Lloyd: I need to apologize profusely about the late update to anyone still reading. Okay, the extremely late update. Genis lost interest in the story, and I've been trying to convince her to keep writing, since we were nearing the end of this chapter, but I haven't managed to yet. And since I've been pushing at it for a very long time now, by the time I decided to just go it solo, I realized more than two months had passed and the first draft of this chapter had gotten deleted from our documents. And then I got discouraged for a bit, got caught up with school, speech, plays, and just general stalling, and totally forgot to work on it more. I'm sorry, don't hurt me! But I'll try and get Genis to help again soon, so hopefully the next chapter will come quicker.
And yes, this chapter is fairly short, but I think I found a good place to end it, and this whole scene is probably twice as long as the original. So...enjoy!
A little more than a week had passed since Caitlin and Katherine had been captured and brought to the ranch. That week had been hell for the two girls. Katherine quickly lost any fight she had previously had, and she had been trying to move under the radar and avoid attracting attention. It worked to some degree, though she could never entirely get away from being hit by the whip-happy Desians. Any fight that left her, though, seemed to be transferred to Caitlin, who had already made it a regular habit to argue with and insult the Desians whenever she had a chance. So while her friend managed to drift quietly through the grueling day-to-day schedule, Caitlin made enemies with her captors and frequently got punished for her words or actions.
So it was that the ninth night in the ranch found Caitlin sprawled on her stomach in their cell while Lucille tried her best to clean up the fresh whip marks on her back. Earlier that day, Caitlin had tried to stop a little kid from getting hurt, since he had been a new arrival to the ranch and had yet to get the strength or endurance to keep working all day. Her efforts had been in vain, as she'd gotten herself in trouble along with the boy. So now her back was just hurting more than it had been the past week.
In order to try and ease the pain and clean the cuts, Lucille was very slowly and carefully pouring a battered cup of water over the girl's back. There were two more cups by her side, which had belonged to both of the girls, but it had been decided that they were better used on the injuries. While the woman worked, Caitlin prodded her bowl of mush, which was nearly half-empty. Katherine sat propped up against the wall just a foot away, slowly working her way through the tasteless meal. Even after nine days, the food had yet to seem appetizing, and neither girl was in much of a rush to finish it.
After a little while of the usual, tense silence in the cell, Lucille sat back on her heels and stacked the three empty cups up. "There. That should at least have cleaned your cuts," the woman said, the ghost of a smile playing around her mouth. Caitlin seemed to have no trouble smiling, since she grinned at the woman next to her in thanks. She would have voiced her thanks, but right then she'd taken a big bite of sticky mush in a sudden attempt to make it disappear as fast as she could. "Just make sure you don't lay on your back, or probably even on your sides. You don't want your back to get dirty and infected," Lucille lectured.
"Don't worry, I'll make sure she doesn't," Katherine promised, as her friend was still struggling to down her bite. "Thanks." Lucille nodded and stood up, grabbing the cups and her own, empty bowl and leaving the two girls alone. She glanced back over at them once as she took her usual spot not that far away and tried to get comfortable enough to sleep. Looking over at Caitlin, Katherine sighed, "You need to stop picking fights." Caitlin blinked at her and finally managed to swallow as she pushed her bowl away and lay her chin on her arms.
"What, would you rather I just watched a little kid who's probably not even reached double digits yet get whipped?" the girl snorted, rolling her eyes. Katherine shook her head, setting her bowl aside and wringing her hands.
"No...but you can't jump in front of everyone the Desians target. They'll end up killing you," Katherine said, the worry clear in her tone. Caitlin shrugged and lifted her head, looking down at her hands. She let her fingers travel over the smooth curve of the Exsphere that was slowly gaining power on her hand. Both of them knew that if for some reason Lloyd's group didn't show in the next couple weeks, they were dead anyway because of the stones that glinted innocently on their skin. Caitlin didn't voice this aloud though, since it was too scary to voice as a possibility.
