Page 191 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Noa

My legs were shaking by the time I was finished with the suites and all the extra work.

Polishing the silver lights from the top-floor hallway and the two stairwells had left my hands cramped and stained with black.

I was done so late that I’d missed the evening meal, but my stomach was still fairly satisfied after that delicious food from Luka’s room.

It was a struggle to get the hovercart into the storage in the basement, my tired body just not managing the snug maneuver like normal.

When a soft little chirp pierced the silence, I thought at first that I was imagining things.

Then a little head poked out from between a wad of dirty towels, a huge tuft of white fur surrounding a black face.

Pato, Luka’s pet monkey, had smuggled himself out in my hovercart, and I hadn’t noticed all day.

“Hey, what are you doing here, silly?” I said softly.

Casting a furtive look over my shoulder, I made sure I was alone before I nudged the door shut behind me.

I stuck out a hand slowly, not wanting to spook him, but he wasn’t bothered.

“Come here, Pato. I guess you can stay with me tonight.”

At the sound of my voice, he popped out of his hiding place and scurried up my arm.

I unbuttoned the top of my uniform, and he needed no prompting to climb inside.

Now, I just hoped he’d stay quiet as I made my way back to my bunk.

I was going to be in a lot of trouble if anyone found out I had the little monkey with me.

First, I shook out the towels Pato had slept in and was about to throw them down the laundry chute when something clattered to the ground—a card.

I stared at it, unsure if what I was seeing was real.

That was an access card for all the amenities in the hotel.

My palm print was only keyed for the hotel rooms, the kitchen, and the basement.

With this, I could access the resort itself and, more importantly, the spaceport just outside the protective dome.

My mind started racing with possibilities as I praised Pato for the excellent theft of the card.

Stepping out of my shoe, I hid the card inside, trying not to show how giddy I was as I headed to my bunk.

All my exhaustion fell away, my only thought being that I wished I could share this fortuitous find with Luka.

My bunkmate was already asleep. An Aderian woman named Mikasul, the story was that she’d crossed the Dragon.

She only worked in the kitchen because nobody was meant to know she was there.

I didn’t like the middle-aged woman—nobody did—because she was mean and spiteful.

She tattled on anyone if it could gain her perks or give her a leg up somewhere.

So, it was imperative I hid Pato and the card from her prying eyes.

I didn’t trust that she was asleep, so I climbed onto my bunk—the top one. Undressing furtively in the dark, I curled beneath my blankets, protectively wrapping myself around Pato’s small body, clutching the card tightly between my fingers.

The crinkling of an empty wrapper was what alerted me that someone had attempted to care for me—Aradne or Moira, most likely. One of them had tried to sneak me food. Mikasul had eaten it, and she’d left the wrapper to rub it in. To let me know I couldn’t hide things from her.

I clutched the card tighter, thoughts and plans whirling through my head. My stomach rumbled just a little at the thought of that missed meal. I tried to tell the little monkey that he needed to stay quiet, but it took a very long time for me to fall asleep.

Especially when I remembered how the Dragon had just slipped a casual mention of a fiancée into the conversation that morning.

Luka was engaged, apparently—not that he’d sounded all that enthused about it.

There was this stubborn niggle of doubt in the back of my head.

How many rich guys had flirted with me back on Colony Four?

Rich guys who were blatantly engaged but didn’t give a single shit about being caught cheating?

I couldn’t stand that type. And while Luka was saying he was a captive, while everything pointed toward this being the truth, a part of me did worry.

*

Luka

I couldn’t find Pato anywhere, and I was really starting to get worried. I could only think of one thing that could have happened: he’d snuck off with Noa. I didn’t know for sure, though, and it was the not knowing that was driving me crazy.

More than anything, I wanted to see her again.

After my mother had left, I was worried that she’d do something to her—take out her frustrations.

I’d done what I could to warn her off after she noticed my interest in the human female, but I feared that my mother would figure out a way to get me to play her games.

Pacing through my suite, I’d spent all afternoon and evening trying to work on an escape plan.

The only thing I knew for sure was that running for the resort’s spaceport next door was sure to fail; my mother would have all kinds of fail-safes in place to prevent me from getting away through that port.

She had no control over the small landing strip next to the science outpost, however, so when Noa and I made our break for it, it had to be there.

There was no doubt in my mind that I’d be escaping with Noa, I was not leaving her behind.

Not when we’d created some kind of dependency on each other that I had to figure out, not when it would make her sick enough to die.

The medkit and handheld had been taken back as soon as I’d used them on Noa. I’d thankfully had the foresight to delete all data from the device before I handed it over. I shuddered to think what my mother would do if she got hold of the information I’d gleaned through that scan of Noa that day.

If only I’d had the foresight to also gather a hypo-spray or syringe with a sedative.

If I had something like that, I could be certain I’d manage to knock out the guard.

With a few more tools, I knew I could take care of Noa’s slave collar.

Knowing that that pretty white lace hid such a horrible tool…

I didn’t think I’d ever look at lace the same way again—not that I’d ever given it much thought before.

When breakfast was brought up that morning by the tall Xurtal woman with the sharp, filed-down teeth, she had a message for me.

“Pato is safe,” she huffed at me in a gruff voice that fit with her muscular build.

I didn’t have to look twice to know that this female had been forced to fight in a gladiator ring.

The even more underground, female-only kind.

She was old enough to have aged out of the ring but attractive enough that, in her uniform, she matched the aesthetic my mother liked.

“Thank you. Is he with Noa?” I asked her, but she didn’t say another word, just stalked from the room.

