After a moment’s pause to make sure everything in his body was still as it should be, he grabbed the rope and scrambled down the outer face of his prison boundary. When he landed, he could have sworn the grass was springier on this side, the darkness more defined. The air smelled cleaner over here. He put his hands on his hips and bent forward softly, laughing to himself. He’d done it. He’d escaped.
Letting the rucksack fall to the ground, he pulled out the hunting knife and cut as far up the rope as he could before flinging it back over into the prison grounds. He rolled up the excess and stuffed it in the bag; a good bit of rope could be very handy.
Adrenalin began to seep out of his system, leaving him shaking, and he considered sitting down and taking a moment to regain his composure. Just then, the noise of the unseen animal alerted his senses. He stiffened and peered around him. The atmosphere was thick with the presence of the night and Marcus gave himself a slap to the face. Pull yourself together, he scolded, and pinched his arm to try and snap himself out of his irrational fear. Again, the fight-or-flight chemicals subsided and Marcus picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder, making steps to leave. He squinted into the darkness at the looming presence of the trees which seemed much closer than before. He almost shrieked out loud when he thought he saw one of them move. Just the wind, he told himself. His head snapped to the right as another movement caught his attention and the trees loomed even closer.
Nothing. Was it nothing? He kept his gaze to the right but walked straight on. The grass rustled under his feet, then beyond them. Flicking his eyes about, he tried to focus on the forest, which seemed to be closing in around him. He suddenly felt queasy and claustrophobic as a tree spoke to him.
“Going somewhere?”
He fell back into the sodden grass as laughing and cackling bounced and echoed all around him. Without any warning, it began to rain and the figures huddled in, their wet hands grabbing and clutching at him, pulling him to his feet. All fight left him and he lolled about as they heaved him along. He fell into himself and hovered above the scene hopelessly. Like that moment when one knows they are dreaming but can’t wake up, he flailed and writhed in angry silence as the flaccid body below surrendered. It was then he saw the blood oozing down his own face. He’d been struck. With one last effort, he tried to kick his body back into action but it was no good; he was losing consciousness. A flicker of hope glinted deep inside him. Maybe, maybe he’d have time to find her before he woke up.
Filtering out the laughter and woozy jolts that threatened to pull him back into the physical, Marcus focused all of his energy and attention on Deborah.
He swelled his heart and called to hers, a yearning song of longing. The echo ricocheted through the ethereal plane of the meeting point and returned like a boomerang right into the center of his soul.
“Deborah!” His spirit quaked with the sob that overtook him. Cold flecks began to slash at his flesh. Raindrops. Fighting to stay in the meeting point, he called again, “Deborah!” but his voice was weak.
A dragging sensation in his back dropped him suddenly back into his body. Just as the last cell met with spirit, Marcus heard it. A pinprick of sound from eons away; the most glorious sound.
“Marcus?”
Chapter 22
“Marcus?” Deborah woke abruptly, banging her head on the metal bed frame. Sweat drenched her sheets and nightshirt and blood began to trickle into her eyes. She was completely dazed. What had just happened? She must have been dreaming but the memory of it eluded her.
The breeze from the open window raised goose bumps on her damp flesh, and she pulled a rumpled blanket around her shoulders. Her head was throbbing and she tentatively reached up with her fingertips. Warm, sticky blood oozed out from what felt like a deep gash just at her hairline. She knew scalp wounds always spewed out more blood than necessary so she pulled her pillowcase free and pressed it to the cut.
When she’d got over the initial shock and pain, Deborah leaned back against the stone wall and breathed in though her nose with her lip quivering. A familiar aroma filled her nostrils—so familiar that, for a moment, she couldn’t place it. Musk, spice, earth, man.
Marcus. He’d found her.
Deborah fell forward into her own lap and wept.
* * * *
Marcus writhed and twisted; hot blood seared his vision red. A series of arms and hands were carrying him awkwardly, half dragging, half lifting for a while, then dumped him rather abruptly at the feet of what he assumed to be a head farm keeper. His head was pounding and he squinted into the lamp that both illuminated and obscured the woman.
“I see you’ve tried to escape.” The voice sounded more amused than angry.
“How did you know?” Marcus had thought he’d been vigilant about checking for cameras around the farm grounds on his walks. Besides, who ran cameras these days? There would be barely enough power to sustain this lamp that was intensifying the pain in his head.
“Let’s just say your friend was a little careless.”
Katja. Marcus’s heart sank. He’d never wanted to get her into trouble. “Where is she?”
The woman paced around in the shadows as if deciding what to do with him. “Oh, she’s being taken care of. Don’t worry about her.”
“Will she be coming back? Will I see her again?”
“That depends,” the woman said ominously.
“On what?” Marcus was struggling to keep his eyes open under the glare.
“On how you both take your punishment.”
“Punishment?” A soft smile flitted over Marcus’s lips as his eyes closed fully and his body went slack.
* * * *
“So what happened to you?” Jane helped bundle the blood-stained linen into the laundry cart. “That looks like a bad ’un.”
“I’m fine. Come on.” Deborah pulled her head away as Jane attempted to look at the cut in her hair.