After a couple minutes of silence, Caitlin finally said, "It doesn't matter anyway. We're leaving tomorrow." She never looked up from her hands, so she missed the look of shock that had made its home on Katherine's face. Katherine stared at her friend as if she was crazy, but the look was missed as Caitlin continued. "We don't know when Lloyd and them are gonna show, so why not get out of here when we can? I'm personally sick of this place, and my back hurts, and I want the apple gels that are waiting outside in our bags. And I have a plan." Finally she looked up, right as Katherine looked down, looking uncomfortable.
"It would be safer just to wait here," she said. "You know that they'll come to the ranch, to save Chocolat if nothing else. And they should be coming soon. A few more days and they'll be here. Hakonesia Peak is far away from Palmacosta, but it can't be that far."
Caitlin frowned at her friend and moved to push herself up, but the movement made her back twinge with pain and she dropped back down onto her stomach. "I don't want to put up with these bastards for another few days! I'm getting out of here tomorrow night, and I really hope that you can see the logic in coming too. True, there is a chance of getting caught, but really, I don't care. These guys can't be much worse than they have been, and if we get out, we can meet up with Lloyd's group before they come here and get healed up and help them."
For a moment, Katherine seemed to be considering her options as she sat there, biting her lip. But then she looked up and shook her head, saying firmly, "I'm not going with you. I don't want to risk it." Caitlin stared at her friend dumbfounded for a full thirty seconds before looking down at the ground dejectedly. She was trying to look as sad and pitiful as possible, though it wasn't working on her friend. Sadly, that tactic almost never did work on Katherine. Seeing that she wasn't getting a response, Caitlin sighed and nodded, resting her head on her arms again and closing her eyes.
"Fine," she muttered, turning her head away. "But you'll see that I'm right. It will work." With that, she tried to get as comfortable as possible while still lying face-first and tried to go to sleep. Katherine looked at her and then shook her head, slowly working her way toward sleep as well.
The next morning, Caitlin had slipped into the team of prisoners that was digging the trench. She had noticed it inching closer and closer toward the gate, though the Desians had stopped its progress two days ago before it had gotten too close, and now the hole was just being filled in again so that it could be redug. Caitlin was at the end of the trench, as close to the gate as she could get, as she shoveled dirt back into the deep ditch that had probably taken at least a month to complete. From there, she could watch the Desians coming and going on their different patrols and look for what she most needed - the code they typed in to open the doors.
Over the course of the week, Caitlin had been plotting how best to leave the ranch. When she had noticed how the Desians left it, it had been her top priority to figure out how to do the same. From what she could tell, in order to leave, a passcode and a key card were needed. The key card she had aquired halfway through the week when she'd nicked it from a Desian's pocket while she had been fighting him off, and currently it was tucked into the waist band of her pants. Every now and then she would check to make sure it was still there and that it hadn't slipped free and fallen into the trench to be buried.
The passcode was more difficult to aquire, but Caitlin had tried her best to be near the gate whenever a patrol left. She had all but two numbers, and she would have a fifty-fifty chance of getting those two numbers right. But she wanted to try and get one of them down for sure, so then there would only be one iffy digit. When the noon patrol started out, Caitlin paused in her work in order to sneak at peek at the key pad. 1-3-7/8-2-...6? Unfortunately, she was unable to tell for absolute sure whether the Desian had pushed the five or the six, though she was pretty sure it was the six, since just then a Desian had come up behind her.
Bringing his whip down across her shoulders, the half-elf barked, "Keep working," and glared at her. Caitlin flinched away as she felt the mediocre weapon cut a new little mark on her skin, but she quickly went back to work. Today she didn't want to have any disagreement with a whip-wielding half-elf, since it would be hard enough running away without a mass of new injuries to hinder her. The Desian nodded, pleased, as he moved down the line, barking out orders and insults and using his leather weapon as freely as he wanted.
