Release (27 page)

She’d managed to do something right then. “Good.”

“Not that it’ll be any help to your boy, of course.” Aunt Tildy shook her head.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he went into trial the night they caught him,” she said. “He was sentenced for hanging the following morning.”

Ariana felt as if an iron band had suddenly gripped her insides. “He’s dead?” she choked. No. It couldn’t be. While she’d been drugged and imprisoned, they’d already killed her Keirth?

“No,” said Aunt Tildy. “The prince wants to see the execution himself, so they’ve issued a stay until the prince arrives tomorrow.”

Ariana felt at once elated that Keirth was still alive and flooded with dread because he was still sentenced to die in a day. “I can’t let them kill him.”

“You’re in Winfield,” said Aunt Tildy. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Well, I have to get out,” said Ariana. “If you believe me, can’t you tell my parents that—”

“They don’t listen to anything I say, and you know it.”

The door to the gray room opened again, and a dour nurse in a gray uniform trundled inside, holding the paper cup containing Ariana’s pills.

Aunt Tildy was on her feet in a second. “Oh, is that my niece’s medication?”

The nurse looked a little confused. “Yes.”

Aunt Tildy strode over to the nurse and put her hand over the top of the paper cup. “Could I give it to her, just this once? I do so want to do anything I can to make sure she starts feeling better soon.”

The nurse looked even more confused. “Er...I suppose so. But I will need to witness it. Sometimes patients here don’t want to take their meds, even though that’s what’s good for them.”

“Of course,” said Aunt Tildy, tugging the paper cup out of the nurse’s hands.

Both the nurse and Aunt Tildy came over to her bed. Ariana watched as Aunt Tildy tipped the cup of pills into her hand. Aunt Tildy held her closed fist, containing the pills, up to Ariana’s mouth, but she only mimed releasing her fingers. None of the pills actually went into Ariana’s mouth.

Aunt Tildy was a genius!

The nurse handed Ariana a glass of water and made sure Ariana swallowed.

Ariana noticed Aunt Tildy’s hand duck into her purse, where she was no doubt depositing the pills.

“Open,” said the nurse.

Obediently, Ariana opened her mouth and allowed the nurse to look under her tongue to make sure she’d actually swallowed the pills.

Satisfied, the nurse thanked Aunt Tildy for helping and then left the room.

After the door closed behind him, Ariana said, “Thank you so much. The pills make me foggy and confused.”

Aunt Tildy shrugged. “Well, it’s the least I could do, since they’re treating you like you’re crazy when you’re not. I’ve been in Winfield before, you know. When I refused every suitor that tried to marry me because I didn’t want to get married, they sent me here. They said it was abnormal for a woman not to want to get married.” She squared her shoulders. “Abnormal it might be, but that doesn’t mean I’m mentally ill.”

Ariana reached over and hugged her aunt. “No, it does not.”

“I wish there was more I could do,” said Aunt Tildy, squeezing her. “I’d help you any way I could.”

“You mean that?” Ariana asked, pulling away from the embrace.

* * *

The Duke of Tramet had arrived on the planet Risciter that morning, spurred to action by the strange things he was reading on the nets. There was hope after all. It might not be true that Keirth was really a crazed murderer. Apparently, the woman he’d been with, Miss Gilit, had made a scene at a dinner party, claiming that Risciter, not Keirth, had killed all those women, and that Keirth had protected her from the monster.

Tramet knew he shouldn’t get false hope. The accepted public opinion was that the girl had been through some terrible trauma and couldn’t possibly be trusted to know what had happened. There were experts weighing in on the likelihood of victims beginning to sympathize with their kidnappers, citing cases throughout history where this very thing had happened. According to anyone who mattered, Miss Gilit needed the therapy she was getting at Winfield, and Keirth Transman needed his neck snapped, which was scheduled to happen as soon as the prince could get there to watch it.

But Tramet wanted to believe in Keirth’s goodness so badly. He didn’t want to think that this boy he’d been searching for was really a bad man. Deep inside, Tramet always hoped to find a man of courage and bravery who’d lived through the tragedy of his life and come out stronger. The story Miss Gilit told about him echoed Tramet’s deepest desires. Even though he cautioned himself that it was probably unfounded, he had to know for himself.

