Outlaw

Chapter 1

Adora's entire body ached. The long days of traveling wore down her bones and made her hurt in ways she had never hurt before. It had only been a fortnight, but it felt like a lifetime. A lifetime of the same cycle: wake, break down camp, walk, set up camp, sleep. Over and over again she did this - her and the other captives, who set up tents they weren't allowed to sleep in and built fires they weren't allowed to warm their hands by. Instead, they sat in the cold. Chained to each other with a guard standing over them, watching for any signs of revolt. He wouldn't find any. They were too tired to fight, too tired to even complain.

She wondered how she had come to this place. In the breadth of a second that felt eternal, she had been leveled from wealthy heiress to filthy captive. Her once fine clothes had been stripped from her. Her dark hair matted against the back of her neck, forming a knotted nest. Her skin suffered from the lack of hygienic conditions and excessive sweating during the day. She hated the feeling of the sore bumps beneath it; hated to think of how reddened and splotchy her face must be. Then, in the midst of all the suffering of herself and her fellow captives, she marveled at the vanity of her thoughts. She must have a knack for vanity, to be able to obsess over her appearance in such dire circumstances.

She didn't care enough to self-correct. If she could not be proud, let her be vain. At least they could not strip that from her as they had stripped her clothes, her dignity, and her life away.

She slumped a few paces away from the other captives. Sitting on the cold ground, small pointed rocks pressing into her ass, she hungrily eyed the outlaws sitting around the fire, the outlaws with their warm coats and sturdy leather boots - likely stolen from some unsuspecting traveler. It was dinnertime. Someone had shot a deer and the men roasted it by the fire.

She was there when the hunter had dragged the deer into camp. Its hooves had been tied together and its eyes looked made of glass, dead. Like Sarah's. The hunter must have been a poor shot because the doe had more than one wound in its side.

She felt a sort of camaraderie with the dead doe. Her limbs had been bound when they first captured her, and she had no doubt that her eyes were equally glassy and lifeless.

Yet, she envied the deer. Surely it must have known what would befall it the moment it heard that first crack of a gun firing. She couldn't say the same. A fortnight had passed and she still didn't know what they had planned for her. As it is with an overactive imagination, she had vividly pictured a number of terrible scenarios. None had come to pass, yet all remained a possibility.

She couldn't let herself go there. The horrible possibilities for her future nearly doubled her over in anxiety. It would draw the attention of her captors. They would wander over, jeering at her as she gasped for air, her sobs begging to be let out. It had happened when she first arrived. More than once. It's how she knew not a single man in this band of haggard outlaws had a shred of sympathy or kindness in his shriveled heart.

It took very little reasoning to understand that she had to get away. She had no idea how, her limbs chained to the other prisoners as they were. If only her imagination had a more productive use - like devising a way to escape, for instance.

One of her fellow captors stirred, she could tell by the clanking chain that tugged on her ankle. She looked at the group of them – some of them huddled for warmth, some of them sitting as far away from the rest of the group as they could manage, like she did. They were all women. Young women. She wondered if they came from wealthy families too – is that what this band of outlaws did? Round young heiresses up and collect ransoms? Or worse – sell them off to the highest bidder? If the former, she knew her case was hopeless. No one would pay her ransom. If anything, the outlaws had done her younger brother a favor. He had been contriving a way to get to her inheritance for years.