Finally, the sky started to darken, and the Desians started to gather the prisoners together in order to shepherd them back into their cells. Caitlin joined the gathering of humans outside the main building, though she had no intent of staying with them. As she moved through the people, she spotted Katherine. The other girl gave her a frightened look as Caitlin just smiled, waved, and slid out of the mass of bodies into the cover of shadows. Under any kind of scrutiny, her hiding place was horrible, so she quickly sought out a better one. Some of the large stone blocks lay abandoned nearby, and she quickly ducked behind one. None of the Desians noticed her abrupt departure as they herded the humans inside.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Caitlin grabbed the orange key card from her waist band and held it tightly in one hand. As soon as all of the Desians had gone back inside, where they were no doubt going to have a nice, relaxing sleep before morning, she stole away from her hiding place and into the building that the prisoners had entered a few minutes before. Instead of going very far into the complex and risk getting caught, Caitlin quietly opened up the nearest door and slipped inside, shutting it just as quietly behind her. When she turned, the girl swore to herself for picking such a horrible hiding spot.
Unbeknownst to her, she had walked right into one of the Desian's lounges. Three couches were gathered in a horse-shoe shape with a coffee table in the middle. There was a counter lining one wall, with cabinets above it, and a tiny refridgerator underneath. A larger, closet-looking cupboard sat against another wall, and there was another door on the other side of the room. Afraid of going any further - because what if the next room was the sleeping quarters and there were Desians there? - Caitlin decided to find a hiding spot in the lounge. Considering that there was only one area big enough for her, she didn't have many options.
Quickly, the girl crossed the room to the tall cupboard, but then paused and looked over at the mini fridge. Looking back and forth between the door, fridge, and cupboard, she finally made up her mind and made for the fridge. Opening it, she found fruit and vegetables and what looked like a bowl of pudding. But instead of grabbing any of that, she grabbed the treat in the freezer part of it - a slab of sweet, frozen chocolate. With her prize in hand, Caitlin shut the fridge door and quickly ducked into the cupboard, pulling the door closed behind her. Inside was practically bare except for a couple forgotten capes on the floor, which the girl sat on. Clearly, the space wasn't often used.
It wasn't too long after she'd taken her hiding spot and started on her sweet, delicious snack that the door opened. Light suddenly appeared through the cracks around the doors of the cupboard as one of the Desians threw the light switch. They were laughing as they entered, and Caitlin narrowed her eyes. Evil half-elves like them shouldn't be allowed to laugh. And also, it was faintly disturbing.
"Did anyone else notice how calm D204 was today?" one of the Desians asked as the door clicked shut behind them. Caitlin pushed the cupboard door open just enough that she could see out of it. The Desian that had just spoken had flopped onto one of the couches, and he had two of his buddies with him. One was out of her view, but he had to be there to have closed the door, and the other was raiding the fridge.
"Maybe she's finally learning her place," the one at the fridge snorted as he pawed through the freezer. The other two Desians seemed just as skeptical, and Caitlin's eyes narrowed further as they realized they were talking about her. She hadn't heard her number before, but there weren't a great many other prisoners who hadn't 'learned their place' and were girls, so it was pretty easy to know who they were talking about. "Hey, did either of you two steal my chocolate? I was saving that." The girl inside the cupboard froze, looking down at the half-eaten chunk of candy in her hand.
"You probably ate it last night when you were half asleep, Drake," the third Desian laughed, finally coming into the teenager's view. He had removed his helmet, and he had a bad case of helmet hair. The blond locks were flat against his head, and the tips of his slightly-pointed ears were red from where the helmet had rubbed against them. The Desian tossed his helmet on the coffee table, where it landed with a thud, and he flopped onto another couch. "Either that, or you can't see it past that overly-large helmet of yours."
Drake turned around and yanked the helmet off his head, revealing the fact that he was glaring. Caitlin stared at the half-elf, since he didn't appear to be much older than she was, and he had a very faint resemblance to one of her younger brothers. His light brown hair refused to do what normal helmet hair did, and a large chunk was practically sticking straight up in the air, giving him a more comical look. "Shut up, Sawyer. I can see just fine through my helmet, and at least my head isn't too big for it to cover." With that, Drake stuck his tongue out at the older half-elf very childishly.
"Would you two quit bickering? It's too late for that," the first Desian said, pulling his own helmet off and shaking his head to get his own red hair to pop back up. He set the headgear on the couch beside him and looked between his two comrades. "Just shut up and calm down already." Sawyer just chuckled and reclined on the couch, propping his feet up on the table, while Drake instantly turned back to continue the chocolate search.
