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Okay, first of all, this male was not “hers,” she reminded herself. And secondly . . .
“So that’s why the cell doors are all open.” She glanced at the three prisoners. “That’s why no one leaves. But don’t the batteries eventually wear out?”
“When the light changes to orange,” Kane said, “you have twenty-four hours to replace them. If the power gets lower than that, it explodes.”
Lucan spoke up. “It’s a hell of an incentive to check in, lemme tell you.”
“That’s how they register the count for the shifts.” The male beside her rubbed his face like his head hurt. “There’s a radio receiver in each one that confirms the location of the band.”
“But this passageway is hidden, right?” she said. “Why don’t they know where you are now?”
Kane closed his shirt collar as if he were hiding nakedness, as if he were ashamed. “It’s not that precise. But the system is more than sufficient when it comes to the boundaries of the prison. If we try to go above-ground, it will notify instantly our location and track us.”
Nyx slowly shook her head. “There has to be a way to beat it. There just has to be.”
“Kane, why don’t you tell the nice female how long you’ve been down here,” the male beside her said.
Kane’s eyes drifted to the fire pit, with its cold ashes and sooted remnants of logs. “What is the precise date.”
When Nyx told him, his shoulders slumped, and there was very little pause on the math. “Two hundred seventy-three years, eleven months, six days.”
Nyx’s breath left her lungs. “I can’t imagine.”
It was a moment before Kane seemed to refocus. “Neither can I. And the point is, there are many people down here trying to figure a way out. Determination and a fresh set of eyes on this problem are not going to change our reality, and I am sorry to have to tell you this. Getting your sister free is impossible.”
That steady stare was full of compassion, and Nyx’s heart answered the call to unburden her struggles. As tears came to her eyes, she hid them by looking at her hands.
“There has to be a way,” she said with a voice that cracked. “There just has to be.”
The female was so strong, the Jackal thought as he watched her fight to maintain composure. And the fact that he was moved by her, that he wanted to reach out and offer her support, was an unfamiliar impulse.
Then again, it seemed like she was the key to many of his locks.
I can still close those doors, he reminded himself.
As she sat there in silence, no one interrupted her internal thought processes. Then again, down here, one didn’t waste one’s energy on things that were inevitable and outside of your control.
“Let me take you back to where you came from,” the Jackal offered. “When it’s safe. Let’s get you out of here—”
“I want to see her.” The female looked up sharply. “I want to find my sister and see her.”
“There are almost two thousand people down here,” he countered. “It would take a month or more to go through all those faces, and it’s more likely the guards will notice you before you cross her path.”
“I don’t care. I’m not leaving until I see her.”
“Even if it kills you.”
“It won’t.”
The Jackal let out a hard laugh as he rubbed his aching head. “For truth, I cannot decide whether you’re courageous or crazy.”
“I’m neither. I’m just someone’s sister. If you knew you had a sibling out in the world who needed you, wouldn’t you go after them?”
“How do you even know she’s alive?” The way the female snapped to attention made him regret his choice of words. But had she never considered that possibility? “I’m sorry, but death is prevalent here. Disease, malnutrition, natural causes. You’re assuming she lives, and again, forgive me for being blunt.”
“We could take her to the Wall,” Kane suggested. “If the three of us—”
“No.” The Jackal burst up to his feet. “We’re not going into the Command’s sector with her.”
“What’s the Wall?” she demanded.
The other two males deferred to the Jackal on that. So he answered. “It’s a tally of those who have died herein.”
The female glanced around. “We have to go there.”
“No,” the Jackal said. “I shall go myself, and see if her name is listed—”
“I don’t trust you.” She got to her feet and stared at him. “You want me to leave here. How do I know you won’t lie and tell me you saw her name just to get me to go.”
“I give you my word.”
“I don’t know you well enough to judge whether your ‘word’ is worth anything more than the breath you use to speak the syllable. I want to go and see her name myself, and if it was your blood, you’d feel the same way.”