“I think you need stitches, miss,” she said, but Deborah dismissed her. She needed to get to her notebook. She needed to call to Marcus—to meet him before it was too late.
“Please, Jane, I’m fine. Just take me to the lab.”
“If you insist.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Deborah could see a twinkle to Jane’s expression. “What’s up with you today?” she asked the guard.
“I’m not supposed to say. It’s a surprise.”
“What surprise?” The guard’s obvious excitement was infectious and Deborah smiled, taking the liberty of prodding Jane in the side gently. “Oh, come on, don’t be mean. Tell me. Is it a surprise for me?”
Jane looked sideways, her eyes giving everything away.
“Maybe…” She smiled and Deborah’s heart leaped. Marcus! Somehow the governor had managed to sneak Marcus in—or at the very least got a message through. She wasn’t too enamored by the second option when the best had come to her first, but it was good way to keep her centered in reality. She couldn’t help her physiology though—her heart genuinely raced and joy burst through her lungs. Instinctively, she hooked her arm through Jane’s and began to skip.
The guard looked quickly from side to side and up at the cameras mounted in the corners of the ceiling.
“Come on, everyone knows they’re never switched on,” joked Deborah, and Jane relaxed and started skipping properly too.
“I told the governor you weren’t daft enough to believe stuff like that. Who has enough power to keep cameras on all day?”
Deborah’s jaw fell open and she looked away as quickly as she could, the two of them bouncing along and giggling like school friends. More information to be stored away for a rainy day, she thought, licking her lips in anticipation of seeing Marcus again.
Deborah was trembling from head to toe when they arrived at the lab door. Jane reached past her with the keys poised but Deborah stopped her.
“Wait,” she said, remembering her injury. She touched the cut, feeling the dried blood crusting into her hair and forehead.
“Do I look all right?” She knew the question was absurd but was touched when Jane offered her comfort.
“You always look beautiful, Miss Deborah.” Jane gently tucked a matted lock of hair behind Deborah’s ear and smiled.
“Okay, then let’s go in.” A lump in her throat made Deborah’s voice crack and she took a deep breath before walking under Jane’s outstretched arm and into the lab.
“Surprise!”
Deborah stopped in her tracks as the governor nudged forward a sullen-looking woman with lank, straggly hair and thick, pouting lips.
“May I present your new assistant, Katja.” The huge, self-satisfied smile waned from the governor’s mouth as Deborah kept silent.
The atmosphere was thick with disappointment and rage. The woman she’d been presented with left Deborah cold.
“I don’t need an assistant,” Deborah hissed through her teeth, trying very hard to hold back her tears. Why was she feeling like this? She was a rational person; how could this have surprised and upset her in such a profound way? That bang to the head must have been harder than she first thought.
“Jane.” The governor spoke, breaking the icy silence. “Please show the new prisoner to her cell. We will call her back later.”
“I doubt that,” said Deborah, staring stonily out of the window.
When the door had closed, the governor strode right up to Deborah, pressing herself close with a steely look in her eye.
“Don’t think you can be smart with me just because you’ve come in my lap, prisoner 222.”
Deborah could smell the woman’s sweet breath but remained stiff in front of her. “I don’t know what you want me to do here. This lab is a joke. The samples aren’t real. Nothing is sterile.”
“I know.” The governor relaxed and retreated back into her heels. “I just wanted you to believe you could do it. We could do it.”
“I did believe it. Now I feel stupid.”
“You are most certainly not stupid,” the governor said in a soothing voice and reached out to touch the wound on Deborah’s forehead.
“Don’t.” Deborah pushed the woman’s hand away. “What do you expect me to do with that girl you sent?”
The governor looked unsure of herself, but only for a second. “Listen, I need someone to rehabilitate prisoners quickly and send them back out to work. We don’t have enough of a workforce to be keeping people in prisons. If you can make her sorry…”
“Are you asking me to do what I think you’re asking?”
“You seem to have a knack for domination.” The governor gave Deborah a seductive smile and looked her over from head to toe and back again, hovering on her breasts, which gave her nakedness away under her tunic. “I think you know all about the power you wield.”
Deborah was still confused. She was a prisoner herself.
“What are you talking about?” She straightened to her full height, trying to give the impression that she was not a trembling, quaking mess on the inside. “I am your prisoner. I have no power here. And besides, what you are asking of me—corporal punishment is illegal!”
“Exactly.” The governor smiled enigmatically and slowly played with a key which hung from a chain around her neck. Deborah had never noticed it before. “I want this facility to be the best of its kind. I want prisoners fully rehabilitated and back out into the world before any others. And I believe the only way to do that is to teach them a lesson the old-fashioned way.”
It began to dawn on Deborah why she was the chosen one.
“So if I’m the bitch smacking inmates around, you’ll get your results without dirtying any of your guards’ reputations.”
“I told you that you weren’t stupid.” The governor smiled a wide, excited smile.
