Dead and Buryd

Chapter 16: Games of Escape

The next few days after her discussions with Taye and Keiran, Georgianna hardly had any time to think about what she might be able to do to help Nyah. There had been a fight between some Belsa and a number of Adveni trying to push their control further into the Camps, which ended up with three dead and two injured men who needed almost constant care on the Way.

She hardly found the time to go back home, let alone go down to the Carae grounds to look for Taye. She could, in the end, only hope that Taye hadn’t rushed off to do anything stupid without waiting for her.

The tunnels were sweltering, a constant mist of sweat dampening the dry heat that emanated from the earth. Georgianna had finally convinced Jaid to take some time off from watching over Si. Getting Jaid to leave the Way was a good sign, but it also meant Georgianna had to stay in case anybody came in for help, and to keep a general eye on the patients they already had in, Si included.

In the furthest car from the entrance to Medics’ Way, Georgianna sat cross-legged on one of the makeshift beds, a pile of freshly washed dressings next to her, one wound tightly around her hand. Across the car, Jacob was sitting up in bed. Lacie perched on the end of the mattress, a leather bag in her lap and a selection of small wooden tiles in her hand. It was nice, watching the two of them. While they never really spoke about anything very serious, the two kept up an almost constant stream of cheerful chatter.

“How can you say you prefer the wash?” Jacob asked in disbelief. “Everything is so… wet.”

Lacie let out a laugh, a high giggle that chimed like the metal bells that hung from caravans on the trail. Georgianna smiled down at her knees. Lacie was much more cheerful than when she first came to the Belsa, a tiny, thin, battered girl in Beck’s arms. Georgianna had hardly ever heard the girl laugh. There was usually a sadness to her that she had barely asked about, past needing to know her injuries.

Jacob, too, was much happier in Lacie’s presence. When others were around, even Georgianna, the young man was quiet and withdrawn, pulling himself back into the corner any time anyone came near him. Yet with Lacie he seemed like any other man of his age, almost rambunctious while talking with the younger girl.

“But freeze is so cold!” Lacie complained, a wide grin across her lips making her complaint almost impossible to take seriously.

“Snow!” Jacob answered quickly. “Snow is so much more fun than water.”

Lacie shook her head quickly and crossed her arms over her chest in determination. Jacob, seemingly ignoring the girl’s silent defiance, placed one of the wooden tiles onto the pile.

“Only three to go,” he teased, reaching out to take the small leather bag from her and selecting a new tile.

Georgianna looked up just in time to see Lacie pout in frustration as she turned her attention back to her own tiles, moving them one at a time from one hand to the other.

“Well, I only have two to go,” Lacie quipped.

Jacob looked at her, a competitive glint in his eye, and chuckled.

“I never liked snow,” Lacie admitted, flicking through the rest of her tiles. “Maybe it would have been different if I had brothers and sisters.”

Jacob, holding his tiles up in front of his face to shield them from being looked at by his opponent, furrowed his brow.

“I guess my sisters made it more fun,” he said slowly. “Dessie loved the snow, even as a tiny girl. She liked caking it onto me like a coat so I was a walking snowman.”

Georgianna smiled as another bell-filled giggle spilled from Lacie’s lips.

Shifting her position on the bed as she placed the tightly wound dressing into the linen pack, she glanced over at the couple, smiling for a moment. It was nice that the two of them had each other. Even while the young man was unconscious, Lacie had taken it upon herself to tend to his every wound and to make sure that he was always comfortable. She was sure that even if she hadn’t been in Medics’ Way all the time, Lacie would have found reasons to come check on him.

She wondered whether it had been curiosity on the young girl’s part, knowing that this man had been through the same things she had, felt the same pains and in some cases, worse. She wondered if he was a little slice of salvation for the redhead. If he could get past his injuries, maybe Lacie could as well? Up until now, Georgianna hadn’t dared ask the young man anything too stressful, but as she watched, she realised that here was her perfect opportunity.

“Jake,” Georgianna opened cautiously, placing the dressings aside and leaning forward.

Jacob looked up from his tiles in surprise, glancing over towards Georgianna with wide brown eyes. Beneath his mop of curly, dark hair, he looked so childlike, so innocent, that Georgianna wanted to scoop him into a tight hug and never let him go. On the other hand, it made asking her question so much more difficult.

“Yeah?” he asked.

Lacie was watching from beneath a fan of fair eyelashes, keeping her head down towards her lap though her gaze darted between Jacob and Georgianna. Georgianna shifted her legs out, placing her feet on the ground.

“I was wondering,” she continued, “How did you escape?”

