The Stolen Princess: A YA Dystopian Romance (Desolation Book 3)

by Kortney Keisel

  “The door had some sort of air-tight seal on it that helped preserve everything inside. Of course, I had to shoot the lock and the door so I could get it open.”

  “It’s amazing,” she said.

  “If you think that’s amazing, wait until you see what’s inside.”

  A small smile spread across her lips as she approached the building. Her fingers danced along the cool metal, taking in its magnificence. She touched every crusted piece of rust, every scrape. It had been damaged in places, and yet it still stood.

  Drake held the door open for her, and she swallowed back a new set of butterflies in her stomach—butterflies of excitement from a world lost long ago. Myka stepped over the threshold and was immediately assaulted with a damp, earthy smell. The bomb shelter was enormous, with ceilings at least twenty feet high. It was long and rectangular and filled with items—pre-Desolation treasures that had been spared the elements and turmoil of the past.

  It was the most incredible thing she had ever seen, better than the artifact room back at Tolsten House. She looked at Drake as if asking for permission to touch and explore. He nodded back at her with a smile that said he understood her excitement.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  Myka walked to the table in front of her, running her fingers on top of the white plastic, grazing them over the logo etched into it, reading it out loud, “Lifetime.” On top of the table were gadgets and things that she had never seen before.

  He pointed to a black machine in front of them with different shaped buttons on the front of it. “I don’t know exactly what this machine did, but I think it went with the discs next to it. And if you read the back of their cases, some of them mention the word music, so I’m guessing it was some sort of music player.”

  Myka thumbed through the stack of square plastic cases. Each one had a colorful picture, design, or name on top. She began at the top of the pile and read the words on each case like book spines. “ABBA, AC DC, The Beatles, Carrie Underwood, Ed Sheeran…” She smiled to herself. “They’re alphabetized.”

  “Yeah.”

  Next to the music player were stacks and stacks of books that Myka had never heard of or seen before. Then there were piles of colorful boxes stacked on top of each other—Monopoly, Mancala, Ticket to Ride, Blokus. There was a clear plastic bag with some sort of zipper lock. Inside were stacks of cards, all with different names on them, Uno, Rook, Five Crowns, Phase 10.

  “I’ve tried to leave everything mostly as it was when I found it,” Drake explained.

  “Do you know what all this stuff was used for or why it was in here?” she asked.

  He moved beside her. “I think that everything in here was important to the families who hid in the shelter during Desolation. Essential items for survival.”

  She looked around, noticing the couch in the back facing a black screen hanging on the wall that could only be a television. Cords hung down from the TV, connecting to a box on the ground. Four black steering wheel looking things with buttons all over them lay next to the little black box. In the back corner, there were mattresses with pillows and blankets and another table with empty Kirkland’s Choice boxes on them. There were three blue jugs at least four feet tall that sat on the floor next to the table. Next to those were six smaller red jugs that had pipes sticking out of the top. Myka could see how some of the items might have been essential for their survival, but then she looked at the TV. If they only had their essential items, what was that doing in the shelter?

  “Not all of this could have been essential,” she said, kicking her toe up against a large square machine that sat on the ground. The metal on top was red, and it had bars that ran along each side, and a set of wheels on the bottom so it could easily be pulled around. “I mean, did they really need to bring this thing?” Myka bent down, wiping the dust off of the side so she could read what it said. “Craftsman Generator 3500 Watt.” She raised her eyebrows at Drake. “See. Who needs a machine that generates 3500 crafts when you’re trying to survive?” She shook her head. “Not essential.”

  Drake laughed, a beautiful, deep sound, and she had to turn away, or he might see the flush growing up her cheeks.

  Really, Myka had no idea what most of the items were. She had read a lot and spent hours in the artifact room at Tolsten House, but all of those items were broken pieces of history. This bomb shelter was the entire picture, and she liked guessing what life might have been like before Desolation, even if she was wrong.

  Drake’s lips twitched. “You seem to know a lot about pre-Desolation artifacts. Maybe you could explain what some of the rest of this stuff was for.”

  Myka didn’t like his smug expression; it was like he had guessed that she wasn’t as smart as she let on. He raised his eyebrows, and there was a glint in his brown eyes that annoyed her and thrilled her at the same time. Or maybe she was annoyed with his handsome face. That was a major possibility. Short stubble spread across his cheeks and around his mouth, perfectly showcasing his smooth lips. Myka wanted to run the palm of her hand over his face just to feel the rough hair against her skin. Or she could slap that smug look off of his face. That would be an easy and satisfying way to feel the stubble.

  “I’d be happy to explain what some of these items are,” she smiled back at him as she slowly walked around the room.

  Drake

  Bringing Myka to the bomb shelter he’d found had not been in Drake’s plans, and neither were the feelings that were lingering in his chest. But after last night, something had shifted inside of him. He could pretend that he was trying to gain her trust, but that would be a lie. He cared for Myka. Now all he wanted to do was protect her and make sure she was all right.