The three Desians stayed where they were for a couple hours, bickering, play fighting, and chatting the whole time. Caitlin was dozing off leaning against the wall of her cupboard, with her chocolate-covered hands in her lap. Eventually, at around eleven thirty, Sawyer slammed his hands on the table as he pushed himself up, jolting the girl into wakefullness once more. "We should probably call it a night, guys. I dunno about you, but I'd prefer to get a decent amount of sleep before having to drag those inferior beings out of their rooms." The other two voiced their agreement and the three exited the room via the second door, clinking out the lights as they went.
Slowly, Caitlin started to regain her night vision after the brightness of the electric lighting. She gave it another half an hour before she even chanced moving from her hiding spot, in case Drake decided to come out and raid the fridge one last time. While trying to be as quiet as a ninja, Caitlin slipped over to the door and carefully pulled it open until she could just slide out into the hall. The lighting there once again assaulted her eyes after the darkness of the room, and she blinked rapidly so her eyes would adjust. Once she was able to see again, she hurried from the building and back outside.
Luckily, since it was the middle of summer, the air was warm and actually fairly pleasant. It was always best when there was no chance of freezing in the middle of the night. Throwing all caution to the wind, Caitlin bolted for the gate, getting there as quickly as her legs would carry her. Once there she paused to calm her rapidly beating heart - as she had been sure she would've been spotted. Since no red lights started flashing, and the night was definitely alarm-free, the girl figured it was safe to finish her plan. Just as she'd seen the Desians to, Caitlin swiped the orange card through the lock and punched the buttons. 1-3-8-2-6. It beeped and a red light flashed. Frustrated, she tried again. 1-3-7-2-6. The device flashed red again, and she stared at it. She had been sure the last digit was six! Apparently she had seen wrong earlier that day.
Growling to herself, Caitlin quickly reswiped the card and punched in 1-3-8-2-5. This time, along with the flashing red light, a small but loud alarm started going off above her head, making her flinch and cover her ears. Clearly, the Desians had a three strikes, you're out system, and she pitied any new recruit who was bad at memorizing as she pushed the buttons one last time. 1-3-7-2-5. Finally, the light flashed green and the gates swung open. Caitlin was faintly surprised it had worked at all with a fourth try, but she assumed that the Desians weren't dumb enough to get locked into their own ranch should someone get the code wrong three times.
Before she could dash out past the walls, the sound of barked orders made her turn and look over her shoulder. A few Desians had flown out of the building to see what was the matter, one of which was a drowsy-looking, pajama-clad Sawyer whose once helmet-y hair now stuck out every which way from his pillow. If her life wasn't in danger, Caitlin would've laughed at the sight, but as it was, she just smirked a little before turning tail and running through the already closing gates.
Instead of trying to make a break for the House of Salvation or (if she was really lucky) a traveler's camp, which would be the closest refuge, Caitlin dove into the surrounding forest, where she hoped to find a quick escape. Because of her much-dreaded gym class at school, Caitlin had quickly found out she was the slowest runner in her class, and probably in the whole school. And that was against kids her own age, not to mention a group of angry, adult half-elves with Exspheres. So since she knew it would be impossible to outrun them, she needed a hiding spot.
It didn't take long for the girl to find a tree with low-hanging branches. Getting a running start, she jumped and snagged a branch, pulling herself up and using the few flimsy tree limbs underneath as leverage. As a kid, Caitlin had climbed trees often, and occasionally still did, but she had never gone very high before. Now, however, the situation had kind of changed. No longer was she playing with her little brothers or her friends, and just goofing around. Now she was in big trouble, and she didn't hesitate to climb until the branches felt a little weak underneath her. They were still able to support her weight, but still she clung to the trunk as if hugging it.
Down below and a little ways away, the Desians were starting their search for her, while the alarms continued to blare from the ranch. Caitlin was glad she had managed to sleep a little bit in the lounge, because she knew with the noise, fear, and just the general situation, she wouldn't be sleeping at all that night.