by Cooke, Chele
38 From the Outside In
Each day became like the last, a slow monotony that did not change nor falter. Every day the guards came in twice to do the inmate count, every other day they let them out into the yard. Past that, there were only the events between the four walls of the block, which luckily were few and far between.
Georgianna learned quickly that there was a certain hierarchy within the compound walls, and that the best way to survive was to stay as far under the radar as possible. A pair of brothers, Ta-Dao and Vajra, had asserted their dominance. Ruthless and efficient, the men acted like the elders of a tribe, though Georgianna had heard that they had previously been outcasts, travelling alone before the arrival of the Adveni.
Hearing the stories, Georgianna heeded the warnings to stay off their radar, to make herself as invisible and inconsequential as she could. Keeping a low profile, however, was harder than it seemed when she already had a reputation.
While Edtroka had told her the truth when they last spoke, that she was no longer a medic, but an inmate of the compound, within the walls of the block the other inmates were not so keen to forget that she had ever been of service to them. She was not called by the guards to help prisoners, or soon-to-be dreta, but the other prisoners were quick to call on her expertise when needed.
There wasn’t much Georgianna could do. Without supplies, she couldn’t sew wounds or even treat a virus. There was nothing to be done but to patch things up as best she could and hope the guards would pay enough attention during count to give injured prisoners the treatment they needed, a hope that was often dashed.
Since the day he walked her into the block, Edtroka had refused to look at her. Each day during count she would watch him, waiting to catch his eye. However, even when he was the one reading off their names, he turned his head the moment he reached her. The other guards were not nearly so affected. In fact, a few of them seemed genuinely amused that the medic who made such an effort to visit the compound was now one of their permanent residents. She received more than one taunt or amused smirk as they passed her on count, or as the prisoners were led out towards the yard.
She waited in constant fear that this would be the day she’d be taken back for more questioning, that they would demand Nyah and Alec’s whereabouts, or the people who had helped free them. It never came. The longer she remained in the compound, the more sure Georgianna became that Maarqyn wanted to question her himself, that he was waiting until he owned her and he could torment her in any way he pleased.
Every night, once the doors had been locked after count and most inmates returned to their cells, she lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what she had missed. Someone had to have betrayed them. That was the only answer she could come up with that made any sense. There was no way the Adveni could have known without being told. She had wondered once or twice whether Nyah and Alec had been talking and Maarqyn had overheard them, but why would Maarqyn have let them run if he already knew? Was it an attempt to capture more Belsa? Whatever roads her thoughts took her down, they never led to any answers.
The days were slowly getting shorter, the heat not quite as unbearable as it had been before. The air, previously so dry and unforgiving, began holding the promise of wind, maybe even rain. While the other inmates were praising the relief the cooling weather brought, Georgianna could not help but feel depression as the heat began coming to an end.
Every year around this time, before the Adveni anyway, the Kahle would be getting ready to leave Adlai, travelling south to Nyvalau where they would live out the freeze. Since the Adveni had arrived, fewer people travelled. Most were forced to suffer the harsh northern blizzards in Adlai. The lucky few who were allowed to travel petitioned for passes from the powerful Adveni volsonnae.
Georgianna loved the trail. She adored the cities, yes, but there was something about waking up in a different place each morning, seeing the expanses of the land. Trapped in the compound, despite being on the edge of the city, that land only seemed that much further away than it did when working in the centre of Adlai. She couldn’t help but wonder whether her family would try to make the journey. There was nothing keeping them here; she would be buryd whether they went on the trail or not, but not knowing whether they were already packing to move on was pulling Georgianna down a little more each day. Even though she couldn’t see them—and she hadn’t seen them nearly as often as she should have when she had the chance—she had liked knowing that they were close.
Only one thing kept Georgianna’s spirits up each day, that in the weeks since their escape, Nyah and Alec had yet to be caught. Georgianna didn’t recognise a single face among the new inmates brought into the compound each week. Whenever the doors opened to bring a new inmate into the block, Georgianna breathed a silent sigh of relief that she did not know the person standing before her. Wherever they were, Taye, Keiran and Wrench had gone undetected, and Nyah and Alec were free.
***
“Medic! Hey, Medic!”
Georgianna pushed herself up off the bunk, running her hand through her hair as she stepped out of the cell she had claimed as her own, moving to the edge of the upper-level balcony. It had taken a lot to gain her own cell, but her medic skills, as limited as they were without supplies, had been enough to bargain with. She leaned over the balcony to see Dhiren, one of the other prisoners, looking up at her hopefully.
“How many times?” she asked, her eyes widening in accusation.
Dhiren thought about it for a moment, or at least pretended to, before he shrugged his shoulders and grinned lopsidedly.
“Please, George,” he whined.
She rolled her eyes and stood straight. Barely glancing back into her cell, she made her way along the upper walkway towards the steps. She didn’t have much, only a few bits and pieces other inmates had given her for medicinal purposes. She didn’t think anyone would bother trying to search it in the hopes of finding anything. There were others in the block who would have much more interesting things than she did, having been here a lot longer.
