Snow ✓

The Escape

In the space between sleep and consciousness, the tail of a dream mingled with the present: You are my little monster, and I am yours, Eli said, stroking her hair as she rested her head in his lap on his bedroom floor, sunlight streaming in through the window, and the smell of something burning wrinkling her nose—

"Leave it to the damn methuselah to give me a trick key," someone grunted, tearing through the thin membrane of the dream.

Snow awoke to Hurgo standing outside her cell. Another man in matching prisoner scrubs was kneeling outside, his hands wrapped around the bars of her cage, elbows out, and a tight grimace stretching his perspiring face.

"Nearly got it," he said in that peculiar accent--same as Hurgo's--through gritted teeth, the veins in his neck looking ready to pop with the strain.

He wasn't wearing the face she remembered, but he had that untidy hair the color of a cardinal's plumage, the burning irises to match, and the same dark complexion like freshly turned earth soaking up a sunrise, and who else would pause with Hurgo to help her escape on their way to the exit? It could only be Tres. What she didn't remember was the insignia on his chest peeking out above his collar. She had never seen this particular one and yet recognized it for what it was: a transmutation circle. Tres gave one last, fierce tug on bars bending under his grip, and created a gap big enough for her to crawl through.

"Apologies," he said breathlessly. "I usually burn much hotter than this, but, the mad doc stuck me in a cryp-cryo--well, no need to get into it now," he said after a pointed look from Hurgo. Then, to Snow: "Come on through. Mind the sides."

Snow stared up into that molten gaze, Rath's words skipping through her head: A faery who's been tasked with hauling you back to the Holókaustos for a little bloodletting.

"Look. I know you must be out of your mind with indecision, us practically being strangers and all, but the fact that we're pressed for time is the understatement of—I'm told—the last seven orbits. The difference between the good and bad guys and gals," he added behind a hand like her feminist head would have exploded at the omission, "is probably a bit hazy--Hurgo's never been much of a persuasive narrator--" cue a derisive look from Hurgo, "but he and I are your door out of this seeping dung hole. There's no one else coming, princess. So, what's it going to be?"

The keycard, which appeared to have a splotch of blood on it, lay on the floor, forgotten.

"Rath gave you that key?"

Tres' lip twitched. "On a first-name basis with the methuselah, eh?"

Shouts and banging began to ripple down the corridor as the inmates caught whiff of an escape.

"Our opportunity, here, is denser than a pygmy and quickly losing its stripes—there's no time to stand about questioning your good fortune, understand?" Not awaiting a reply, he snatched up the keycard and strode through the glass door.

Hurgo gave her a sidelong glance on his way out.

Snow thought she knew why Rath had parted with the keycard, and while she trusted no one, she knew she needed help to escape this place. If it meant chaos once they were on the ground, she would deal with it then.

Wondering how anyone planned to escape the sky, Snow squeezed through the bars and took up the rear.

"Where are we going?" she asked after the third corner. They had yet to run into anyone, though there was a violent arc of red on the wall here and there as they hurried down the dimly-lit corridors.