depot and call for help. We’re far from done here.”
“It’s further than I could have gotten on my own. So, thank you.”
I pat her hand. “We could not have done any of this without you, Brigid. If anyone should be thanked, it’s you.”
“You’re not bad for a human,” Arn says.
“And you Kaleidians aren’t as stupid as you look,” she retorts.
I respect her fire. Is every human like that? They’re so small and fragile, but they’ll talk back to species twice their size asthough we can’t reduce them to a bloody paste with no effort at all.
Tania has that same fire. She’s softer than Brigid. Life hasn’t been quite as hard on her, but I can see the determination in her eyes, the way she refused to complain when I tried to push her past her limits so that I could beat that test and how she talked about her dreams of becoming a high-end designer. She’ll do whatever it takes to keep up and survive.