Coming to the bottom of the stairs, she was greeted by Dhiren, who took hold of her wrist and began tugging her through the block. She tripped but caught herself, falling into step beside him.
“What did you do this time?” she asked, glancing sideways at him. “Or is this another ‘request’?”
Georgianna couldn’t see any bruises on his face, nor the evidence of blood pouring from a wound. However, Dhiren wasn’t exactly one to come to her to help someone else. Not many of the inmates trusted him enough to send him to fetch her, except maybe Ta-Dao or Vajra.
“Kinda personal,” Dhiren explained, leading her around the corner towards the next row of cells.
She had met the famed brothers once since her permanent arrival into the block. Vajra, having decided that he liked the idea of controlling the flow of medical care within the block, however limited it was without supplies, had sent for Georgianna. While the message had been relayed to her as a request, the look on the inmate’s face made it incredibly clear to her that this was not the sort of request you denied. In fact, it was best to consider any “request” made by either brother as an order, given with a smile that would quickly disappear if you refused. Georgianna still worried that her single occupancy cell had been influenced by the brothers. Though, if it had been, they had not demanded repayment.
Once Georgianna had reached his cell and they had exchanged the briefest of pleasantries, he had offered her protection and luxuries in return for her answering to him and his brother, Ta-Dao.
Georgianna had declined as politely as she could. She could tell that, despite the fixed smile on Vajra’s face, he didn’t approve of her answer. There was no doubt in Georgianna’s mind that it was only a matter of time before he made the request again.
Dhiren, she knew from other prisoners, was clasped within the hands of the brothers, though Georgianna couldn’t exactly see why. He was a bulky, well-built man, but from what G
eorgianna had seen of him when he came to her in the hopes of her treating a wound, Dhiren was naturally funny and kind. Unfortunately, his reputation for carrying out the punishments from the brothers made him vastly disliked amongst the other prisoners. Georgianna hadn’t asked him how he had come by his situation, but when she had taken the chance of asking another inmate, she had been greeted by a perplexed stare. There were no rumours to be heard of. Whatever had happened between Dhiren and the brothers, nobody outside the little circle knew about it, and Dhiren was not telling.
There were easily a hundred Veniche in their block, though Georgianna had never taken the time to count the number of cells. She already knew that some people shared, whether through choice or by force. Dhiren however, she knew, had his own cell in one of the corners of the block.
Dhiren stepped aside, letting Georgianna enter first. She took a few steps in, turned, then jumped in surprise when she saw that Dhiren had taken no time at all to drop his trousers. He stood before her bare from the waist down.
She was a medic, she was used to seeing people naked, but the ease with which he did it, when any inmate could walk by, had caught her off guard. Blinking, she looked away for a moment.
“Are you shy?” he asked, amusement ringing through his voice, his head cocked to the side.
Georgianna looked back at him and snorted.
“I’ve seen much worse on much better,” she claimed, earning a chuckle from Dhiren.
The cut on his upper thigh wasn’t bleeding too heavily, and even as Dhiren took a seat on the bed, letting Georgianna sit next to him for a better look, it didn’t seem to be causing him a lot of pain.
She grabbed a cloth from the basin, drenching it with tepid water and gently cleaning the wound. Dhiren did grimace as she pulled the cloth across the slice of flesh, but other than that he seemed relatively comfortable. She frowned. The wound was relatively shallow, but what was puzzling her was why it was so straight. She couldn’t imagine someone making such a straight, even wound with a glancing attack, and if it had been more premeditated than that, it would have been deeper.
“How did you do this?” she asked.
Wringing the blood from the cloth, she rinsed it through and returned to him, taking a seat. She looked at him suspiciously, only then glancing towards his trousers. There was no slash in them that she’d noticed.
“Usual way,” he answered, looking at her with an expression that clearly told her not to ask.
She pursed her lips, but shook her head, cleaning the wound off again before wringing out the cloth a final time.
Glancing at the wound, she chewed her bottom lip. Blood had oozed up to the surface, creating a thin but vibrant line, yet there it stayed, not forced up by more blood. From what she could see, it was a simple cut that would need little more than cleaning as it healed.
“Do you have anything I can wrap it with?” she asked finally.
Dhiren glanced around, leaning over and reaching under the bunk, pulling out a ratted shirt. There was a long slash running through one of the arms of the shirt, and looking at Dhiren now, she could see the scar where the slash had gone through flesh as well.
“Knife?”
They weren’t allowed knives, nor any weapons within the block, but Georgianna knew that many prisoners had been able to fashion something, if only to protect themselves. Even Georgianna had managed to trade treatment for a thin metal knife that she kept hidden in her cell or tucked into her clothes.
Dhiren reached under his blanket, pulling out a knife and holding it handle first towards Georgianna. Taking it, she flinched when she realised it had blood on it. Not a lot, but it wasn’t old. Whoever had injured Dhiren, he’d managed to inflict some pain himself.
