"He says I have to marry him," she whispered into Beth's shoulder. "I don't have a choice. He says I could be pregnant already, and if that happens while I'm unmarried we all know what will happen to me."
There was nothing to say, so Bethany simply held her a moment longer. Then Moriah pushed away from her and wiped her eyes.
"We need to get to the kitchens," she said. "I'm supposed to help prepare the slaves' meal tonight. If I'm late, someone might suspect. Will you help me leave? If you can check the corridor to make sure no one is out there, I can slip away…"
"Of course," Bethany said quickly. "I'll check for you."
They crept softly across the room, and Bethany opened the door. She stepped out into the corridor and looked carefully each way. No one.
"It's safe to come out," she whispered, and Moriah crept out behind her. Quickly, the younger woman scuttled down the hallway toward her own apartments. She had a child, a daughter less than a year old, Bethany remembered. Hopefully someone she could trust had been with her. Another wave of nausea came over her as she realized it was entirely possible that Moriah had been forced to leave the baby all alone. Forced to do so by Bose, her own father.
She started toward the slave complex to pick up the food carts. It was better not to think about these things. They were entirely out of her control. The day guards were still on duty, lounging outside the main entrance to the complex. The men had been locked in the barracks the cycle before, so there was no reason to leave anyone stationed in the main room or the mine. The two men opened the locked and barricaded doors for her without comment, closing them behind her with a loud, clanging noise.
She made her way quickly down the short corridor into the main room. To one side was the tunnel leading to the mines, but all she could think of was checking on the slave. Opening the storage room door, she flicked on the light and moved quickly to his pallet. Bragan groaned, rolling over to cover his eyes with his arm.
"Couldn't you knock first?" he moaned.
"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I didn't mean to startle you. How is he doing this cycle?"
"He's fine," Bragan muttered. "I'm going back to sleep. I've still got several minutes before I need to be up and I'm going to use them."
She nodded, and stepped over the sleeping man to check on the slave. His name was Jess, she reminded herself. Bragan had told her the cycle before. Calling him by name was infinitely better than "the slave". He was lying in the same position she had left him, looking so weak and pale that it scared her.
How could he still be alive? He hadn't had any food or water for days, yet when she checked his pulse; it was still strong. She gave a sigh of relief for that—she had at least one more day to live. She shook her head, clearing away the morbid thoughts, then stood and left the storeroom.
There was no time to waste. She had to get the carts to the main kitchen. They would wake the slaves in less than an hour, and the food had to be ready for them. Pushing the first of the three large carts, she made her way back through the main room and down the corridor. The guards let her back through the re-enforced doors, and she walked briskly toward the communal kitchen area.
Unlike her father's apartment or the slave complex, the kitchen was a sea of activity. All around her, women and young girls were chatting and laughing together as they cleaned up from the last meal of the day. The kitchen was usually like this, at least as long as the kitchen supervisor, a stern and humorless woman named Magda, wasn't around. She usually left just as the evening meal was being served. For many of the women—Bethany included—hours spent in the kitchen following that meal were the most pleasant on the station.
She didn't have many female friends here. She had left so many years ago to be married that few of the girls she grew up with were still around. Most had moved to various other mining stations to be with their husbands. As a widow without children, she didn't fit in the rest of them. Some of them scorned her, but others looked on her with kindness. She might not have friends, but certainly she wasn't among enemies in the kitchen. At least not in the evening, when the younger women worked.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Moriah. She was wearing a high-necked tunic which completely covered the bruises Bethany knew were on her neck. Moriah shot her a quick smile, and Bethany gave a sigh of relief. If someone had caught her sneaking out of the apartment she wouldn't be smiling.
Pushing the cart over toward the big kettles at one end of the kitchen, she steadied it as two of the women poured nutritional gruel into the large tubs. As soon as they were full, she headed back with the cart. It was heavy now, but she didn't allow herself to think about it how hard it was to push. She still had two more trips to make before she ate her own breakfast, and then it would be time to wash everything again.
She was back. Jess forced himself to lay utterly motionless, in the same position he had been when she left him earlier. It was hard to ignore the smell of the hot food she had wheeled into the main room.
Her name was Bethany. Her presence had filled his senses from the moment he'd awakened three days earlier. Everything about her seemed beautiful to him—amazing. Bragan seemed to have no appreciation for the beauty of her name when he'd mentioned it, yet Jess repeated it to himself over and over like a mantra. Bethany. He loved her clean smell, loved listening to the soft songs she would hum as she cleaned and worked. He also loved the occasional touches she gave him, checking his forehead or wiping his face as he feigned sleep.
Bragan said she was an outcast among her own people. He seemed to feel she could be trusted, and the story of how she'd saved his life was certainly amazing to Jess. Still, he wanted her to believe he was unconscious for another day. The longer he was incapacitated, the more likely he was to learn valuable information. Bragan had often tried to spy on the guards at night, but he was too tired to stay up much.
Fatigue could kill a man in the mines. Jess' injury had given him the perfect excuse to rest all day and plot all night.
He waited quietly she wheeled the heavy carts of food in to the men. He could hear their activity.
Fifteen minutes to eat. Then they were pouring out of the barracks and suiting up for their work in the mine. Another day, just like all the others before it.
Bragan stopped in, followed by the woman. Jess lay still as he took his pulse, then spoke to the woman.
"He seems to be stronger," Bragan said cautiously. Jess held back a snort of amusement. He was better all right. Last night he and Bragan had talked for an hour, planning his slow process of "recovery"
and the escape they hoped would follow. In all honesty, he was still weak. But there wasn't any reason he couldn't have gone back to the mine in a day or so.
Instead, they were going to keep him out for almost the entire two weeks. It was a delicate balance.
If he were too sick the Pilgrims would give up on him. But he couldn't go back to work until the last minute. He needed every moment of precious freedom to plan and plot the escape. If things went well, he would be free in less than two weeks. Free or dead.
Jess was relatively certain that if he could come up with a decent escape plan, the men would follow him. Logan was covering his end; already they had ten volunteers who wanted their implants removed. If everything went off just right, that might be enough. They were willing to risk death to get out. But up to this point, no one had been able to find an avenue of escape that had even a chance of success.
He was determined to do it, or die trying.
The men had left for the mine now. She was moving around in the room, and he could hear the rattling of the carts. He was so damn hungry—Bragan had promised to leave him some food in his locker. He had to wait until the men were all in the mines and she was gone to get it, though. The carts rattled again, and he could hear her washing the trays. It seemed like forever… he imagined the tiny bits of porridge left on them, being washed into the station's recycler. They would be used again, perhaps for dinner that night. But he needed food now…