Hannah had explained to her that many Arcadian homes, especially salons, had secret ways in and out similar to the tunnel Mae had used at Carl’s. Arcadian men were covetous of their women and wanted them secured, but they still needed fire exits and other emergency paths out.
Mae’s hope was that a household servant like this girl would know where the house’s hidden exit was, and then Mae could smuggle the upstairs girls out while the men were distracted by the fire. It became immediately obvious that the girl wasn’t going to help, however, when she began screaming.
“Shut up!” hissed Mae. The girl kept screaming, dashing any tentative attempt at secrecy. Desperate to regain some semblance of control, Mae leapt out at the girl and dealt her a blow to the head that rendered her unconscious. That brought a merciful return to silence, but Mae didn’t know if it was a little too late. That, and it had also silenced a potential source of information unless one of the girls knew about the house’s secret escape.
As it turned out, danger came not from outside, but within. Mae had barely turned toward the stairs leading up when two unknown men came barreling down. Her implant, already on alert, surged to action, flooding her with adrenaline that made her act quickly and instinctively.
She lashed out as the first assailant came at her, blocking his attack and flipping him over so that he landed hard on his back. At the same instant, she saw his partner draw a gun on her, and with no other means to dodge or attack the man directly, Mae deferred to her faster reflexes and shot him before he could shoot her. The man she’d knocked to the ground began to scramble toward her, and she shot him too.
“Damn,” she muttered. If the men outside didn’t know something had happened earlier, they did now. She’d been foolish to think that just because she hadn’t seen more guards outside, there were none on the property. It made sense that Pittsfield would’ve had extra security after her previous visit, leaving those men directly with the girls while others ran errands outside. Done was done, and there was no point in beating herself up over the error. The question now was where she was going to make her stand.
She chose a spot just up the stairs to launch her defense, one that afforded her an angle on the front door but mostly kept her out of sight.
When the other guard—the one who’d had sex with the serving girl that night in the kitchen—came through, he had only the briefest of glimpses of Mae before she shot him. Even if she’d had time for remorse, she wouldn’t have spared it for him, not after seeing the earlier terror in the marked girl’s face. That girl’s entire life had been spent at the mercy of others, and he’d callously taken advantage of it.
A creak on the stairs behind Mae explained why only one man had come through the door—and also revealed the location of the emergency exit. She spun around and saw Pittsfield launching himself down the stairs at her. The secret way he’d taken must have wound through another staircase hidden within the walls that went up to the second floor. That edge of surprise allowed him to literally get the jump on her, and the two of them tumbled down to the main floor, landing in a heap that left them both momentarily confused. Mae, burning with the implant’s chemical flood, recovered much more quickly, and its edge helped knock down whatever advantage his greater body size held, as did her youth and training. She soon gained the dominant position, disarming him and throwing him down on the floor again as she got to her feet. He started to follow, but the sight of her gun pointed at him made him freeze. Slowly, he held up his hands in a warding gesture.
“Let me go,” he begged. “Let me go, and you can have whatever you want. Take the girls. They’re worth a fortune in—” His mouth clamped shut, and his eyes bugged as he looked her over. “You . . . you’re a woman!”
“Good catch.”
He was still flabbergasted. “Wh . . . what are you doing?”
“I’m taking the girls.”
“But . . . why?”
It was incredible, Mae thought. A moment ago, when he’d thought she was a male thief, he’d tried to barter the girls for his safety. Now, he couldn’t even fathom why she’d want them.
“To set them free.”
The blank look he gave her told Mae he was still lost.
“You kidnapped them,” she said through gritted teeth. “You took them from their homes so you could sell them into slavery and make a profit from it.”
“Homes?” he spat. “I took them from heathen lands where women fornicate with demons and brought them here where they can live in Nehitimar’s salvation. I did them a favor.”
“By locking them up and selling them to men twice their age?”
Pittsfield’s eyes narrowed. “You’re one of them. One of those women. This is what happens when people stray from Nehitimar’s grace, when women aren’t taught their proper roles!” Emboldened, he tried to get to his feet. “I’ll show you right now how a woman needs to—”
Mae pulled the trigger.
It wasn’t entirely his irritating tirade that made her do it. Soldier or not, Mae didn’t like to kill wantonly. He had presented no immediate threat, true, but she couldn’t leave him here bound and gagged as she had the guard in the woods. He’d identified her as a woman and a foreigner, and when word of this got around, that might be too big a connection for someone not to pair with Hannah’s disappearance. And although Mae didn’t necessarily see herself as a dispenser of
vengeance, there was no telling how many atrocities he’d been responsible for. She was only dealing with this crop of girls. How many had come before them? How many stolen and sold away? How many misused like the poor unconscious girl in the kitchen? He was no innocent, and while Mae would’ve liked to walk away from this mess with no bloodshed, she wasn’t going to lose much sleep over killing someone who profited from taking advantage of those who were weaker.
And now, she needed to find those girls and get out of here.
Although the salon was relatively isolated, it wasn’t that far from the highway, and the odds were good someone would’ve seen or heard what happened. If she could get everyone out of here soon enough, the authorities would think enterprising men had stolen this prime catch of girls, never guessing that a woman was behind it.
Eager as she was, however, Mae moved cautiously when she went upstairs, in case more unknown guards were lurking. She didn’t have to worry. All eleven girls were crowded together in one of the bedrooms, with no other men in sight. They only flinched a little when Mae burst in with her gun, looking more surprised than afraid. Guns weren’t an oddity around here the way assertive women were.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said, taking the approach she had earlier with the kitchen girl. “I’m here to free you.”
