Imprisoned Read online

  “I’ll go first,” Lathe said. “Then Ari, then her brother—Jak, right?” He raised his eyebrows at the smaller man.

  “Good to meet you.” Jak gave him a wary nod. “I was in the hole when you first came and I’ve been there your whole stay, but I’ve heard all about you, Medic.”

  “It’s Lathe,” Lathe told him. “I hope to never go by ‘Medic’ ever again.”

  “Lathe, then. Thanks for looking out for my little sister.” Jak held out a hand to him and Lathe clasped forearms with him briefly.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “And thank you, Slade.” Jak turned to the Beast. “I misjudged you. I’m sorry about that.”

  The massive hybrid shrugged.

  “I’m used to it. You don’t get to be my size without everyone around you pissing their pants in fear of you. So I don’t take it personal.”

  Jak nodded. “Got it. And thanks.”

  “Jak, you’ll come after Ari and then the, uh Beast—” Lathe continued.

  “Slade,” Slade rumbled. “I’d like to drop my moniker too. It’s just my combat name but I don’t fight in the ring anymore.”

  “Slade—Brother, you’ll bring up the rear. Are we all ready to go?”

  “As we’ll ever be—let’s get out of here,” Jak said fervently. “I never want to see this place again.”

  “Let’s go then,” Lathe said and dropped into the hole in the ground.

  They heard his feet hit the bottom with a crunch of soil and pebbles and then he called up, “All right, Ari—it’s safe. Come down!”

  Ari bit her lip and hesitated for a moment, claustrophobia taking an icy grip on her throat. Down in the dark, crawling through a narrow tunnel with tons of earth overhead—could she do it?

  Then Lathe’s voice came drifting up again.

  “Just jump, little one—I’ll catch you.”

  I can do it, Ari told herself. If Lathe is with me, I can do it.

  Taking a deep breath, she jumped.

  Strong, warm hands caught her by the waist and set her gently on her feet.

  “All right, little one?” Lathe murmured in her ear.

  “Fine.” Ari whispered back. She felt a little shaken and she didn’t like being in a dark, confined space but she found that having the big Kindred near her really did help.

  Jak jumped down next and then Slade shouldered his way into the cramped space. Ari couldn’t see much but it appeared to her that both of his massive shoulders were scraping the sides of the tunnel. Slade didn’t complain though, he just looked at Lathe.

  “All present and accounted for, Brother,” he said. “Let’s move.”

  “It’s a long way,” Lathe warned them. “Follow me and just keep going, no matter what.”

  Ari thought later that for as long as she lived, she would never forget that nightmarish journey in the dark. She hung on to the back of Lathe’s jumpsuit and Jak hung on to hers since neither of them could see in the dark like the Kindred could and all of them went as fast as they could over the bumpy, uneven ground. She couldn’t use the blowtorch in the tunnel to see where she was going—Lathe said it would burn up the oxygen supply too fast. So Ari tucked it into her belt and tried not to mind that she couldn’t see where she was going.

  The tunnel had been dug for someone Lathe’s size so at least it wasn’t too narrow for her—Ari thought she would have gone crazy if it was. But every now and then she could feel the sides of the tunnel brushing her on one side or the other or some loose dirt would sift down onto her head and she would remember all over again that they were underground—buried with no way to get out except to make it to the end.

  She tried very, very hard not to think about all the horror vids she’d ever seen about people being buried alive and just kept going, keeping a tight grip on the back of Lathe’s jumpsuit. She had no idea how Slade was managing, since every step he took, both sides of the tunnel scraped his broad shoulders. Either the big hybrid wasn’t claustrophobic or he was doing a better job controlling his fear than Ari was with hers.

  At last, after what seemed like hours and hours, Lathe called for a halt.

  It was pitch black so Ari ran into his broad back and then Jak ran into hers, making her feel even more crowded and claustrophobic.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked Lathe. Because though she couldn’t see him, she could feel that he was making motions in the darkness.

  ‘It’s not done yet.” His voice was flat. “I told the nanites to finish as quickly as possible but they haven’t gotten through yet.”

  “You mean we’re at a dead end? Stuck underground with no way to get out?”

  Ari heard the panic in her own voice but she couldn’t help it. Buried alive, whispered the voice in her head. Just like that one vid you watched with the girl who was stuck in a cave-in and called and called for help but no one came for her and she died there and—

  “It’s all right, little one.” Lathe’s firm voice in her ear cut into her panicked thoughts and made her feel a little better. “The tunnel’s been sloping up for some time— we’re only a few feet from the surface.”

  “Then let’s finish the job ourselves,” Slade rumbled. Ari heard the noise of him digging into the roof of the tunnel and then dirt pattering down all around her.

  “Yes—do it,” Lathe answered and then he was digging too. Jak joined in as well but there wasn’t much Ari could do—she was too short to reach the ceiling. She closed her eyes and tried to pray.

  Please Goddess, let us get out of here soon. Let the end of the tunnel be close. Let us be all right. Please…please…

  There was no answer but a warmth seemed to fill her from the inside out and Ari felt better.

  Then a big gust of fresh air came from overhead, startling her. Ari took a deep, gulping breath, suddenly realizing how hard it had gotten to breath in the small space.

  “That’s it!” she heard Lathe say excitedly. “We’re through!”

  “Are we?” Ari looked up, her eyes dazzled by the brilliant starlight overhead after being in the dark so long. “Are we really?”

  “You zzertainly are,” a hissing voice said in her ear and then a rough hand reached down and yanked Ari out of the tunnel by the collar of her prison jumpsuit.

  “What a long way you’ve come,” Mukluk said, shaking her and setting her on her feet with an arm around her neck. “And what a zzhame you’ll only have to go right back again.”

  Forty-Three

  For a moment, everything was confusion.

  “Let her go, you bastard,” Lathe was shouting as he jumped out of the end of the tunnel. “You touch her and you die!”

  “Her izz it?” Mukluk turned Ari around and stared at her more closely. With one scaly claw, he made a downward slicing motion, causing the buttons on her orange and blue jumpsuit to pop off and baring her breasts.

  “Stop it!” Ari grabbed for the sides of her jumpsuit but the Horvath had already seen her.

  “Zzzo, you are a female,” he hissed, spinning her around and clamping a scaly forearm around her neck again. “I had my doubtzz about you. The way Medic protected you when it wazz known he wazzn’t a lover of other malezz was highly zuzpiciouz. Now it makezz zenze.”

  “Let me go!” Ari gasped, struggling against the arm that held her. There were other Horvath guards there too—all of them armed with pain-prods. She supposed she ought to be thankful that BleakHall policy forbade the guards to use any kind of projectile or laser weapons but at the moment, when they were outnumbered and she was being held captive, it was small comfort.

  “Touch her and die.” Lathe’s voice was deadly and his eyes were glowing red again—a sure sign he was going into Rage.

  Jak was out of the tunnel too and shouting and behind him, the Beast was a huge, hulking menace. But it didn’t seem to matter—there were fifteen guards at least—how could they overcome so many? Especially when Mukluk already had her as a hostage?

  Suddenly the warm, feminine voice sp