He’d decided that he’d go to speak to Miss Gilit himself. He’d listen to her story, and if he thought that she wasn’t crazy, then he’d take action. Because it might not be too late to save Keirth Transman’s life.

Chapter Seventeen

Ariana was feeling quite alert. The drugs had worn off. She was, however, afflicted with an acute case of boredom. She’d positioned herself on the far wall, several feet down from the door to the gray room, and she’d dragged the chair that Aunt Tildy had been sitting on over with her. At first she’d stood behind the chair, but as hours began to drag by, she’d sat in it. She’d sat in this chair for what seemed like a few millennia, going over and over her plan, looking for weaknesses.

She was beginning to think that no one might ever come back into her room ever again.

It was at that point that the door finally opened, and a nurse entered, carrying another paper cup with pills.

Ariana scrambled to her feet, seizing the chair by its legs. She leapt on the nurse and brought the chair crashing down on the woman’s head.

The nurse made a strangled cry of surprise.

Ariana lifted the chair and slammed it into the nurse again.

The woman stopped making noise. She was unconscious. She lay flat faced on the floor, the pills rolling around from the spilled paper cup.

Ariana didn’t waste any time. She hurriedly stripped the nurse out of her uniform and pulled off her own gown. She dressed herself in the nurse’s uniform and draped the gown over the woman’s unclothed body.

The nurse’s uniform was too big for Ariana. She did her best to cinch it at the waist. She didn’t have a mirror in her room, so she couldn’t look at herself to see what the effect was. It would have to do.

Ariana picked up the paper cup and scooped the pills off the floor and back inside it. She used the key in the nurse’s pocket to open the door to her room. Then she strode into the hallway, her head high.

Her heart thudded against her ribs as she walked.
Stare forward
, she told herself.
Act like you’re supposed to be here.

She didn’t catch the eyes of anyone else in the hallway, but she didn’t hide her head either. She moved as if she belonged in the baggy nurse’s uniform, as if she was hurrying to complete important business. Near as she could tell, no one gave her a second glance.

The hallway outside her room was nondescript. Gray, with a few benches outside of rooms with locked doors. Ariana walked by all of them as if she’d seen them hundreds of times and pushed through a swinging door at the end of the hallway.

She paused for a second as she emerged into an open area. There was a nurse’s station to her right, and she could see a woman huddling over the screens, not paying attention to her. Ahead of her, another hallway, making a T with the one she’d just exited. Which way to go? She couldn’t stand here thinking about it for too long. So, she picked the left hand one, away from the nurse’s station, and she started to walk again.

“Hey,” called a woman’s voice from behind her.

Ariana ignored it. She kept walking.

“You with the pills,” said the voice. “Are you deaf?”

There was no one else in the hallway. Ariana quickly debated. If she didn’t respond, that would be suspicious. If she spoke, the woman might figure out what was going on. Biting her lip, she turned. “Me?”

“Yes, you. Do you see anyone else around?” The woman who spoke was another nurse, tall, with broad shoulders and dark hair. The nurse was holding up a syringe, flicking the tip of the needle. She was alone in the nursing station except for a hospital guard who stood boredly at the corner.

“Do you need something?” Ariana’s eyes darted from the syringe to the blaster on the hip of the guard.

“Dr. Trint asked for this in Exam Room Seven.” The nurse held up the syringe. “Since you’re headed that way anyhow, can you take it?”

Ariana strode back to the nursing station with quick steps. “Sure.”

The nurse was eyeing her uniform. “Do you usually work on this floor?”

Ariana yanked the syringe out of the woman’s hand and plunged into the neck of the guard.

The nurse gasped. “What are you—”

The guard gurgled and fell to the ground. Ariana knelt to get his blaster, switched it on and pointed it at the nurse. “Shut up.” Her hands were shaking.

The nurse had gone pale. “You’re a patient, aren’t you? I recognize you. That duke’s daughter, the one who was kidnapped.”

“Shut
up
,” said Ariana, gesturing with the blaster. The shaking in her hands lessened a little bit as if she drew strength from the way she ordered the woman around.

The nurse bobbed her head.

Ariana looked around. There was no one else close by, but someone could round a corner or come through a door at any second. She shoved the blaster in the nurse’s face. “What’s the quickest way out of here?”

