Release In The Dark (DARK erotic romance series) (3 page)

“
I...I know what to do,”
I say, squirming slightly.

I certainly know from experience
how to groom myself and rid my body of every strand of hair, from
under my arms and between my legs and all over. Save for the hair on
my head, I'll be completely smooth.

Irin laughs softly, but it is a
humorless laugh. “I know you do. I just want to make sure
that you are ready. If you are not ready, then you can't fight.
This is a fight. Make no mistake. You are going to the Red Lantern
to fight. To get what is necessary. You have been training with us
for a few weeks now. Put your training to use, Zoey.”

I stand up and look her right in
the eye. “So, can I have a shaver now?”

With a lopsided smile, she
presses one into my hand. “Go eat, wash up, do what you have
to do and meet me back here in an hour. We have much to go over.”

“
We're here,” Irin
tells me over her shoulder as she navigates the motorcraft skilfully
around the shadows, hugging the side of the sheer cliff face. The
motorcraft hovers silently under an overhanging rock. On one side of
me is a sheer, steep rock face. On the other side, huge waves are
charging relentlessly at the vertical rock wall, breaking against the
rock with an angry roar.

I gulp and shiver in my thin
T-shirt and track pants. My feet are bare and dangling over the
sides of the hovering motorcraft.

“
Get ready. We're here,”
Irin repeats, louder this time.

I grip the edge of my seat
harder as the motorcraft tilts at an angle.“I am ready.”
As ready as I'll ever be.

Silently, Irin eases the
motorcraft out from under the rocky ledge. I see lights flickering
at the top of the cliff. The Red Lantern is built to look like an
ancient castle, sitting atop the rocky cliff. True to its name, the
battlements are adorned with red lanterns instead of flags.

We hover up and land in the
shadows of the Red Lantern, behind a tall stone wall. I clamber down
from the motorcraft. “Do you remember all the passwords and
codes?” Irin asks.

“
Yes.”
My life
depends on it.

“
Good luck, Zoey.”

I nod, and open my mouth to wish
her luck back, but she has already taken off. Flattening myself
against the wall, I watch the motorcraft dip down suddenly from the
edge of the cliff and veer sharply away, receding rapidly into the
gathering clouds.

Okay. I am on my own.

As briefed, I inch my way along
the wall until I find a back door with a black dot shaped vaguely
like a human skull at the top right hand corner. I give it a
tentative push with my shoulder and it swings open quietly. I slip
in and just as I close the door behind me, a hand closes on my
shoulder.

“
What are you?” a
female voice asks.

“
A...a giraffe,” I
say, listening to my own shallow breathing which sounds too loud in
this dark, cramped space.

“
And what does a giraffe
need?” The grip tightens on my shoulder.

“
A collar.”

“
What for?”

“
He has a fever.”

“
For that he wears a
sweater.”

“
What color?” I
whisper.

“
Gold.”

“
And the moon?”

“
Black.”

The hand lifts from my shoulder.
I spin round to see a masked face and a pair of dark, black eyes.
The woman is wearing a black satin mask over her eyes, the
long-sleeved black uniform of the Imperial Army and a cap pulled low
over her face so that I can hardly make out her features. I won't
ask for her name. Neither will she ask for mine. She has responded
correctly to all my answers and questions, the ones that I had
committed to memory before Irin reduced that piece of paper to ashes.

This Imperial soldier is a
member of the resistance.

She is a head shorter than me,
but she walks with long, powerful strides. I follow her out of what
appears to be a storeroom and scurry up various flights of steps.

She enters a room and closes the
door quickly behind me. Her eyes look me up and down once, before
reaching for the shelf behind her and handing me a stack of clothes.

“
These should fit you.
You wear the sarong to sleep. The rest you keep folded at the foot
of your mattress.”

I stare down at the clothes in
my hands.

“
Change now,” she
says impatiently.

Hurriedly, I count the pieces of
clothing. A tank top, a pair of tight shorts and a sarong.

“
I wear...just the
sarong?”

“
Yes.”

“
And...underwear?”

She whirls round, frowning.
“You're wearing underwear? I thought I told Irin
explicitly...”

“
No, no. I'm not wearing
any. Irin told me...”

“
Good.” She seems
to exhale with relief. “The girls here aren't allowed any.”

I take off my old T-shirt and
track pants and wrap the sarong around my body. Irin had showed me
how to secure the sarong round my body and had made me practice until
she was satisfied. The woman stoops and bundles my discarded clothes
into a plastic bag. I'm guessing my old clothes are about to be
incinerated.

Her eyes widen a little.
“Perfect. You're a natural.”

“
I've had practice,”
I deadpan.