  Drake leaned against the back of the couch, crossing his arms and his legs. He figured he better settle in for whatever ridiculousness she was about to conjure up. His mind raced back to the first day they had met at Rommel’s house. One of the first things that he had liked about her was how she had pretended to know what Joett’s medicines were for. It was something that Trev would do, a mixture of arrogance and silliness. Drake hadn’t realized how much Myka reminded him of his friend or even how much he’d liked that about her.

  “I’ve been wondering what that was,” he said, pointing at one of the small colorful boxes stacked on the table with the word Trouble on it.

  Myka picked it up, examining it for a moment. She opened the box, letting the tiny colorful cups fall onto the table. “Oh, this is easy,” she said. “This was a behavior chart that parents used for their children. Each time their child was in trouble, parents would move the little pieces over to the next slot. If the child got all of their pieces in the middle, then they would get punished. The number thingy told them how many punishments they would get.”

  “Really?” Drake raised his eyebrows. He was pretty sure that Trouble was some sort of game. “Seems like they’re giving their kids a lot of chances to make mistakes before they get punished.”

  “Have you ever been with children?” she asked. “They love to push boundaries.”

  “I see.”

  “Speaking of children, have you seen this bin labeled toys?” She picked up a naked twelve-inch doll with blonde hair that stood up in every direction. “They encouraged their children to play with anatomically incorrect, naked miniature humans.” She held up the doll and shook it in front of him. “That’s messed up. No wonder their civilization got destroyed.”

  Drake placed his hand over his lips, hiding his smile as he watched Myka walk around the room.

  “Now this was essential,” she said, holding up a yellow football helmet with a big G on both sides. The helmet was signed by someone named Brett Favre.

  “Yeah? What was that used for?” he asked, acting like he didn’t already know, but he and Trev had learned all about pre-Desolation football when they were young. There was something exciting about a game where you could tackle someone on purpose and no one got mad.

  “They used this as prot
ection,” she said.

  “Protection from what?”

  “From bullets.” She knocked on the helmet. “This was part of the attire the American army wore.” She gestured to the rest of the football uniform that hung on the wall like a souvenir. “This soldier’s name was,” she tilted her head as she read the back of the jersey, “Fav-ray, and he was in the army for four years.”

  Drake did his best to keep a straight face. “Oh, is that what the number four is about?”

  “Yep,” she nodded, putting the helmet down. She picked up the mouth guard sitting on the table and brought it to her lips for a demonstration but stopped short of actually putting it in her mouth. That would have been gross. “This protected the soldiers’ teeth. And this,” she picked up a protective cup with her other hand, “was some kind of oxygen mask.”

  Drake rolled his lips together, trying to hold in his laugh as she lifted the cup up to her face fitting it over her nose and mouth.

  “I think that protected something else,” he said with a smirk.

  She bent her brows together and shook her head. “Like what?” Her words were muffled under the cup.

  Drake pointed down. “Like little Fav-ray.”

  “Ew, gross.” Her eyes went wide, and she pulled the cup away from her face. “Well, that explains the smell.”

  Drake couldn’t hold it back any longer. Laughter burst out of him.

  She pursed her lips together, pointing at him. “Do not laugh,” she warned.

  “Or what?” He raised his eyebrows in a flirtatious way.

  “Or I will be forced to hold you down and put it on your face.”

  The pinning him down part sounded kind of nice, but the other part didn’t.

  Myka continued to walk through the room and Drake followed after her. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately—following after Myka. He’d never been in this position before. Usually, women followed after him.

  “What did the other men say about the shelter?” she asked.

  “I haven’t told them about it.”

  She glanced his way. “Oh.”

  He liked having this special secret, something that only the two of them shared.

  Myka

  Myka spent the next hour walking around the shelter, sifting through the items. She tried not to think about the fact that Drake had brought her here and no one else. It didn’t mean anything. Really, this stuff was the property of Tolsten. It needed to be transferred to the Tolsten House artifact room, so that was probably why Drake had thought to show her.

  She made her way to the corner of the room where the mattresses had been set up. On top was a big pile of blankets and pillows, and Myka found herself wondering about the people who had stayed there. How long had they been trapped in this bomb shelter, hiding out from the catastrophes of the world? In some ways, they were like her, a prisoner locked inside a life that they didn’t want.

  On the floor next to the mattress was a trunk of clothes.

  “That’s where I found the shirt and pants you’re wearing now,” Drake said, walking past her. “I would have brought you more, but there wasn’t anything else in there that I thought would work.”

  Myka nodded. Her hands lingered over another plastic basket full of what she assumed were bathroom supplies. Some of the objects, like a toothbrush, were familiar. This was probably where Drake had found the hairbrush and mirror. She rummaged through the bucket, lifting up an item that almost looked like a thick gun. The faded word Conair was on the side, and a long cord was attached out the bottom. She put it down, looking over the other items, wondering if there was anything else in there that women used back then that they didn’t have now. A small orange bottle with a white lid caught her eye, and she rotated it so she could see the label. She read the words in her mind. Harper, Madison. Xanax 2 milligrams. Take one to two every four to six hours for anxiety. No more than five per day. Do not mix with alcohol. It was pre-Desolation medicine. Myka had read about stuff like this before. Their strong drugs and medicine were addictive, and if people took too much, the drugs could become deadly. She wondered who Madison Harper was and how long she’d had to live in the bomb shelter. What had she died from? How old was she, and what had caused her anxiety?

