Daughter of the Moon - Book Three: Fire

Chapter 19: Plan B

- Elara -

I just knew things were going to get much more difficult the moment the guards had reeled Chit Sang and his cronies back to the prison. And they were.

The Warden became increasingly paranoid by the thought that he had almost allowed some of his prisoners to escape, so security was tightened ten-fold to make sure it wouldn't happen again. That being said, it was a freaking miracle that we were able to find Sokka's dad and come up with a new plan with all the new safety measures put in place. Sure, Sokka was about ten seconds away from having his cover blown, and Zuko had been whisked away by the guards to some secret cell that we couldn't find, but things could have been a lot worse (but I tried to not dwell on that).

And to top it all off, I was pretty confident that our new plan was going to work. I had surveyed the playing field myself while Sokka went to release the prisoners from lock-down, and even though I knew it was going to be difficult, I couldn't see why we couldn't get out of the Boiling Rock alive.

We just needed to start a riot before we could do anything else. Easy enough, right?

"This is it," Sokka announced to Suki, Jade, Hakoda, and I as we huddled together in the shade of one of the guard towers once the prisoners had made their way to the courtyard. "We have to start a riot."

"Okay, but how do we do that?" Suki asked incredulously as she glanced at the other prisoners nearby (all of whom looked rather intimidating, if you were to ask me).

Hakoda smirked as he looked over at the very same group of prisoners before turning to approach them. "I'll show you," he said confidently as he sauntered away towards his inevitable doom.

Not a single word was uttered amongst our group as we watched Hakoda barrel over to one of the burliest prisoners in the yard, and our cynicism was only amplified as we watched his sad attempts at starting a riot. Sokka's dad had launched himself into the only man that could probably eat Hakoda for breakfast, but while we had anticipated a good pummeling, the prisoner simply turned around and seemed to share with Hakoda how his behavior had hurt his feelings.

It was then that I gathered that this plan was going to be more difficult than I had initially anticipated.

"Wow," Jade coughed uncomfortably as she went to speak to Sokka, clearly unimpressed by Hakoda's failure. "You're dad is really...something..."

Sokka could only smack his head in embarrassment as he arrived at the same conclusion as everyone else. "This isn't working."

Before we could sink into the sorrows of—yet another—failure (or one of Sokka's feverish plotting meltdowns), a large hand landed on Sokka's shoulder as we were graced by the presence of one of the most obnoxious men I had ever met.

"Hey, you! You're lucky I didn't rat you out," Chit Sang hollered as he threw himself into another one of our private conversations that had nothing to do with him whatsoever. Unfortunately, his timing couldn't have been worse because he put us all on edge by saying, "But my generosity comes with a price."

My mind flickered through all the possible scenarios of what he could possibly want, but I should have known that a basic man had basic needs, especially when he was stuck in a prison.

"I know you're planning another escape attempt," Chit Sang explained, "and I want in."

"Actually, we're trying to escape right now!" Sokka replied enthusiastically without even considering how Chit Sang had interfered with our plans the first time. "But we need a riot. You wouldn't happen to know how to start one, would you?"