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I managed to force out two more words, somehow.

“Kill. You.”

“My, my. There is such emotion in the lesser species.”

With that, he turned and left. Brade and the guards followed, then the door slammed. Locking me in alone with my agony, shame, and seething hatred.

26

Days passed.

I think.

Without a clock—without the visible changing of worker shifts, or something like the forges back home going from fabrication to the softer simmering of reclamation…well, it was tough to tell time. Almost like I was in the nowhere again.

The only way I had of tracking it was when my drugs were administered. Every twelve hours, using Old Earth time…maybe. I was relying on an unpracticed interpretation of a vague representation that Comfort had given me. And ifIwere holding a captive, I would have mixed up the length of time between doses—often coming when one wasn’t needed—just to keep the captive disoriented. So I felt I couldn’t rely on that, or feeding times—the arrival of fresh ration bars.

I quickly came to understand why solitude, in the stories, was often considered as terrible a punishment as physical torture. When I’d been captured by the Broadsiders, I’d been able to learn about them. Spend time around them. That had helped me formulate an escape. Here…any plan was just a way to temporarily distract myself from my mounting despair.

And that despair was acute.

I’d been outthought at each point. Brade had weaponized my tantrums—and the way they broke through inhibitors—almost before I’d realized what was happening. They’d anticipated each of my ploys to escape, and had been waiting for me. They’d beenreadyto kill Comfort.

I was supposed to have been able to save her.

Damn it, I was supposed to be thehero.

Save my friends.

Her dying plea vibrated my soul. Haunting me. But the drugs, whatever they were, cut me off from Chet. That meant no tantrum, no matter how painful for me, made the air around me warp. All along, that ability hadn’t been mine, it seemed, but his—and this drug prevented our melding from functioning as it once had.

The only useful thing I could do was watch the guards. They were my lone viable access to the outside world. I hoped that listening to their conversations would give me some kind of intel. But unfortunately, intel was easier to get from people who were actually intelligent. These guards didn’t seem to know anything relevant, and mostly talked about how bored they were. Still, I made notations about their shift changes, tying knots in my bedsheet to mark each one. I watched carefully, through the slot on the door, for any opportunities I could use.

They rotated in shifts of five—but twooverlappingshifts of five. That meant ten were watching me most of the time. Occasionally five, but never zero.

By what I thought was the fourth day of my imprisonment, I’d started identifying individuals. One set in particular tended to go off shift a little early, consistently leaving only the other five watching. Maybe I could…

Maybe I could what? I pulled away from the door, feeling like an utter fool. It didn’t matter. I’d tried every trick I could to get that door to open. The only time it did, it was followed by weapons fire.I’d tried hiding at the side of the room before they entered,but that time they’d tossed a gas grenade in, which nearly knocked me out,thenthey’d stunned me anyway and stuck me with the needle.

I was trapped, well and truly. With a sinking feeling, I finally understood how someone could spend decades in a prison and never escape, like in the stories. I’d always thought I would be clever, strong, or perceptive enough to get myself out of such a situation. Yet here I was, completely powerless. They could keep me in this cell until I died of old age. I slumped down on my bunk and bit into one of my rations.

My teethclinkedagainst something inside.

I pulled the ration bar back, staring at the shining bit of metal in the mashed-up protein paste. Scud. I had no idea what that was, but I suspected that they had a camera watching me somewhere in here, so I pretended nothing had happened. I flopped down on the bunk, rolled to my side, and there feigned nibbling on the bar. While secretly I figured out what was inside it.

A key. Not an old-fashioned one like in the stories, but an electronic one. You pressed it to the door, and the mechanism unlocked. I’d seen them on the guards’ belts.

How in Genghis’s bloody name had someone snuck me a key? And who would do such a thing?

The guard shift,I thought, listening to the movements outside.Those five have left.Early, as normal.

Could I take out the five who remained? One woman against five armed soldiers?

I knew I might never have another chance to find out. Maybe this was a trap, but either I tried to escape now, or I’d ride out the rest of the war in this little room. So I heaved a sigh, palmed the key, and sauntered over to the door. There, I pretended to be watching the guards like I usually did. I didn’t open the door immediately. I waited, hoping that anyone watching via camera would grow lax.

I waited until the guards were chatting together, complaining about thoseotherguards, who were so negligent they always leftearly. Then, guessing this was as distracted as they’d ever be, I pressed the key to the door—and felt the mechanism unlock.

Unfortunately, one of the guards noticed. So I revised my plan and waited until that one wandered over to look at the door, head cocked. Then I slammed the door open, shoving it right into their face.