For a moment, Jacob simply stared at her. There was no shock on his face, no anger, just a quiet sort of expectation, like he’d known the question would come and it was only a matter of when, and from whom. Georgianna blinked, wondering if he’d already been asked by others and he was checking off each person and how long it would take them. If that was the case, Georgianna could only hope she’d lasted longer than others.

“George,” Lacie complained quietly. “That’s… That’s not… He’s still healing.”

Georgianna frowned and pushed herself back, opening her mouth to apologise. Lacie was right. Jacob was still healing from his wounds, was still sent into fevers from the continued pain of the Nsiloq mark branded into his skin. However, before Georgianna could spill a single word of apology, Jacob reached out, sliding his hand cautiously over Lacie’s and squeezing her slim fingers in his own.

“It’s alright,” he whispered.

Georgianna and Lacie both stared at the hand in Lacie’s lap, grasping the girl’s pale flesh. Yes, Jacob had been friendly and cheerful towards the girl, but he was still incredibly skittish about being touched by anyone, including Lacie. It was why they changed his dressings while he slept, because everyone on the Way knew how much anxiety it gave him to have people close. Lacie’s mouth dropped open, her expression doing nothing to hide the fact that the gesture was as shocking to her as it was to Georgianna.

It only took a second, a single second of them both staring at his hand, for Jacob to quickly tug his arm back, breaking the connection. He buried both his hands into his lap, staring at his knees for a moment.

“What do you want to know?” he asked quietly.

“Jake, you don’t have to,” Lacie urged.

“No, it’s okay.”

Georgianna gazed apologetically at Lacie for a moment before turning her attention back to Jacob. She wanted to move closer to him to hear better but she didn’t dare for fear of making him retreat further into himself. Instead, she grasped the edge of the bed, holding herself in place.

“I have a friend who has been sold,” Georgianna explained. “I want to know how it happens, where you go. I know this is hard, Jacob, and I don’t want you suffering, but… any information you can give me might be useful.”

“Are you planning something?” he asked, not meeting her gaze.

Georgianna tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. She couldn’t tell them that yes, she was planning on helping to break a drysta away from her owner. However, she also didn’t feel right lying about it, especially when Jacob was offering her more than he probably wanted to give.

“For the moment it’s just information.”

That much was the truth at least. She couldn’t plan anything if she didn’t have the information. Maybe Jacob’s story would prove that it was practically impossible, that his escape had been a rare fluke that relied on luck and nothing more. Maybe she would find out that planning was useless.

Jacob rocked himself forward for a moment, staring intently at his knees before he finally pushed himself up straight, moving himself into the corner of his bed. He pushed his body back, bracing his feet against the bed until the walls pressed so hard against his skin that his flesh flattened to the metal. Georgianna frowned. This was too painful for him. She should stop it. She opened her mouth.

“When I was caught I was sent to the compound,” Jacob said in a fast murmur. “I was there for a week when a guard came into the block. Even back then we knew it was strange. They didn’t come in unless…”

“Unless for count,” Georgianna nodded.

Jacob nodded.

“I’d been hiding in a cell with a couple of others. We were young so we were trying to protect ourselves from… others,” he continued. “With a guard on the block, we all had to come out. He selected five of us from a list and we were taken to the Yard.”

“Jake…” Lacie moaned.

This time, Jacob didn’t reach for the redhead, even as she buried her face into her hands, the tiles spilling from her fingers onto the bed.

Guilt flooded through her. She had known this would be difficult for Jacob but she hadn’t fully known how difficult it would be for Lacie. Their stories were so similar. Hearing his struggle had to be the same for the girl. Pushing herself quickly off the bed, Georgianna moved over to Jacob’s. Jacob, without even looking up, curled his legs tighter to his chest, but relaxed a little as she, instead of coming towards him, looped an arm around Lacie’s shoulders and murmured apologies into her ear.

“I wasn’t sold the first day, so I was kept in the other block, where they keep the people who will be sold,” Jacob explained. “The next day, a man bid on me.”

“How old were you?” Georgianna asked, brushing her hand gently over Lacie’s hair.

“Fourteen.”

“And when he bought you, what happened?”

“You’re taken to be registered,” Lacie answered. “There’s a room. They take you in and an Adveni takes a sample of blood.”

Almost at the exact same time, Lacie and Jacob raised their left thumb and held it there for a moment. Georgianna hugged Lacie a little tighter to her.

“They take information on you,” Jacob explained. “Name, age, tribe, everything. It all gets put into a… a…”

He held his hands a little way out in front of him, one hand flat, facing up, the other drawing like a pencil on paper.

“On a tsentyl?” Georgianna asked.

Jacob nodded.

“The information goes to their… their… main thing, and it’s kept.”

“Same as if you register yourself,” Georgianna explained. “I had to go in and register with my family.”

Jacob did nothing but nod again.