Whew, okay, her emotional temperature was indifferent at most, but she was clearly not a talker.

At least now I knew where Pato was, and that Noa was okay; otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to relay a message like this.

When a tailor arrived later that morning, I saw my chance, stealing a pair of plain scissors and some needles from her toolkit. Next time Noa came in, I’d have that pain collar disabled in a moment; if she’d trust me to work on it.

Only she never showed up that day; another girl came in to clean my room.

This one didn’t have a message, and she outright refused to talk to me.

I didn’t want to risk my connection with Noa by asking this female to give her a message for me.

But the next day, when it was the same girl again, I was starting to give it more serious thought.

My mother had switched Noa’s schedule—she’d made sure I wouldn’t see her again.

I didn’t think Noa was avoiding me this time around.

This was a huge problem, though. Last time, she’d managed to stay away for two weeks, and she’d been really bad off by then.

If she hadn’t arrived at my suite that day, I was sure she would have collapsed somewhere else, and that would have been the end of things.

The doctor for the resort wouldn’t have known what was wrong with her, if she’d even been brought in for treatment.

Would she be able to survive two weeks again, or had the dependency grown stronger?

Judging from my own anxiousness—the restless pacing that overtook me most of the time—it had grown stronger.

Like last time, I resorted to a workout routine my gladiator friends had taught me.

That first time Sunder had run me through it, I’d come out a wrangled, pained mess.

Nowadays, I upped the number of reps every week—and here at the resort, every day.

I was stronger, and it was a side effect of what was going on between Noa and me.

I really needed a handheld and a lab to figure this out, but I didn’t see one forthcoming anytime soon.

On day three, I was ready to break down the door and tackle the guard.

I was ninety percent certain that I could actually take him.

Once I was out of this room, I would have to scour the resort to locate Noa, but I had a feeling she would have a bunk down in the basement.

I could hide out in the laundry room until she returned.

The plan was vague, and it was dumb, so I was relieved when that morning’s housekeeper was accompanied by Pato, leaping from her cart.

She appeared utterly shocked at the sight of the little monkey, which meant the female hadn’t known he was there.

That meant I couldn’t trust her, so I took Pato and locked myself in the bathroom to check him over.

Yes, there! He had something in his little hands, I just hoped the female hadn’t noticed it.

And just as I’d hoped, it was a syringe, the label telling me it was a sedative.

So Noa hadn’t been idle; she’d gotten her hands on something really good.

Now I just needed to figure out the timing on this.

How sick was the human woman feeling by now?

And with that special guest of my mother’s arriving in less than two days… We needed to escape now.

Waiting until nightfall was my best bet; there wouldn’t be so many people about, and I could stay hidden.

I dressed in the sturdiest clothes supplied to me, which weren’t great.

The decorative boots would probably fall apart halfway through our hike.

The leather pants were thick and well-made, but they were rather tight—meant to attract, not to be worn outdoors.

The black shirt and sweater I pulled on were simply too fancy, too dressy to make sense.

They’d do, and I made sure to pack another set of pants and a sweater for Noa so she’d be warm.

I also stripped the blankets off the bed and rolled them tightly to form a pack; we’d need something to sleep under outside.

With my heart pounding in my throat from the excitement to come, I paced in front of the suite door until well past midnight. My meager pack of supplies stashed in the corner, I banged on the side table, then hoarsely shouted, hoping it would be enough to alarm the guard.

Sure enough, I’d only just dashed to the side of the door when it swished open.

I had the male by the throat, slamming him into the wall hard enough that pain reverberated up my own skull, my empathic gift picking up enough for it to hurt.

Then I depressed the syringe in his thigh and watched the male thud to the floor as he collapsed.

I made short work of tying him to the bedpost, Pato eagerly chittering as he cheered me on.

The male had better boots than mine in the same size, which was a fantastic coincidence I wasn’t about to pass up.

Swapping shoes, I checked his belt for weapons and took the laser pistol and the set of keys, along with his identification card.

Good, that would get me to where I needed to go.

Now I just needed to hope that this was what Noa had in mind when she sent Pato to me with that syringe. I needed to find her, but I was certain I knew enough of the resort's layout to know where to start.

The hallway was deserted, but I was sure it was being monitored by cameras.

To avoid them as much as I could, I flicked my hood up, hiding my features.

I couldn’t do anything about leaving the suite, but I hoped they’d missed that part and wouldn’t think anything of seeing a guest walking the hallways at night.

I wanted to take the stairs, but Pato darted from my shoulders and headed for a hidden panel in the hallway.

An elevator door to a service elevator, probably the one Noa used with her hovercart.

That was much better, and the guard’s identification card granted me the access I needed.

The door slid open smoothly. Inside, I immediately noticed that there was no camera, and as I sent the elevator down, it rattled obnoxiously.

The basement level was dark and deserted, but Pato leaped from my shoulder and led the way.

His tiny form was only visible to me by the bright white tuft of hair on top of his head and the flash of his white limbs.

I broke into a jog to keep up with him, setting down my feet carefully to avoid making noise.

After a few twists and turns, we were in a hallway lined with doors, and Pato halted in front of one of them. He tilted his head and stared at me, and through my empathic senses, I caught a sharp warning—a sense of fear. So Noa might be behind that door, but she wasn’t alone.

I rehearsed what I had to do in my head: locate the enemy, neutralize it, make sure that Noa was all right, and then get out of here. Counting to three in my head, I nodded at Pato and burst through the door into the tiny cell.