“Is that you, Clarissa?” the second woman from the end called out.
“What’s going on?” another woman asked.
“What has happened?”
“Who are you?”
Clarissa lifted her sister off the damp and dirty floor. Her sister, Melanie, was unable to stand straight after months of crouching on the cold hard floor, but Clarissa bent to put her arms around her.
“You came back,” Melanie said.
“I never left.” Clarissa was near tears.
“What?”
“I stayed outside the farm, waiting for the chance to rescue you.”
“Who is he?” Melanie asked. By now the other five women were on their shaky feet, as well, and they all seemed to want to know the answer to that question, too.
“This is Jak Lauren,” Clarissa explained, drying her sister’s eyes.
Jak gave them a slight wave.
“He and his friends have freed the slaves.”
“Free?” one of the women asked.
Jak nodded. He pointed to the stairs leading out of the dungeon and then out of the building. “This way.”
THE MORNING SUN WAS just beginning to peek over the eastern horizon. It felt warm and comforting after a long, dark night full of chilling.
In the growing light, Ryan and Mildred ran to the back of the building and could see several people running into the orchard, heading for the far corner of the fence.
Most of them were out of range by now, but a few stragglers were still within their reach.
“Can you take him down without killing him?” Ryan asked Mildred.
Mildred took her shooter’s stance and followed the running man’s route closely. And then she fired a shot. The man stumbled, pitched forward, and then rolled up against an apple tree. He didn’t get up.
Mildred and Ryan ran to catch up to him. When they arrived, the man was backed up against the stump. Mildred’s shot had torn up his left calf and broke a bone or two, but the wound wasn’t fatal.
“Who are you people?” Ryan asked. “Where do you come from?”
The man didn’t seem interested in answering. Mildred pointed her ZKR at the man’s head, but that didn’t seem to make any difference.
“We’re not sec men,” Ryan said. “We’ve been fighting on the same side, against the baron.” That seemed to catch the man’s interest, but Ryan didn’t have time to slowly win him over. He reared back and hit him square in the jaw with the back of his SIG-Sauer. “Your party captured one of our group. I want her back.”
The man was slow to answer, so Ryan prepared to give him another blow.
“Wait,” he said.
“I’m waiting.”
“We’re from Reichel ville. We needed breeders, new blood for the survival of the ville.”
“Where is Reichel ville?”
“On Erie Lake. We’ve camped on the north shore of the lake, at Fort Erie. That’s where the others are headed now.”
“How long ago?”
“A few minutes, maybe more. I don’t know. I got separated. They left without me.”
Ryan looked up at Mildred. “I’m going after them.”
“We could all go together,” Mildred offered.
“No time,” Ryan said. “We have to go now.”
“Then I’m going with you, but we need to let the others know where we’ve gone.”
Ryan looked at the wounded raider. “I need you to do something for me.”
“A favor?” the man asked, through swollen lips.
“Yes. I need you to let the others know where we’ve gone.”
“What if I do?”
“Then you can tell them that Ryan Cawdor said they have to take you with them, to meet up with the others from your ville.”
“How do I know they’ll do that?”
“If you give them my name, they’ll do it.”
Mildred nodded.
“All right.”
Ryan and Mildred were gone without another word.
WHEN JAK and the women reached the top of the stairs and stepped through the door leading out of the dungeon, the freed women took cautious steps into the hallway, as if they didn’t believe they’d actually been emancipated.
“You’re free to go,” Clarissa explained.
“Where’s the baron?” her sister asked.
“Missing right now,” Clarissa said.
“We can’t be free if he’s still alive.”
“We’re going to look for him.”
“Chill when find,” Jak added.