Drastic Times (Book 3): Fierce Freedom

by Rock, R. A.

  Then I screamed as long and as loud as I could — physically, not mentally.

  Chad flinched again and backed out of the room. The pain in his eyes was killing me but I couldn’t stop, didn’t know how to apologize for saying something so cruel. And at that moment I knew that every scrap of progress we had made had been erased with those few words. He hit the door frame and stumbled out of the room as I continued to scream.

  I knew on some level that this whole situation had triggered my feelings about our own situation when we had lost the baby. But I couldn’t seem to stop the outpouring of emotion. I screamed until my voice was hoarse and there were people coming in the door asking what was wrong.

  I screamed until I had no more breath in my body.

  And then I lay down on the bed, sobbing. I couldn’t stop. And I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to stop and have to think about the fact that Zoe was dead. That that baby and little girl no longer had a mother. That Ernest had lost his wife. That we had lost a friend.

  I couldn’t handle it and so I cried and cried.

  Finally, when my abdominal muscles ached, and my eyes stung, and I didn’t have any voice left, I stopped. Then I fell immediately asleep, as if my consciousness couldn’t bear this terrible reality a moment longer.

  WHEN I WOKE up in our room in the castle, I felt as though the grief and rage had burned me clean and I had only one thought in my mind.

  Kill Nathan.

  And then Brett sometime later when we found him.

  It was their fault that this had happened to Zoe at all. If Brett hadn’t brought them here and sold them to Nathan, she would be at home right now. She would be fine. Maybe she never would have haemorrhaged or if she had then Cynthia would have had some herbs to help her uterus close.

  It all would have been different if those two assholes hadn’t fucked everything up.

  And the answer was straightforward.

  Zoe had died.

  So they would die.

  Easy.

  Simple.

  It sounded like the old me. But I didn’t care.

  It seemed to be dark out and I assumed it was still the same day, just the middle of the night. It didn’t matter. I strode to the door of the… med bay? When had I been brought here? I thought back and couldn’t remember anything except the agony of my feelings and I quickly shut those off. I couldn’t be crippled by emotions.

  I needed to go back to being the way I used to be when I called myself the girl without feelings. I focused for a moment and then all the turmoil inside me disappeared.

  Perfect.

  All that remained was a livid anger that burned in me. I didn’t let it rage out of control. Not yet. I would allow it to flame up at the right time and place. Right now, I used the anger to fuel me and focus my mind.

  I needed a gun.

  I CREPT DOWN the hallway. Most of the castle was asleep but I could hear a party still going on in the great hall. It made me even angrier to think of people having fun, while such a tragic event occurred downstairs. I found a guard, almost asleep at one of the checkpoints and came up to him from behind. I wrapped my arm around his neck, squeezing.

  He tried to shake me off but I held on until he slumped to the ground unconscious. I felt for a pulse, took his gun, checked that it was loaded, and proceeded towards the great hall.

  Outside the great hall there were two guards. I went down a nearby hallway, keeping to the shadows and made some loud noises to draw them from their posts.

  Only one came. Smart. I quickly dispatched him with a hard hook that knocked his head sideways causing his brain to slam into his skull. This rendered him unconscious immediately.

  Usually I prefer the knockout point on the jaw, but I had so much pent up fury that I needed to vent some of it or I would get jittery and I didn’t want that.

  I needed a steady hand for what I was about to do.

  I went back down the hall and used my little known talent of mimicking and throwing my voice. I had used it once before when we were fighting Forsythe on Manticor. I had mimicked his voice to give the Mantins orders to stand down. And it worked just as well this time to convince the other guard to leave his post to help his friend.

  This time I went for the knock out point.

  And missed.

  Damn it. I didn’t have time for mistakes.

  He grabbed for me but I danced out of his reach. Then he started to yell but I moved in quickly, punching him with a series of rapid jabs to the face to discourage anymore yelling. Then I showed him my famous roundhouse kick to the side of the head.

  He was dazed and stumbled a bit.

  I took my chance and delivered the hardest blow I could to his jaw. I gave a small sigh of relief as he crumpled to the ground and I dragged him into a nearby room. He was alive and would wake up, — hopefully later, rather than sooner.

  Guards taken care of, I made my way to the doorway of the great hall. They had set up for dancing and there was a banquet along one side.

  I needed a hostage next, in order to get close enough to Nathan to shoot him. Sneaking a look around the doorframe, I spotted Nathan on the other end of the room.

  Not optimal. But fine.

  Then I surveyed the guests and chose my target. A small woman near the door, drinking wine. I sprinted in as quietly as I could and grabbed her, putting my hand over her mouth and the gun to her head.

  “Scream and you die,” I said.

  Not true. But she didn’t know that.

  I dragged her with me, getting halfway to Nathan before anyone noticed. Once they did, they all moved back against the walls. There were no guards in the great hall, which was a terrible oversight on his part. But I supposed with only one entrance that was guarded, he thought he was fine in the heart of his castle.

  I made my way to Nathan, getting as close as I dared.

  “What are you doing, Mrs. Dvorski?” he said, his tone mild. As if he didn’t expect to be murdered at any moment.

