In the morning they were once again given food and, surprisingly, water. At noon, the slavers made a break, but the captives were not fed. They marched through until late at night, made camp and fed the captives. This routine continued for several days, until one day the slavers' leader didn't give the order to break camp one morning. Instead he gave the order to rest for a day.
This order devastated Maka's hope. The fact that he put in a day's rest meant that he was no longer afraid of pursuers, therefore, they must have left West Wyoming. If they were no longer in West Wyoming, then there was no hope left of her being rescued.
A bit later a slaver bought the captives their food. To Maka, it had a taste of hopelessness, like the one one would expect a last meal to have. She ate her bread with disgust. How could she reattain her freedom now? There was no way she could escape the slavers, and she had heard that slave markets were very well secured. The only way to escape would be to wait to be sold and then run away. She best place to run would be West Wyoming. But that was when it struck here that she didn't know where she was and that she had only a vague idea of where she would sold. She would have to plan her escape very carefully.
Maka spend the rest of the morning contemplating how to escape and which information and what supplies she would have to gather before she could make a run for it. A map would definitly come in handy. She would also need supplies or she would not make it far. And she would have to get rid of that collar they put on her. She put her hands on it to feel it. It was made of some kind of fabric with some kind of metal woven into it, getting it off would be very difficult. In the back she could feel the lock and before that, a belt buckle like object, througth which the collar went. It couldn't be pulled out without unlocking the lock, that would be too easy. But it was possible to pull it the other way. So any struggling against the chain would result in the collar thightening. Truly an ingenious and sadistic idea. In the front there was a small and thin metal plate, roughtly as wide as an index finger and as three times the width of her ring finger high, firmly attached to the collar. It was probably a label, to be filled with her future owner's information, so if somebody caught her running away she could be returned to him and punished.
"Hands off the collar, or I will have to whip you" said the guard in a sing song voice. Maka immediately put her hands down and looked at the guard. She had stopped noticing them two days in, but what struck her about this guard was the fact that the guard was female, even though most other slavers were male. She had short blonde hair, blue eyes and rosy cheeks. Maka wondered how a young girl like her could take up such a despicable profession. She also noted that this slaver was less aggressive than her colleagues, they would have whipped her by now.
"Hey Patty, here's you're lunch" said another slaver. Patty climbed through the truck to the front and took her lunch.
"Yuk! It's that dammed chef's vegetable stew. Serving that 2 days in a row has to be a crime against humanity", said Patty in disgust.
"Actually, that's left over from yesterday", said the other slaver.
"Then why are you bringing me this?", asked Patty.
"Order from Dr. Eisenberg", said the other slaver.
"And why?", asked Patty.
"Because he knows you hate it" said the other slaver.
"He should get over himself" said Patty, now sounding slightly angry.
"He has his reasons", said the other slaver.
"And what would those be?", asked Patty.
"Oh, I don't know. I'm not him, after all. But I guess it has something to do with how we lost a whole day's supply of water thanks to you", said the other slaver.
"We have more water than we will ever need.", said Patty.
"You can be glad we have enough water. Otherwise you'd get more than 4 shifts of guard duty and 50 lashes. If we would not have enough water left, you'd be swinging from a branch right now", said the other slaver before turning around and walking away. Patty climbed back through the truck, sat down in her seat and began eating the stew.
Maka was worried. Patty had been assigned to four shifts of guard duty in a row and would later be whipped as punishment. She feared Patty would abuse the captives in order to distract herself from her upcoming whipping and to keep herself awake. It had to be upcoming, she hadn't heard any whippings that consisted of more than 10 lashes until now. She decided to be quiet and to not draw attention to herself, so she would not be a victim of some arbitrary punishment Patty decided to dish out.