Dexter turned on the man, his eyes narrowed angrily. He opened his mouth then shut it and shook his head. “Rosh,” he said after a moment of forcing himself not to lash out, “I’m happy to hear any thoughts you might have on this.”
He paused again, gazing out over the sand that still swim with the movements of the creatures beneath the surface of it. “But if you’re not having any, then be silent so I can!”
“I say we run for it,” Rosh offered, happy to have a chance to make a suggestion.
“Run for it?” Dexter repeated, nearly stupefied. “You saw what them…things… did to that metal cup? They tore it to bits!”
“Aye, but they didn’t get me,” Rosh said. “I managed to get up here without spilling my blood.”
“That was only one,” Dexter reminded him. “You got lucky. There’s what, at least six of them now, probably more.”
“So we run faster,” Rosh said, not wanting to abandon his idea out of pure stubbornness.
“Wait,” Dexter said, staring at the tables. “They can’t get us, we’re on this rock, not the sand.”
“Yeah, but there’s plenty of sand between here and there,” Rosh said impatiently.
Dexter turned to him, grinning. “How far is it, you reckon?”
Rosh turned and studied the distance to the staircase from the marble dais they stood upon. “About 18 feet, maybe a few more.”
Dexter looked back at the tables and smiled. “I’ve got me an idea.”
Jenna awoke to find herself confined in a cell with Bailynn, naked. Bailynn sat against a wall, cradling her knees to her chest while tears ran down her cheeks.
Jenna forced herself up, fighting the urge to groan at her many bruises. Her head swam with the effort and abuse it had taken along the way. She made her way to Bailynn and sat along the wall beside her. She was silent for a long moment before she spoke.
“I see no bruises or injuries upon you, did you fight at all?” Jenna asked roughly.
Bailynn shook her head, refusing to look up.
“I see,” Jenna said, sighing. “The elves created you to be a killing machine and all you did was cry and be taken captive. You spilled none of their blood, you are hardly worth the title slayer.”
Bailynn look up, briefly, and whispered, “good!”
“Yes, that’s just great,” the elf said sarcastically. “We needed a heartless murderer to fight them off, and you turn from that to being worthless.”
Jenna stood up, ignoring the pain in one hip, and stalked away to peer out the windows of the room that served as their cell. She studied it closely, then continued to look at the room in search of a way out. She noticed the smell in the room, of unwashed bodies and the stale leftover odors that happen from too many people kept in an enclosed area too long. Her fears were confirmed, they were in the hold of slavers.
“Why do you hate me?”
Jenna’s head snapped around so she could stare at Bailynn. It was the first sign of true freedom and intelligence the girl had displayed. She stared at her for a long moment, her eyes boring into the human.
“Because you remind me of how cruel my people can be,” she said finally and openly. “They justify it as a necessary evil, but it remains an evil.”
“I have nightmares,” Bailynn said. “I remember things they did… to me. Lessons they taught, and things they made me do.”
Jenna showed no outward sign, but inside she felt an icy hand twist her heart with every one of the girl’s sentences. She wanted her to stop, and nearly ordered her to do so, but somehow she felt as though she deserved to hear her plight. As if, in hearing it and in feeling her pain, she could somehow atone for the wrongs that had been done to Bailynn.
“They cannot be undone,” Jenna said, wondering if there was any advice to give the tortured girl. “You have only your future before you; your past is done and finished. It is yours to make of it what you will.”
“I tried to please them,” she continued, staring at Jenna through eyes that were blurry with tears. “I kept telling myself if I did one more thing, one more job, if I just let it happen one more time it would all end. They would let me go and make me better.”
“But it never happened,” Jenna finished for her, turning back to stare out the small bars on the door so that the girl would not see her face.
Unseen, Bailynn shook her head in agreement that it had never happened. “I could not deny them, and soon I wanted to die. I gave in to it and tried to let myself go. I tried to push myself so I would be killed. They stopped that too. I was a prisoner. I am a prisoner still.”
“And soon you’ll have a new Master,” Jenna said softly, thinking that surely Bekka had been stripped as thoroughly as they had been and the controlling ring would be found and eventually put to use.
“Bekka has it still,” Bailynn said dully.
“What? How?” Jenna asked, confused not at Bailynn knowing who possessed it so much as how Bekka could still be in possession of it.
Bailynn shrugged; she did not know.
Jenna smiled faintly. “That clever girl,” she muttered. “She must have hidden it. You say she still has it? Not something she left stuck in a box or a sack somewhere?”
Bailynn shook her head, “She is touching it, that much I know.”
Jenna chuckled. “She hid it well then.”
The elf turned to the waif and walked to stand in front of her. She stared down at her a minute and then sank down to her knees in front of her. “Bailynn, I need you to help me. If we are to escape and live, then we need to work together, okay?”
Bailynn looked at her, her expression one of pure helplessness. “Why? Let them come. Let them kill me. I seek death, it will release me.”
Jenna felt the urge to slap her or to grab and shake her. Anything to bring some sense to her and rouse her from her unending depression. Instead she just sat there and stared at her.
“You’re just like them,” Bailynn whispered. Fresh tears spilled from her eyes.
Jenna nearly stumbled backwards at the accusation. She felt as though she had been slapped across the face. “What? How can you say that?”
“You want to use me. You want me to help you so you can escape,” Bailynn accused.
Jenna shook her head. The pain in her head cleared as the impact of the girl’s words slammed into her, leaving a fresh pain in their wake. She reached out to the floor to steady herself and stared at Bailynn. Her own eyes glistened with moisture.
“Bailynn- I… I’m sorry,” Jenna said, blinking away the water. “I don’t want to use you so I can escape. I want us both to escape. I want us to work together. We share the risk and share the reward. That is what I want.”
“You don’t get it, do you?”
Jenna shook her head, confused.
“You’ll do anything you can to get away. Anything you can to run from them. Anything you can to prove you’re not like them,” Bailynn said, repositioning herself so that she was on her knees now and looking straight into Jenna’s eyes.
“You’ll justify anything, even behaving like them, so you can say you’re not one of them,” Bailynn said.
Jenna’s mouth opened but she had no words to utter. She stared at the ruined girl and her words ate away at her. Bailynn was right. She acted like an elf, even vowing her independence, but she still acted like them. She claimed her ends were different, but her means were the same. She shook her head to deny it reflexively, but found she had no voice to confirm her denial.
“Hit me,” Bailynn whispered, her voice almost seductive. “Lash out and beat me. Prove me wrong. Use your strength over me.”
Jenna shook her head again and this time had the words. “No,” she said, repeating it twice more before continuing. “I’ll not harm you. I’ll never hurt you,” she said.
“Pain is all I know,” she said so softly it took Jenna’s elven ears to hear her.
“No more,” Jenna vowed. “I cannot undo what was done to you, but that is behind you. You have only your past and your future. We cannot change what was, but we can change what will be. I will help you — all of us — will help you.”