“So what happened, you know, after that?”

Jacob shrugged, his gaze not shifting from his knees. Wrapping his arms around his legs, he looked like a small child, not a young man. Georgianna wondered if he’d always looked young, curled back into the corner, trying to save himself from his owner’s rage.

“Whatever they want,” he answered. “After they’ve registered you, you’re theirs, they can do anything.”

Lacie untangled herself from Georgianna’s arm and set about methodically putting all the tiles into a neat stack in her hands. Each tile facing the same direction and the right way up.

“The cinystalq?” Georgianna asked.

Cinystalq collars were an Adveni design used on dreta. Clamped around the neck, the collar could not only track a person’s movements, but also issue punishment in the form of painful shocks travelling through the body. From what Georgianna knew, they were difficult to remove. Doing it wrong could end up killing the wearer as the energy inside escaped into the body when the connection was broken.

A couple of years before, it had been thought impossible. It was only when a Belsa turned up, collar in hand, that they realised that the impossible was actually doable with a little training and care.

Jacob shook his head, his lips pursed. It looked like he was thinking about it, but when he answered, it was clear he’d already known what to say, just that it was harder to say it.

“Personal choice. They are expensive, so most Adveni don’t bother unless they are having… problems.”

Georgianna pressed her lips into a thin line as she considered his answer. It was good news in a way. Knowing that most Adveni who purchased a Veniche as a drysta wouldn’t bother with a cinystalq.

As she thought about it, Georgianna hadn’t even realised that Jacob was rubbing his hand back and forth over the side of his neck where a long burn had healed not long before. Now, against his skin, a thin white line curved from just beneath his ear and disappeared under the neck of his shirt.

“How did you get away?” Georgianna asked.

His fingers paused halfway down his neck, and Jacob glanced off to the side, a curl of dark brown hair falling in front of his eyes before he impatiently pushed it away.

“My owner didn’t pay a lot of attention to me.”

Georgianna’s gaze crept to the scars she could see on Jacob’s arms, long faded marks mixed with newer, angrier reds. From the look of him, Jacob’s owner had paid a lot of attention to the young man, and none of it in the way anyone would like. However, looking at him, Georgianna didn’t dare disagree.

“It was only when he was bored that I became worthy of notice.” His voice was barely more than a whisper. “It was… it was almost okay at first, but then… After the last time, I knew I’d not last and so I ran when he was asleep. I figured I’d get far enough and the collar would kill me, but someone found me and they got the collar off.”

“Are they so open with security? Why doesn’t everyone run?”

“Some are.”

Georgianna looked down in surprise as Lacie spoke instead of Jacob. She was looking at the tiles, flipping through them, though it had been unmistakably her voice.

“At first they keep you locked away, all doors and windows shut. After a while, you stop thinking about running except when it gets really bad,” she continued. “But then, you’re scared of what will happen and…”

“And you stay put,” Jacob finished when it seemed Lacie had lost her will to continue.

Georgianna nodded slowly. From the sounds of it, Nyah would still be the type of drysta locked away, kept on a tight leash while she became accustomed to her new position. Unfortunately, that also meant that, most likely, she would be kept close to the Adveni who had bought her. It would be difficult for her to get away for any length of time.

“Jacob, when you were sold… do you remember who did it?”

Jacob frowned, and for the first time since he’d began speaking about what had happened to him, his gaze met Georgianna’s. His eyes were narrowed, but Georgianna was sure it wasn’t in anger, it was confusion.

“Who bought me?”

“No, who sold you from the compound? Are there specific guards, or do they all do it?” she asked.

“Oh.” He looked back down at the bed. “There are a few who deal, but the one who sold me? His name was Edtroka.”

Georgianna’s mouth dropped open as she stared at Jacob, and though he looked like he wanted to find out what was so surprising about that name, he didn’t ask. Edtroka couldn’t have been his favourite person. She didn’t want to have to explain to him that she knew the man who had sold him to an Adveni who would torment and beat him for almost six years.

“Thank you, Jake, for telling me.”

Jacob nodded gently but didn’t speak again. When she stood up, Jacob shifted and lay on his side, curled into a ball at the far end of the mattress. He held his pillow squashed in his arms. Georgianna considered suggesting to Lacie that they should give him some time alone, but Lacie had already moved, stretching out her arm, entwining her fingers with Jacob’s.

No words passed between them as Georgianna collected her things and left the two alone. She felt horrible for asking Jacob and Lacie to relive what had obviously been the most horrific of times for them, but as she took a final glance back at the pair curled on the bed, she couldn’t help but feel that maybe talking about it had actually been the best thing she could have done for them. Maybe talking about things they had kept to themselves for so long had given them the chance to begin to move on.