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“Protect you from what?”
“From in case I never saw you again. It’s easier to live with the memory of someone when you hate them than when it’s one-sided love.”
Ohara pulled back from me and gently stroked my cheek. “It was never one-sided. Never. And it never will be. If we had met sooner, if we had met somewhere else… then we never would have had to pay these five years. But we’re together now and nothing is going to ever force us apart.”
I liked listening to his words, but there was still a splinter of doubt in my mind. After all, I’d thought we would never be parted before either.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” Ohara said. “I’m going to get us both free of this place.”
I smiled at him, hoping that he could achieve what he said he would but I had become more realistic in the years we’d been parted.
I would hope but I would not expect. That was the key to ensuring you never got too disappointed.
We got dressed and rearranged the furniture so it was back to its old form.
Ohara zipped me up and kissed me on the base of the neck.
“Thanks,” I said.
He put his helmet back on and it snapped into place. Despite the visor, I could picture his features now, plain as day.
“Ready?” I said.
He nodded and we left my office. On the way out, I said:
“—but if you hear of anything else, just let me know.”
Ohara followed me to the front entrance, turned, and left. I admired his ass for a moment before I shut the door behind him and turned to the Viewing Room.
“That guard gives me the creeps,” Erishia, my assistant, said. “He just stares and doesn’t say anything.”
No, I thought. But he sure does a lot. I couldn’t help the blush that rose to my cheeks.
Erishia noticed it and cocked her head to one side. “He made you angry, huh?” she said. “Yeah. I feel angry just looking at him. I don’t know how you put up with him.”
It’s a struggle, all right, I thought. Riding him was like riding a bucking bronco. You had to hold on and do the best you could.
“Don’t worry about him,” I snapped at her, adopting my usual persona. “Focus on your tasks. Get them done or maybe I’ll put you up front for the first round of the Champions tonight.”
Erishia beat a hasty retreat and snapped to it.
I didn’t know how Ohara was going to bust me out of here. I’d tried every method I could find in the past five years and found no way. But maybe Ohara would succeed where I had failed.
32
OHARA
The only way to get Lily out of the prison was to bring everything under my control. But no matter how senior I became as a guard, I was never going to have total control. That power rested solely with the Supervisor.
Could I manipulate him into giving me just enough of that power to get Lily out of there? Other prisoners had escaped with Prizes and used the riots as cover. Could I do the same… but use the fallout from the riot?
I took the stairs up to the Supervisor’s office, the other guards nodding to me in turn as I rose each level.
Being with Lily, seeing her, smelling her, feeling her body wrapped around me… It made the threat of losing her all the more real.
And this complicated game of cat and mouse would come to an end eventually, and when it did, I didn’t want to be caught surrounded by guards.
It would be the worse possible situation. Me, a former prisoner, caught having broken back into Ikmal.