“I’m no sadist,” Deborah hissed. “I will not hit or beat another person.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. Only women who’ve been vetted and advised of their options will come to you. They’ll be falling over themselves to get in on the act. What would you prefer—to be locked up indefinitely in a corrupt system, or get a couple of weeks with a few expert lashings, then home free to the rest of your life? And besides, they might even enjoy it.”
“I don’t think I’m the one with the choices here,” said Deborah wryly. It seemed clear that she was not being giving the option for early release.
“I can feel what’s simmering under the surface here, prisoner 222,” whispered the governor, leaning in and pulling Deborah close with one hand clasped in the back of her hair. “I can feel your need.” With the other hand, she reached down between Deborah’s thighs and slowly rubbed the fabric of her tunic against her swelling lips. “There will be rewards. Many rewards. Help me make my prison the best.”
Deborah’s eyes fluttered closed as the governor gripped her hair more tightly and pulled her head back, exposing her neck. She loved the way it felt to have her throat so vulnerable. She imagined the gentle, rhythmic swell of her pulse just below the surface. How pretty. How delicate. A sudden rush of strength coursed through her; she flicked out of the hold and snatched the governor’s grip from her, reversing the power. Now the other woman’s neck was deliciously exposed.
“And it will be only those who want it?”
The governor nodded with her head stretched back. Deborah followed the line of the chain down past the governor’s collarbone and into her cleavage. Her breasts rose fully and retreated with every breath, arousal emanating from every pore. Deborah reached between them and held the key in her fingertips.
“Take it,” said the governor. “It’s yours.”
Deborah was not so naïve to think it might be the key to the front door but was intrigued enough to yank it sharply, breaking the chain and leaving an angry red line around the governor’s neck.
“Where’s it for?”
The woman tossed her head sideways to indicate one of the locked cupboards Deborah had tried to open the other day in her quest for equipment. Her heart sank. Now she was getting beakers and burners? The thought of spending any more time on fruitless, hopeless research made Deborah ill.
“Go on,” urged the woman, and Deborah let go of her hair, pulling a few strands out unnecessarily. She stumbled with the release and rubbed the back of her scalp. “Go on.”
Deborah eyed the woman suspiciously before slowly making her way to the cupboard door. The key slipped in beautifully and she braced herself for the shelves of dusty old beakers and holders to disappoint her.
The door resisted her attempt at opening it so she tried pulling harder.
“Push,” whispered the governor, which ignited a spark of excitement in Deborah. Cupboards didn’t usually open inward…
The door swung open at Deborah’s touch to reveal a darkened bedroom. Not an ordinary bedroom—it was strange, mostly due to the lack of windows but also because of its apparent opulence, hidden away in a scruffy concrete prison block. She couldn’t help but let her jaw fall open at the sight of the bed as she found the switch and turned on the overhead lights. They were dim and flickering but it was enough to show the faded grandeur. A four-poster bed piled high with cushions and furs enticed Deborah forward into the heart of the boudoir...wasn’t it every girl’s dream to have a ‘boudoir’? She took a quick glance back to see the governor eying her approvingly then pranced over and bounced onto the bed, bouncing around in the whirlwind of dust that billowed around her. The simple act of flouncing on a huge bed made her joyful and her heart leaped along with her as she coughed and spluttered among the motes.
Deborah’s attention was caught by the governor, who stood smiling in the doorway.
“Do you like it?” she asked, leaning against the door frame with a hand on her hip.
“Of course.” Deborah flopped back into the layers of bedding and stared up at the thick wooden canopy of the opulent four-poster. “But at what price?”
The air was stale but in a familiar, historic way—like sneaking a look in a grandparent’s wardrobe. For a moment
or two, Deborah felt cocooned in time. The mattress dipped and she rolled to where the governor was climbing up beside her.
“So, you want me to punish women for being bad in this place?”
The governor pulled Deborah up from her prone position. “No,” she said, hauling her off the bed. “Not in here. This will be your bedroom.”
Deborah squealed inwardly and held the governor’s hand tight as she was led to another door.
“This is where you will punish bad women,” the governor said.
The door opened on to a very dark room.
“Wait here.” The governor darted inside and Deborah heard the scratch and strike of a match. The flickering flame went from candle to candle all around the room until it was glowing in warm light.
Deborah walked into the center of the illumination, barely taking her eyes off the little flames.
“Look,” whispered the governor as she crept up behind Deborah and breathed into her hairline.
Deborah’s skin bristled with excitement as she took in the sight. Another room, just as opulent as the first, with a beautiful chaise longue and walls lined in velvet. There were fur rugs on the floor and brass candelabras on polished wooden tables, as far as she could see through the film of dust which seemed to coat everything.
“What is this place?” she asked, stepping about cautiously and quietly fingering the fabrics. Oh, the sensuality of velvet under her touch! All her senses were on high alert—she was thrown back to the memory of playing hide-and-seek as a child in a distant relative’s house. The bubbling anticipation of being caught, the tremor of excitement from finding and exploring a new place, a place where she ought not to have been…
“Isn’t it magnificent?” The governor was obviously delighted with herself at sharing this secret treasure. “It used to belong to the various councilmen who ran these places.”
Taking Flight Page 17