AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Until the riots that broke out three days ago.
I never did manage to get to the bottom of how they had happened in the first place.
Not that it mattered now.
Still, if I could have figured out how they kicked off in the first place, I might have been able to use that as a Plan B in case Plan A fell through. It always made me nervous to think I didn’t have a backup.
I entered the Prize Pool and looked around for Lily. The other Prizes glanced up at me and quickly looked away, muttering amongst themselves.
I knew the guards made them nervous — even more than the prisoners did as there was often little the guards wanted from them other than strict obedience. The Prizes could easily break the rules without meaning to.
Not seeing Lily, I moved into the back room. She wasn’t there either and I grew confident she had to be in her office. I opened the door and found she wasn’t sitting behind her desk.
Hm.
When I checked the bedroom and bathroom that the Prizes shared and found she wasn’t there either, I began to panic.
“Are you looking for Lily?” a sweet voice said behind me.
I recognized her as Lily’s assistant. Her skin was lime green, her hair curled in intricate ringlets that hung to her waist. Trim, she wore a top that exposed her belly and narrow hips.
If I had to guess, I would have said she was barely out of her teenage years. But I knew little of her species and she could have been fifty for all I knew.
“Yes,” I said in my electronically distorted voice. “Where is she?”
Faint wrinkles formed on the Prize’s forehead. “What’s wrong? Is she in trouble? Because if she is, she never did anything to deserve it—”
“She’s not in any trouble,” I said. “I just need to inform her of some… new developments.”
Visibly relieved at my explanation, the Prize told me, “The supervisor wanted to see her.”
All the excitement of being able to tell Lily that we would soon be on our way out of there instantly fell from my consciousness.
“The supervisor?” I said. “What would he want with her?”
I shouldn’t have asked the question — asking questions always got you in trouble at Ikmal.
But I needn’t have worried. The assistant just shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Don’t ask me. I just work here.” She turned and continued folding the freshly-washed negligees.
I glanced up at the Supervisor’s office but couldn’t make him out through the glass. Which meant he was away…
Busy…
I rushed back through the Prize Pool rooms, almost knocking over a couple of Prizes who’d been practicing their seductive poses on each other.
“Hey!” they snapped, before looking up and realizing who I was — who I was pretending to be.
They immediately dropped their heads in supplication. I ignored them and raced up the stairs, taking three, four at a time.
Fear pumped through my system faster than my adrenaline could keep up with. Anything the Supervisor wanted with Lily could not be good.
I knew nothing about the new supervisor, except that he had a creepy aura, and creepiness was not something I wanted anywhere near Lily.
Not my Lily.
As I turned and bolted up the second flight of stairs, my terror turned deeper.
What if he knew about our escape plans?