This received almost no reaction, and Mae had to accept that she wasn’t going to be welcomed as a liberating hero. These girls had no concept of freedom—not yet. They were used to force and orders, and for now, that was the approach she’d have to run with. She sighed and waved her gun toward the doorway.
“Come on, we’re leaving. Move quickly and quietly in a single line.”
They fell to it, trooping dutifully down the stairs, though some did display a bit of shock at the bodies there.
“Wait,” said Mae. She gestured to two of the older girls and nodded toward the unconscious servant. “Drag her out. She’s coming with us.”
One of them frowned. “Why take her? She’s not worth anything.”
“I’m taking her for the same reason I’m taking all of you,” said Mae. “To get you out of this hellhole.” The servant woman wasn’t a Gemman, nor did she have the sympathetic story the provincial girls here did, but it didn’t matter. No way would Mae leave her behind, and at this point, she was facing so many complications when—and if—she made it back to her country that tacking on one more hardly seemed significant just then.
The two girls obeyed, but another one was still skeptical as they walked out toward the van. “You aren’t taking us to sell us?”
“I’m taking you to a place where you’ll be free,” Mae told them, eyeing the smoke from the burning car with dismay. That was definitely going to attract attention. The confused looks on the girls’ faces said most still couldn’t comprehend the concept of freedom, and she groped for an explanation as she hurried them into the back of the van. “You won’t be sold off or made anyone’s wife unless you want to. And if you do want to be a wife, then you’ll get to choose your husband.”
“There’s no such place,” insisted one of the younger girls.
“Nehitimar wouldn’t allow it.”
“Nehitimar has no hold where we’re going.” Mae shut the door behind her. The girls settled into the back of the van, no doubt breaking a hundred safety mandates back home, but Mae didn’t care. She started to step past them and then paused when she saw her niece sitting quietly in the van, taking everything in with wide hazel eyes. “What’s your name?” Mae asked her.
The girl cowered at having attention drawn to her, and Mae felt the earlier anger she’d tried to push down return. It wasn’t directed at her niece but rather at the people and system who’d made her niece this way, docile and fearful, waiting to be told what to do.
“Ada,” said one of the other girls, the one who’d wanted to know if Mae was selling them. “Her name is Ada.”
It was a pretty enough name but not one Mae was familiar with, meaning it almost certainly wasn’t part of the RUNA’s Greek or Latin registry. “Not anymore. You’ll have a new name in the place we’re going to. Ava.” It was the first Gemman name that came to mind that resembled Ada, and even though Mae knew it was a harsh thing to tell a little girl who had no concept of what was happening around her, something in Mae couldn’t help it. She was still angry at the forces that had dropped her niece here, and breaking free of even their naming system seemed like a first step at freedom, even if the poor girl didn’t realize it yet.
Mae had no more time to talk and took the driver’s seat. She slipped the keys into the car’s ignition but nothing happened. She pulled them out and tried again, only to get the same effect. “No,” she groaned. Not this, not now.
“You have to turn them.” The girl who’d told Mae her niece’s name had quietly slipped into the passenger seat. “Haven’t you seen a car driven before?”
Mae had both seen and driven one before—at least, she’d driven Gemman cars before. Most populated areas used automated cars, but military personnel were trained to drive manually since battlefield situations often required a human touch. Those vehicles—leagues more sophisticated than this one—started much more simply, with buttons or a key that sparked ignition the instant it was inserted. Heeding the girl’s advice now, Mae fumbled with the key, finally managing to turn it in a way that brought the archaic sounding engine to life. It was loud but steady, and she hoped it was in good shape.
The rest of the controls bore enough similarity to what Mae knew that she was finally able to get the van to drive with a little more trial and error. The girl beside her looked suitably impressed in the glow of the dashboard’s controls, probably because she’d never seen a woman drive before. Mae managed to get them onto the main highway without pursuit and grew more accustomed to the van’s operation, creating a less jerky ride that the scared and silent girls didn’t seem to appreciate.
“What will my name be?” asked the girl beside her.
“Hmm?” asked Mae, attempting to adjust the rearview mirror.
“In the new land we’re going to. Don’t we all get new names?”
Mae hadn’t really thought that far ahead. It would be a matter for those in the Citizens Ministry who maintained the national registry.
“It depends,” she said. “What’s your name now?”
“Cecilia.”
“That’s Latin. You won’t need a new one.”
The girl looked so disappointed that Mae immediately felt bad. “I mean, you could go by Cecily, I guess. Or Cecile. There’s probably a few other acceptable variations from that root in the registry.”
“Cecile,” said the girl decisively, her face brightening. “I like Cecile.”
It occurred to Mae that cultivating the one girl who didn’t seem terrified of this journey she was taking them on might not be a bad thing. It was foolish to hope her niece—Ava—would immediately latch onto Mae, but that didn’t mean she shouldn’t seek allies in the others.
She might need them to get out of here, them and the goddess who so far hadn’t had to do much except show her a few visions.
“Okay, Cecile. Do you know if any others were coming by the salon tonight? Any other men?”
“I don’t think so,” said the girl. “I think we were getting ready to leave when . . . you came. We’d just finished supper, and Mr. Pittsfield told us to go upstairs and get the rest of our things. Then we heard that big boom. Did you do that?”
“I did,” said Mae. “I needed to—oh no.”
Alternating which hand stayed on the wheel, she’d been rummaging through her coat pockets in search of the map. It was gone.
It must have fallen out during the scuffle with Pittsfield.
“I don’t suppose you know the roads around here?” Seeing Cecile’s astonished face, Mae almost smiled. “Never mind. We’ll figure it out.” She’d gotten a good look at the map and had enough of a sense of direction based on the sun to know her cardinal directions. It would have to be enough to get her to the northern border until something better came along.