Bo and the Beast (Book #1) (Completed)

17. Desperation

It had been two more days in captivity, and Bo had spent them dutifully cleaning the rooms downstairs while the Beast ignored her and had her eat in her room. She'd scrubbed the floors and organized collectibles and dusted every single surface she could find. It was mind-numbing work, something she thought she would go crazy doing for too long. Not only was the work silent and mindless, but it had no use. She was too used to doing the kind of work that kept people alive and fed. To be suddenly faced with a lifetime of endless tidying felt like being suffocated under the shifting dunes of sand in the Blast Zone.

Night was the only time she had to herself, and somehow that seemed even more oppressive than her endless cleaning. She had nothing to keep her mind occupied, and instead she stared at the ceiling and thought of what everyone was doing back at the camp. Her dad, if he had made it back, would be asleep in the family tent. Aston and Felicia might be on night watch. Her heart ached as she remembered the familiar routes and voices. She couldn't even remember a time when she hadn't heard her people yell out greetings as she passed, or offer hugs and meals when she needed them the most. Even more, she couldn't bear the thought of all those people moving on without her.

A small clock on the mantelpiece ticked away the minutes until the bell-like chime gently announced the hour. Two o'clock. It was still a few more hours until she had to be awake to trim the bushes out front. Thinking about Dent nagging her, and the Beast doing whatever he pleased while she was forced to clean up after him, suddenly became more than she could bear. She could be protecting her people, building better defenses on the camp, and spending precious moments with her dad while she still had him. Staying with this Beast was a waste of her life, and this injustice jolted through her like a battalion of ants. She leapt from her bed, itching to move. Her hands pounded against her legs and she bit her lip as she stewed in the restlessness of her mind.

The Beast would be asleep, she told herself. He would have no idea if she was in her room or not if he was in his own room. She'd been observing the Service-Matons as well, and she was fairly certain that most of them powered down to recharge during the night hours. They ran on a very thin crew over the night, and they were robots she didn't know. If she could just get outside, she might be able to run for the boundary...

As she had the tantalizing half-thought, she knew that she was going to act on it. It didn't matter that she had no supplies or that she might be caught. She wanted out right now, and she couldn't wait around for a better moment.

Crouching to reach under the bed, she located the pistols she'd managed to keep hidden from the Service-Matons and the Beast. She strapped them around her hips and slid on her boots and crimson jacket. Across the room, were a pair of doors that led onto a balcony. She'd barely ever gone onto it, as it didn't have much room to sit, but now it was just what she wanted. It looked over the side of the house, and was just above a small copse of trees. If a Service-Maton happened by, she might be hidden behind their branches enough that they wouldn't spot her in the darkness.

The balcony was too high for her to jump from, so she needed to create a rope. She ripped the sheets off her bed and split them in strips which she knotted together until she had a length that would reach the ground. It wasn't exactly safe, but it would do.

While she walked toward her balcony's double door, she tested her injured knee with as much weight as it would hold. It still ached and burned when she moved it, but it had done enough healing that she knew she could run on it. When she got back to camp, she could take all the time in the world to make sure that it healed straight and proper. Now, she just wanted it to work.

Opening the balcony doors, Bo stepped into the muggy night air. Somewhere a chirping sound rose from the grass, and Bo had the vague memory of something called a cricket. She shook her head to dislodge the images of years long gone, and walked to the stone bannister.

After glancing down the two-story drop to make sure no Service-Matons were loitering below, Bo wound one end of her sheet rope around the stone bannister. She tugged on it sharply to see if it would hold, and when she was satisfied she wouldn't be taking an untimely tumble, she looped the other end around her waist.

Her progress was slow and awkward as she lowered herself down the sheet and tried to keep steady with her legs on the slick walls of the mansion. Her knee hurt the most during this process, but once she was under cover of the tree branches and could drop the few feet left to the grass, she was able to stretch it and get ready to head across the lawn toward the boundary of the Beast's strange land.

Under the cover of whatever shadows she could find, Bo crept to the front lawn. She still wasn't used to the pure light the moon and stars gave off, and she found herself glancing up at them time and time again, feeling uneasy in their pools of pale light. Back home, it was filtered through dark orange clouds, never strong enough to count for much. Here, she would be easily spotted by any Service-Maton that happened to pass by.

When she was behind the bushes in the front lawn, she crouched down and prepared herself for the sprint across the grass. It would take her a few minutes to reach the place where she'd crashed on her hopper, but she should be able to make it if no one spotted her immediately. All she needed was to get out of this cultivated landscaping and get into the Dead Woods where she could easily become lost in the trees and winding paths.

Taking a deep breath, she launched forward, bursting into the open. Her knee burned, but she ignored it as she tore across the grass toward the boundary beyond. It was hard to see, especially in the dark, but a slightly blurring of the air told her where the edge of the Beast's land was. She came closer and closer to it, barely daring to hope she would reach it as her breath grew heavy with the full-out run. But get there she did, and without any signs of the Service-Matons.

She approached the foggy wall, her hand outstretched, but stopped only inches from its hazy mist. Something ran through her, like the feeling she always got right before a wild animal tried to ambush her in the woods. It was a quavering feeling in her gut, like the floor had just been snatched out from under her and she was hovering in the air, about to drop. Her fingers trembled, but she forced them to still while she took the step forward.

Only, she never quite made it into the fog. Instead, her face and torso smashed into something solid, like a wall, and she bounced back to land with a thud on the ground.

Dazed, she stared at the fog in front of her, where not a strand of the milky white stuff had even shifted from her movement. She jumped back to her feet and pressed a hand against it, but to the same results. Her fingers stopped in midair, unable to penetrate the fog in any way. Her heart stuttered with the reality that she was locked in.

And that's when the piercing alarms went off.

The shrill screech ripped the still night air to shreds. Bo barely had time to process the pulsing throb of the mechanical warning before the lawn was suddenly filled with white light. It was if she was trapped in a sun. Spots swam in her eyes even when she screwed them shut against the blinding light. Stumbling to her feet, she tried to find her way back to the fog wall, but saw nothing but the lights. Her mind scrambled under the alarms. Two of her senses were out of commission. That left her touch, and she used it, groping around her but meeting nothing except grass for what felt like an eternity. But then, finally, her hand landed on the strange mist wall.

She pounded with her fist. Nothing happened. Her breathing came faster, her pulse quickening and her throat tightening. She couldn't be trapped here. She had to be able to get out. She'd seen Dad taken out through the fog wall.

As her desperation grew, she began to run along the length of the wall, trailing her hand along the mist. Her eyes stayed screwed shut, tears spilling down, though she didn't know if they were from the hot lights or from something else. Her fingers never went through the fog, and in fact it didn't even feel as if any fog was on the wall. It was smooth and slick, like glass. And just as impossible to get through.