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30
OHARA
I couldn’t keep myself from looking at her. She was as beautiful as I remembered and had changed very little from the last time I saw her… in the flesh at least.
In my dreams and the worlds I conjured from our time together, I saw her multiple times every day. I always wondered if she thought about me too, but I never knew the answer. I could only hope she did.
Her eyes were as wide as saucers and she staggered to one side and braced herself on her desk. “You… You’re the Lead Guard?” she managed. “But… how?”
“It’s a long, long story,” I said. “But that can come later. The important thing is I’m here now, with you, and no one can tear us apart ever again.”
I moved toward her to take her in my arms but she stepped back. Confused, I lowered my hands. She was in shock, surprised that I had suddenly reappeared in her life.
I had imagined the moment would play out differently, that she would have been warm and welcoming to me instead of being ice cold like this. But could I really blame her for her reaction?
No. It was normal. My expectations had been unrealistic.
I decided to tell her the story, although I had intended to tell her later.
“It began back when I was still a prisoner here at Ikmal,” I said. “I only had a couple of days left before I had to leave and the only way I could think of to spend more time here, with you, was to do something that would extend my sentence.”
She just looked at me, her eyes drifting from my face and away again as if she thought she was imagining this whole thing.
“I was going to attack one of the guards,” I said. “Then I would have been punished and forced to stay here another few months, years maybe…”
“But you didn’t,” Lily said, and I was pleased to see she was beginning to recover from her shock.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I had the rusty nail and I picked a target and I was heading right for him… but then Cayggod stopped me. He told me that I couldn’t keep extending my sentence like that or keep winning in the pits, that eventually, I was going to lose… and lose you. So he told me about another way I could keep you safe.”
Lily’s eyes snapped up at that. “Keep me safe?” she sneered, spreading her hands out to either side. “Keep me safe? In here?”
“Yes,” I said simply. “Thillak had already offered me a job on the outside, working for him. I refused initially… but that was before I met you. He said that he would ensure no one ever Claimed you, that you would forever remain off limits to any Champion. It was the best I could do with the time I had left—”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
I placed a hand on her shoulder and was relieved when she didn’t flinch away from it. “Because Thillak didn’t want you to know. He doesn’t know you like I do. He thought you might tell others about the deal, and that would put you, me, and him in danger.”
“You could have told me…” she said, her voice low and pained.
“I know,” I said. “And maybe I should have. But I didn’t know what would happen to me on the outside, what jobs I would have to carry out. It was possible I could have lost my life and you would never hear about it… and you would be left hoping for something that would never come. Not telling you was the least worst option.”
I shivered at the memory of having to do Thillak’s dirty work, threatening his business partners and becoming little more than a goon in his vast empire.
“I spent all my free time looking for ways to get you out of here, first legally, and discovering that technically you and the Prize Pool don’t exist, I knew the only way to set you free was to come here myself and figure a way out. I learned everything I could about the prison and how it was run. When I heard about the riots, I left right away. I took the place of a guard and assumed his position on the security detail sent to quell the uprising.”
I offered her a small smile. “Everything I did, I did for you,” I said.
Lily’s head snapped up at that and she turned to face me. There was a hardness to her eyes now as if they were carved from granite.
She removed my hand from her shoulder. “For five years, I’ve been stuck here as the madam of the Prize Pool, with no chance of release,” she said, and her voice quivered with sadness. “I watched as my friends left, probably killed for all I know, but at least they had some form of freedom. I was trapped here, in limbo, not knowing when or if it would ever come to an end.”
She raised her chin and her eyes shimmered with tears. “You left me,” she said. “You found your freedom and I was abandoned here.”
I took a step closer and held her hands. “I never abandoned you. I did everything I could to protect you. I thought about you every day. Every moment of every day. I did what I had to ensure your safety. And I never gave up on springing you free — no matter what it took.”
Lily shut her eyes and her tears ran down her cheeks. She placed her lips on my fingers and kissed them. Then, with her broken expression, she looked up at me. “I missed you so much.”
She fell into me and I into her.
