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A silence passed between us. So much to say, but I didn’t have the words.
“I guess I’ll see you around,” Lily said.
“I guess you will,” I said, and watched her as she approached the Pool, looked back over her shoulder one more time at me, and disappeared inside.
Another Prize returned to the Pool with the Champion who had Claimed her. There was no handshaking or greeting of goodbye. They merely parted ways and that was it.
And immediately, it became clear that whatever Lily and I had happening between us, whatever this feeling was… it was something special.
And had I just let it go?
PART II
14
LILY
PRESENT DAY
Bang!
The slam against the door was different from the hundreds of others I’d heard until that point in the back room of the Prize Pool. The metal creaked and groaned as it began to give way.
It won’t be long now, I thought. I disliked that I had been thrust from warmer, happier times, but we had to be honest about the situation we found ourselves in.
The demons were coming and they were going to claim our bodies. We would all be ruined, I knew. We likely wouldn’t be able to return to normal service for some time… if at all.
And that would spell our doom.
Some held the belief that we would be taken to some far and distant planet where we could live in freedom and peace after our service was through, while others thought we would be allowed to return to our home planets.
I didn’t believe either theory.
We would serve our purpose and then be tossed on the slag heap. There was only one true way out of Ikmal for a Prize, and that was death. We served our purpose and once we were done, we were removed and never seen again.
Not that I would tell the other girls that, of course.
As the madam, they instinctively believed I knew more about our situation than they did, and that I kept it to myself as a way to protect them. But the truth was, I knew nothing more about our situation than they did.
Bang!
The metal snapped and I bolted to my feet, clutching my useless wooden cudgel close. I listened but didn’t hear the thunderous pounding of heavy footsteps racing across the wooden floor of the outer room.
The other girls got slowly to their feet, likewise holding onto their weapons like life preservers.
Then I heard it:
Thump, thump, thump.
The heavy footfalls of a prisoner approaching from the other side of the wooden door that separated us. He wasn’t running, he was walking, and behind him, I made out more footsteps, following in his wake.
In no rush.
Because they already knew they were going to get what they wanted? It wasn’t the frantic hurrying I’d expected.
A big figure appeared in the door’s frosted glass. His green skin was bright and glowing. He raised a claw and tapped on the glass. “Are you Prizes in there?”
There was no use in being silent. After knocking through the outer door, they could virtually walk through this one as if it were nothing.