  “That woman died,” I spat at him. “And it’s your fault.”

  The people behind him looked troubled but like this wasn’t unusual. Suddenly there was a shout from the doorway.

  “Your excellency, there’s been a revolt among the prisoners. The man on guard is dead.”

  Nathan’s eyes narrowed.

  “Put them in the water chamber. Anyone who helped. Anyone who was there. Anyone you even suspect of being a part of it. Whoever survives the night gets dumped in the Wastelands.”

  The guard at the door saluted and left. I noticed that the crowd was extremely silent, their faces white.

  He turned his attention back to me.

  “I repeat… What. Are. You. Doing, Mrs. Dvorski?” and his voice and face were a warning but I didn’t fucking care. Not even a little bit.

  “She’s dead. Her daughters have no mother now,” I snarled. “And it’s your fault.”

  The woman in my arms quaked at my tone.

  “It’s certainly not my fault,” he said, sounding righteous.

  “If you hadn’t gone in with Brett and bought his prisoners, this would never have happened.”

  There was murmuring in the crowd now.

  Good. I wanted them to doubt him.

  “I gave her a clean, comfortable room to give birth in,” he said, spreading his hands as if he were the nicest guy in the world who had tried his best and failed. “What else would you have me do?”

  “What else would I have you do?” I said, suddenly pushing the woman in my arms away and aiming the gun right at Nathan. “I would have you die.”

  Surprise flared in his eyes then.

  But there was nothing short of amazement in them when the gun went off and blood poured from his chest. Not a lethal wound if they bound it. My hand had been shaking.

  “Fuck,” I said, aiming again.

  But as I squeezed the trigger, his faithful servant Hawkings dove for my hand and managed to bump it a little to the side. The second bullet only went thro
ugh his arm.

  “God fucking damn it,” I said and my hand loosened a little on the gun as I fought the despair that threatened to overwhelm the walls that were keeping all my feelings pushed far away.

  Hawkings expertly disarmed me at that moment when my grip weakened, making me wonder what profession he had been in before the solar flare.

  “Take her to the water chamber,” Nathan gasped through his pain. “And chain her to the floor. I want her to suffer. And then die.”

  Hawkings roughly pulled my arms behind me and shoved me through the crowd. Tears of fury and helplessness ran down my cheeks as he dragged me to my death.

  I RATTLED DOWN the metal stairs leading to the prison, descending with wild abandon. I almost wished that I would slip and tumble to my death. I was so weary I could hardly see straight but after what Yumi had said, I needed to do something and checking on Ernest and the other prisoners was the only thing I could think to do.

  I had cut off all feelings after Yumi had accused me of being the cause of Zoe’s death. I knew she could be cruel when she was angry, but this was over the top. This was too much. I didn’t see how I could ever forgive her for how much she had hurt me in that one moment.

  After all the progress we had made, here we were right back where we started with her blaming me for everything that was wrong. And me just fucking taking it.

  The pain sliced through me again but I pushed it away. I needed to check on Ernest. He must be… I couldn’t imagine. But I knew he might need me, might need a friend right now. That’s what I did. When my world was falling apart, my urge was to try and help someone else in the faint hope that I might feel better, too.

  As I entered the corridor leading to the cell where Zoe had died, something felt off. I could sense a feeling of expectancy that seemed at odds with my surroundings.

  What was going on?

  The sadistic guard reluctantly let me in. And I slowly walked into the room where Zoe had given birth and then died. The guard was clearly annoyed with all this coming and going tonight and he gave me a vicious push that knocked me to my knees — hard. I bit down on my swearing, ignoring the pain that radiated up my legs. I climbed to my feet and went to the bed.

  Ernest was there with his daughters. He didn’t even seem to have noticed my entrance. The bedding had been changed and so had Zoe’s clothes. She was laid out on the bed, with her arms neatly at her sides, a blanket tucked around her body.

  Ernest held the baby close, with his little daughter — her face tear-stained — sleeping in his lap.

  His eyes were empty.

  Like his heart and soul had been crushed.

  “Ernest,” I said, my voice breaking. “I’m so sorry, man.”

  He nodded but it didn’t seem to pierce the veil of his grief.

  Just then there was a sound of scuffling and shouting. A gun shot went off and I ran for the door. There were men and women in the hall and I could see the guard laying on the floor, looking a lot like he was dead.

  “Let’s go,” someone shouted. And they all surged towards the stairs.

  “Ernest,” I said softly. “The others have revolted.”

  He looked up at me.

  “We’ve been planning it for a while,” he said, his voice monotone, like he didn’t give a rat’s ass. “Tonight we were supposed to escape.”

  There was the sound of a key in a lock. The door opened and Matt came in. Down the hall and I could hear more doors being unlocked.

  “Ernest, come on.”

  Ernest stared at his good friend as though he had never seen him before.

  “Ernie,” Matt said, going to him and putting his hand on Ernest’s shoulder. “We have to go. Now.”

  Ernest glanced down at his girls.

  “I can’t risk them. They’re all I have left.”

  Matt closed his eyes for a long minute. When he opened them again, I could see he had shoved down his feelings about Zoe’s death to the back of his mind and was completely focused on the escape plan.