Georgianna used the knife to cut a deep nic in the edge of the shirt. Then, grabbing each side, she tore a strip from all the way along the bottom, finally using the knife to cut through the other hem. It wasn’t the best, and certainly not clean enough, but it was the best she had in here and she hoped it would be okay on a shallow wound.
“That was a good shirt, too,” Dhiren lamented, shaking his head and taking back the knife.
She glanced at him as she sat down, sliding her fingers under his knee just enough to get him to lift his leg from the bed. She lay the strip over the wound, tugging the rest of it underneath his leg so that she could tie the ends together.
“When you sleep, take that off, it’ll heal better with some air,” she explained, picking up Dhiren’s trousers and tossing them over his lap.
He gave her a nod and lifted his closed fist to his chest in a mock Adveni salute.
“Will do, Med.” He rolled his eyes at the glare Georgianna threw his way. “George.”
She placed the knife on the bed next to him, tapped his knee and stepped out of the cell, moving back through the block.
Inmates glanced at her as she passed, but as she’d most recently been seen with Dhiren, she wasn’t all that surprised. She gave people small, reassuring smiles, but didn’t linger as she returned to her cell, climbing the steps to the upper level and along the walkway.
She didn’t notice it at first, stepping into the cell. Taking a seat, she didn’t notice anything different until she slumped down onto her side and the sound of rustling paper crinkled beneath her head.
She sat up immediately, and seeing nothing on the mattress, she wondered if she had imagined it or if it had come from one of the cells close by. But as she went to brush her hair back behind her ear a note slipped from between the locks of wavy hair.
Picking it up from the mattress, she turned it over in her fingers. A small wax seal covered a small fold, holding the paper closed, and while it was nothing fancy, just a couple of drips of candle wax, she could only wonder where an inmate had gotten a candle, not to mention why a note should be so important as to seal it. Had they placed the note in the wrong cell? She turned it over again. In rough, slim handwriting, a letter G was scrawled near the bottom corner.
It wasn’t difficult to open without tearing it. The wax came away without a fuss. When she pressed it back, wondering if it had been a secure way to seal it, the wax didn’t stick to the paper again.
She brought her legs up and tucked them underneath her, leaning back against the wall as she carefully unfolded the note. As each fold came up blank, she began to worry. Surely, she thought, if someone had gone to the effort of putting it on paper and leaving for her to find, it had to be something important that needed explanation. Finally, as she opened the last fold, the paper laying flat between her hands, she found three short lines scrawled onto the paper in the same thin handwriting as had been on the front.
She stared down at the paper in her hands. She recognised it now, at least she thought she did. The paper was the same as in her notebook. On one corner, where the sheet had been torn out, she saw a small scribble of her own handwriting.
Chewing on her bottom lip, the paper in her lap, Georgianna’s desolation slowly melted away at the sight of those words. His last words to her. His promise, unbroken.
I have too much time on my hands.
Be ready.
K.
THE OUT OF ORBIT SERIES
Thank you for reading Dead and Buryd, the first book in the “Out of Orbit” series. I hope that you have enjoyed it.
Fight or Flight, the second instalment of the series, is on sale on all eBook retailers.
Pick up your copy of Fight or Flight straight away to continue the story.
Authors rely on word of mouth as a vital part of sharing our work. Therefore, I would like to urge you to leave a review of Dead and Buryd via your retailer, or with a book sharing website such as Goodreads.
All reviews, good or bad, are very much appreciated.
Thank you for reading.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my editor, Kevin Booth, for his amazing work and support in shaping Dead and Buryd into what it is now. My gratitude also goes to Design for Writers for
the beautiful cover.
Kim and Rhian, you have both been there for in-depth discussions, rambling, ranting, and everything in between. I would not have come this far without you.
Mostly, I would like to thank my family, friends, and authors I have met on the journey to self-publishing. The unwavering support and encouragement I have received has been overwhelming.
Every day you push me to go further and dream bigger.
Thank you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chele Cooke is a Sci-Fi/Fantasy independent author based in London, UK.
Chele is an English-born writer based in London. With a degree in Creative Writing from the University of Derby, Chele has been writing for over a decade, both original fiction and fan fiction. She has a number of other original works, which are available to read free online at her website and on wattpad.com
For more information about Chele, the “Out of Orbit” series, promotions, giveaways, and future releases, visit www.chelecooke.com
Table of Contents
Days that Came Before
The Quarter Run
1 Buryd in the East
2 Ships and Supplies
3 Absent from the Guard
4 Down the Way
5 Freed-Up Time
6 The Kahle in the West
7 Love and Loss
8 The Friend in the South
9 Deal on Delivery
10 Taking them Down
11 A Twisting of Wills
12 A Promise Sold
13 Guilt in Hiding
14 The Side You’re On
15 Blood and Choice
16 Games of Escape
17 Question of Delicacy
18 Into the Northern Quarters
19 Still Not Grown