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Chapter Thirteen
Now that Drake was gone the problem was obvious.
She’d had time to think, to eat, to look once more upon her city. The fighting did seem over. Drake was treating her as if she were merely a girl to fuck. He’d promised to tell her what had happened but had told her nothing more than surface details, every time she’d asked.
Don’t go out. It’s unsafe, he’d said.
Of course it was, but Drake had said it was done. She, the rightful ruler of this kingdom, wanted to know what was happening.
Those weren’t all of her reasons though.
She knew she was never going to rule alone, not that anyone did. All rulers had aides, ministers, advisors. She knew no one else would hand the throne to her, but was Drake the man to share it with? She must look to alternatives. If he’d lied to her, the agreement was voided. She didn’t want to share a throne with a mauleon who regarded her as little more important than a shoe.
She would rather leave the kingdom.
She had friends out there in the city. Should she merely wait for his return while people died? A man who lied would surely tell her he was truthful.
Your father trusted him, her brain screamed. But all he wanted to do was fuck her. He had her under some sort of spell. It was stupid to go out, but stupid to trust him utterly.
Her secret exit would very likely be watched. She couldn’t walk out past her palace guards either.
“Sassi!” She turned and leaned her back on the railing. “I need those pistols again, and clothes to go out in, new ones, not the old suit.” They’d had years to figure out her favorite outfit. “A dress. Cloak. New boots. My old weapons training torso armor.”
If she wore dark glasses and pulled up the hood, her face would be unrecognizable.
She might not be the best pupil according to Mister Fenton, but she could shoot straight and down there would be disorganized. Slip out, see Bron and Shree, check the hospital and see if everything was as he’d vaguely said it was, slip back here.
Or slip back and leave the kingdom.
He’d be gone for hours. She’d be quicker than that.
And she could look into a drug to lessen the effects of this torm, which she wasn’t even sure she suffered from. Would it hurt to ask the hospital pharmacy? You could get love potions, why not anti-love?
Just because he turned her on like a light switch whenever she saw him, smelled him, or watched his muscles shift as he stalked toward her... Calli swallowed. It didn’t mean she had to succumb.
The passage out normally took her to the edges of the destroyed space port. She changed strategy. She sent Sassi where she normally went, wearing the cloak and dress Drake had sent her home in—the suit would’ve looked ridiculous on the bot. Whereas she slinked out using the craters and small maintenance tunnels that took her through the spaceport cemetery of rusted and shattered spaceships caught on the ground centuries ago.
It meant squeezing through some tight spots but an hour later than normal, she was on the streets.
They were quieter than most days and there were some fighters patrolling, but they took little notice of her with her padded figure, grimy glasses, and hands weighed down with old shopping bags.
A riderless florse trotted by, neighing, rolling its eyes, but a soldier caught it soon after. Blood had streaked its side.
She went slower, stuck to the shadows, ready to turn back if it seemed wise.
Apart from a few houses with holes in the walls, some bullet casings on the roads, and a smashed front door, she saw little that said a small war had occurred in the last day.
Bron and Shree’s house was deserted. No one answered her knock. Both worked at the hospital and it was where she’d met Shree—at the maternity ward, while she was up on tiptoe peering through the observation glass at the babies. Since there were at least fifty others there at the time, she’d been shocked when the nurse tapped her shoulder.
Shree had recognized her as the princess, and she’d thought it coincidence but now she wondered if it was orchestrated.
Could Shree have been in the pay of her father?
She prayed not. Her best friend, a spy? No.
Drake’s men wouldn’t expect her at the hospital. The closer she drew to the streets near the hospital, the more carts went by, and some carried wounded men.
A checkpoint at the bottom of the main hospital entrance gave her stomach knots. Five men, two mauleons, and all were well-armed with long weapons and grenades.