  Myka glanced at Drake. He was ten feet away, looking through some old plastic cases that said PS 6 on them. She looked back at the medication in her hand, and an idea popped into her head. Did she dare take the bottle back to the shack with her? The medicine might not work anymore. It had an expiration date on it of about two hundred years ago, but what if it did work? What if she could use it against her kidnappers so that she could escape? Her eyes darted to Drake again. Would she be willing to use the drugs on him? Each day, things were shifting and changing between them, and she couldn’t explain it. Maybe she didn’t even want to escape from him. This was a classic example of why a person should never get close to their kidnapper. She shook her head. Drake probably hadn’t thought twice when he had kidnapped her. Why would she think twice about escaping? Her hands closed over the bottle, and she placed it in her jacket pocket. When they got back to the shack, she would find a place to hide the pills just in case she decided to use them.

  23

  Myka

  “Looks like more rain today,” Portlend said as he stood around the fire that afternoon, eating his lunch. He tilted his head up, searching the thick gray clouds above them.

  Myka hadn’t said anything to any of the other men since she had stormed off yesterday after reading her father’s letter. She didn’t want to say anything to them. They weren’t like Drake. He was the only operative she could trust, and after they’d spent the morning together in the bomb shelter, she felt like he was starting to trust her too.

  Drake leaned over her, holding a plate of food. He peered at her with eyes that seemed to know her. A soft smile touched his lips as his knees brushed up against hers, and the whole heart racing thing began again. They were knees, for heaven’s sake! There was nothing even remotely romantic about knees knocking against someone else’s, and yet, here she was, trying not to drop her entire plate of food into her lap.

  They had gone from enemies to something else. Something that felt kind of like friends? Buddies? People of the opposite sex who look at each other a lot? Myka didn’t know, and her lack of experience with men made her feel like she would never figure it out.

  After lunch, they walked side by side to the river.

  “How are you feeling about your father’s letter?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she finally said. It was the truth. She didn’t know what she was feeling. It was like she had come out from behind her father’s lies, and now she stood in the middle of it all. His lifetime of secrets was suddenly her truth—her future.

  It had taken almost a week for her to finally believe the truth about her father. A week didn’t seem like enough time to turn off love between a daughter and a father, but somewhere deep down, she must have known all along.

  She’d probably been scared of the truth, but Myka was tired of living in fear. Fear that her father was going to die. Fear that she had nothing to offer Tolsten. Fear that everyone she loved would abandon her. She didn’t want to live that way anymore. She wasn’t the woman whom she intended to be, and for some reason, she’d been okay with that for the last four years, but she wasn’t okay with it now. She wanted to be better than her mother had been. Better than her father.

  She turned to Drake, determination in her eyes. “What can I do to help Tolsten?”

  He gave her a sideways smile. “What do you mean?”

  “What’s the plan to save Tolsten from the mess my father created?”

  His smile widened. “Are we on the same team now?”

  Her change probably seemed sudden to Drake, but she’d been veering and moving to Drake’s side for the last couple of days, and now it was time to act.

  Myka was willing to risk everything to fix what her father had broken. That’s what she’d be
doing if she joined Drake. She’d be risking it all—her relationship with her father, her role as princess, her standing with the High Rulers, her position among the ruling class—it would all go up in flames the moment she crossed that line. The stakes of the situation weren’t lost on her. She’d have no future and no family to turn to. Drake would be the only person left, and she didn’t want to be on the opposite side of him anymore. She wanted to be next to him, fighting for a better Tolsten and a better world.

  “I’m on your side,” she said. “That is, if you’re okay with it.”

  “I kind of liked being your enemy.” His voice was playful.

  “Oh, don’t worry, I still hate you.” Myka laughed, hitting him on the arm, then she froze.

  Shoot.

  Playful arm hitting? What was she thinking? That was a sure sign of flirting, and she and Drake didn’t flirt, not really.

  Then he did something unexpected. He nudged her with his shoulder.

  A shoulder nudge!

  First, arm hitting, then a shoulder nudge. What was Myka supposed to think about that? They’d only been on the same side for two whole seconds.

  Maybe it was accidental. She hadn’t intentionally hit him on the arm. It had just happened. Were there such things as accidental shoulder nudges too? Did people walk around accidentally bumping into others like it was some kind of body spasm they couldn’t control? It didn’t seem likely, but Myka wasn’t going to rule it out.

  She glanced sideways at him. “Thank you,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For comforting me last night.”

  “It was nothing,” he said shaking his head.

  “It was something to me. You’re a really good…” her words drifted off. Kidnapper? Friend? Since she didn’t have a good answer she decided to move on. “Anyway, I think I got snot on your shirt.”