“I...” The nurse was shaking now.

Ariana didn’t have time for this. She pulled the woman out from behind the nurse’s station and jammed the blaster into her back. “You can show me then. Lead me out of here, avoid any places where I might see someone who’ll stop me, and if we run into guards or anything like that, I shoot you. Got it?”

The nurse whimpered, but she started walking.

It turned out to be easy. There was a set of stair at the end of the hallway. They took them all the way to the basement. The nurse led her to a back door, apparently used by the staff. Once outside on a back street, Ariana set the blaster to stun and shot the nurse. She shoved her inside and darted down the street.

She ran in the alleys until she found a public comm. Then she sent her Aunt Tildy a message. “Remember how you said you’d do anything to help me?”

* * *

Tramet arrived at Winfield to find it in a panic. It seemed that Miss Gilit had knocked out one nurse, put a needle in a guard’s neck, stolen his blaster, and stunned another nurse. She’d gotten out of the hospital, and no one knew where she was.

He left the place almost immediately. He couldn’t find out anything here. And if he were honest with himself, he didn’t know what he could discover from Miss Gilit. Obviously she believed that Keirth was innocent. Whether she was crazy or not was a matter to be left up to doctors, not dukes. He was probably wasting his time. If he wanted to do something about Keirth’s execution, he needed to act fast. Wavering by trying to interview a girl who was possibly mentally ill was only treading water.

Still. What if he were wrong? What if he were only projecting Keirth’s character onto him because he so desperately wanted it to be true?

Tramet sat outside Winfield in the backseat of his speeder, unsure of what to do next. He pulled out a tablet and skimmed through the news stories on the nets that he’d read a million times before. But something jumped out at him this time. It was a quote from a police sergeant who’d testified at Transman’s trial. Nol Praxider, when questioned if he was glad justice had been so swiftly carried out had said, “Well, it certainly was swift, wasn’t it?”

That was all. Praxider certainly wouldn’t speak out against the decisions of the Star Chamber, but Tramet suddenly wondered if he wasn’t convinced by the case either. He checked on his tablet for Praxider’s office address, and then gave it to his driver.

If he spoke to Praxider, perhaps he’d have a little more of an idea whether he would be doing the right thing to interfere or not.

* * *

Aunt Tildy’s speeder pulled up on the street where Ariana had told her to pick her up. The door slid open and Ariana scrambled inside.

Aunt Tildy was waiting, her face shining. “This is so exciting, Ariana. A prison break.”

Ariana didn’t feel excited, only grimly determined. “You’re announcing that loudly enough. Does the driver know what we’re doing?”

“Oh yes, miss,” came the answer from the front. “Bloody well time, if you ask me.”

“I told you that the servants were all on your side,” said Aunt Tildy.

Okay. Well, there wasn’t much Ariana could do about that. She hoped Aunt Tildy’s driver was trustworthy, that was all. “Did you bring the things I asked you to?”

“I did,” said Aunt Tildy, “but I can’t see what you’re going to want a dress for.”

“I can’t wear this, can I?” Ariana gestured at the baggy nurse’s uniform. “Give me the dress.”

Aunt Tildy handed the parcel over.

Ariana set the blaster down on the seat next to her.

Aunt Tildy gasped.

“What?” said Ariana. “We’ll probably have to use these, so get used to it. You ever shot one before?”

Aunt Tildy shook her head wordlessly.

Ariana bounced over next to her. “It’s pretty easy. You turn them on down here.” She demonstrated and the blaster came to life. “Then you’ve got a dial over here.” She pointed. “That adjusts the intensity, so you can simply stun someone or you can turn it all the way up and incinerate them.”

“And you just aim it at someone and then pull the trigger?”

“That’s the general idea, Aunt Tildy.”

“Oh, I’m not going to be able to do that,” said Aunt Tildy. “I’ll mess it up.”

“You will not,” said Ariana. “You’ll be fine. But you
are
going to have to do most of the talking, because people will recognize me from the nets.”

“They might recognize me too and know I’m your aunt.”

Ariana shook her head. “People in our social circle might, but I don’t think the prison guards will. Did you wear that dress I told you to wear?”