  “Chad, we’re going,” he shrugged helplessly. “Do what you can for him?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll get them out, Matt,” I promised. “Somehow.”

  He gave me one sharp nod. His eyes were filled with pain for his friend but he had a determined look on his face. He gave Ernest a one armed hug and left.

  “I’m going to go see what’s happening,” I said to Ernest. “I’ll be back.”

  The barest inclination of his head was all the response I got and I headed back up the stairs. On the main level, there was chaos. It was completely crazy. Guards and prisoners were trading punches like this was a bar fight in some Old West saloon.

  I edged towards the door that led into the castle proper, having had enough fighting for one day and not wanting to add any more injuries to the ones already plaguing me. But when I reached the doorway, I saw a ton of guards running towards us — the backup, I supposed. Figuring that I was better off with Ernest, I turned to make my way to the stairs… and ran straight into Hawkings.

  What the hell was he doing here?

  “Hawkings,” I shouted over the noise. “You shouldn’t be here. You’ll get hurt.”

  He shoved something into my pocket.

  “Don’t lose it,” he said, leaning over to speak into my ear. “You’ll know what to do with it.”

  I put my hand to my pocket but he shook his head and gave me a push back towards the stairs.

  “Go,” he said and I went. But when I got to the door that led down to the prison, it was locked and a guard stood there armed with a taser.

  I knew from books and movies that the weapon was the much maligned precursor to the stun gun for its ability to completely screw up your nervous system, occasionally cause paralysis, and sometimes even kill the victim.

  Even though it was only supposed to stun you.

  I did not want to be shot with that.

  The guards that had just entered were yelling and I saw several prisoners go down, hit by tasers. I held up my hands not wanting to be tased.

  “I’m not trying anything,” I said to the one guarding the door to the prison. “No need to tase me.”

  The guard nodded, keeping the gun trained on me. Soon the prisoners were either lying on the ground unconscious or standing with their hands up.

  Another guard came in.

  “Bakersfield says to dump them in the water chamber. If any of them survive the night, they’re to be exiled into the Wastelands.”

  He glanced around at us with a disgusted look on his face.

  “No traitors are going to join our community.”

  “Hey,” I said, trying for nonchalance and probably failing miserably. “I just got here. I had nothing to do with this.”

  “Yeah, right,” the guy said.

  “No but…”

  The man with the taser cocked his head to one side.

  “Though you said you didn’t need to be tased.”

  “I don’t,” I said, pressing my lips firmly together to keep from saying anything else that would get me in trouble.

  “Take them away,” the guard who had brought the news shouted.

  The water chamber.

  Oh fuck.

  I HUDDLED ON the cold, wet cement of the water chamber and tried not to think about the series of bad decisions that had led me to this point. There were metal shackles on my wrists, chaining me to the floor of the room. I had been up all night at this point and the only thing I wanted to do was sleep, but it was kind of impossible under these circumstances.

  So much for all the progress I had made in not going off on my own and not making bad choices.

  I didn’t know what its use had been before it was a torture chamber/execution room. There was no way of knowing because everything had been removed from it, except a couple light fixtures in the wall. Currently, it’s only feature was a two by two foot hole where the water could come in. I watched as some trickled through the hole and wondered that they
had made it that big.

  From what I had heard from the residents about the water chamber, the water rose completely randomly — it was only a rumour that Nathan could control it. But it didn’t matter. The water chamber was still a fucking terrifying place. And the fluctuations were one of the scariest parts of the room.

  You never knew whether the water would rise right up over your head or whether it would only go to your waist. I lifted my shackled wrists. But the clanking was so depressing, I dropped them immediately and made every attempt not to move. Unfortunately for me, when the water rose it would definitely be over my head because of being chained to the floor and all that.

  Nathan had made sure that no matter how high the water rose I would die. I hoped he perished from his gunshot wounds getting infected. Because it was almost certain he wouldn’t bleed out the way Zoe had.

  A tightness in my chest was the only reaction I would allow myself at the thought of the scene of despair and sorrow that I had been privy to earlier that night.

  I didn’t want to, but I sent a short message to Shiv, telling him I had been discovered and imprisoned. I couldn’t bear to give him any details. At least when I died, he would know something. I didn’t think that would be much comfort but it would be better than having no idea what had happened to me.

  Without warning the door was wrenched open and people dragged themselves in, dropping their hands as they entered and looking nearly as wretched as I felt.

  The Sipwesk prisoners.

  They crowded in, bunching up in the middle of the room and hiding me from view in my little dark corner. Then the guards came in, dragging or carrying the bodies of a bunch of them that appeared to be unconscious.

  And at the end of the group was Chad.

  I pulled up the tightest shield I could manage and clamped down on the soul bond, looking away before I could catch his eye. I didn’t want to talk to him. Didn’t want to have any contact with him.

  And it must have worked because he didn’t pick up on my thoughts or emotions. Didn’t notice me at all. But that must mean that he was horribly upset and distracted because otherwise there was nothing that would keep him from sensing my presence when he was this near. I closed my eyes, ignoring the stab of guilt that drove through me, like a stake through the heart.