She nods and starts to reel off
information in an urgent, low voice, “There are around forty
girls in the Red Lantern right now. More may be coming in in the
next couple of days and nights. I've put you in the least crowded
room. You'll be sharing the room with five other girls. Just lie
down on your mattress and go to sleep. Or at least, pretend to sleep
until you hear the bell. Then just follow the girls. Do what they
do. And blend in. There will be a roll call by the Warden on duty.
Your name is already in the database. You've been in the Red Lantern
since two nights ago. Your name is Ana Zen.”

“
Ana.”
Right. I
am not Zoey Whard. I am Ana Zen. Remember, Zoey, I mean Ana. Don't
screw up.
I repeat my new name in my head.

“
Let's go, Ana. Just
remember the first and last letters of the alphabet. A for Ana. Z
for Zen.”

“
Oh, I see. Thanks.”
I smile.

I see her eyes crinkle in a
quick smile before she turns away.

“
Um, wait.” I
frown. “Won't the other girls, or the Warden, notice that
I...well, that I'm new?”

“
There will be a new
Warden coming in tonight. The Wardens are rotated every week. I
will leave tonight once she comes in.”

Her words take a few seconds to
sink in. My eyes round. “You...are the Warden.”

She makes no response, neither
confirming nor denying my statement. But I know that I am right.
“Why can't you stay longer?” I mumble half to myself. “I
could certainly use your help...”

At this, she narrows her eyes.
“There is a reason why the resistance cells are kept small,”
she says evenly. “We only interact and know the identities of
a limited number of resistance fighters. That way, if our cover is
blow and we are captured and tortured, there is little that we can
reveal. You will never know who I am. For everyone's sake.”

I nod, feeling my face heat up.
Jaxon and Irin had explained this to me before. I must sound like
such an ignorant fool.

Without another word, she leads
me up the steps and through the shadowy corridors. Despite the
outward appearance of an ancient castle, the interior is modern and
posh, designed and furnished like a classy hotel. I pad silently
across the soft carpeted floor of the sprawling foyer, gasping at a
towering marble statue in the middle of a gleaming fountain.

The trickling water sound
ominously loud in the silence of the sprawling castle. I squint hard
at the looming shadows, but I don't see any movement. There doesn't
seem to be anyone around.

Where are the rest of the
guards, or servants? Where are all the girls?

Spooked, I scurry down the long
corridor after the Warden. She stops abruptly in front of a narrow
sliding door in the wall, and taps an electronic key against the side
panel. The door slides open, revealing a darker, narrower corridor.
I step in after her, and immediately wrap my arms around myself. Am
I imagining it, or has the temperature dropped suddenly? The floor
here is not carpeted, just bare concrete. There are no wood panels
on the walls, just cracked, unpainted bricks. There is like another
world, compared to the facade of luxury beyond that sliding door
behind us. There are three metal doors on one side of the dark
corridor. The Warden stops in front of the middle door and whispers,
“This is the least crowded room. There are five other girls
inside. When you enter, just lie down on the empty mattress nearest
the door. You will find your toiletries at the head of the
mattress.” She places her hand on the door knob. “Take
care, Ana Zen.”

I turn to her, staring into the
shadows under her cap. It is impossible to even make out the exact
color of her eyes. Are they dark brown, black or even midnight blue?
Even if I saw her again, which is highly unlikely, there is no way
that I will be able to recognize her.

“
Thank you,” I say
softly. “You take care too.”

She nods and eases the door open
silently. I step into the room and hear the door close behind me.
As instructed, I tiptoe a few steps to the empty mattress near the
door and lie down. There are a few soft snores and whimpers in the
dark, and I make out some movement in the far corner of the room. I
can hear a quiet sigh, a snort and some mumbled words.

I freeze.

Someone is awake. She would
have seen me come in.

Would she expose me?

I don't move a muscle and wait.
After a long silence, there is a huff and I see someone fluff out her
blanket and turn roughly to her side, away from me. I finally let
out the breath that I had been holding, and blink furiously up at the
ceiling.

Well, here I am. In the Red
Lantern.

Pushing myself up on my elbows,
I peer round at the five girls huddled under their covers. There is
a stack of old mattress in the far corner of the room. The Warden
had mentioned that there would be more girls coming in soon.

Gingerly, I touch the small stud
on my left earlobe. I have only one chance. I can press this
earring just once to record a single message to the resistance. I
will have to be very careful, but I have to act quickly. The longer
I take, the less time Jaxon has. He is in danger. I know it. I can
feel it in my bones, in my very soul.

I tug the blanket up over my
body and curl tightly into a ball. I will survive, and I will
succeed. Everything has gone smoothly so far.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to
snatch whatever little sleep I can. But my dreams are only of Jaxon.

Where is he? What has happened
to him? Is he alive, dead or dying?

Flickering images of Jaxon,
bloodied and horribly mutilated, flash on the back of my throbbing
eyelids. My body is drenched in cold sweat, my mouth wide open in a
silent, choked scream. But there is nothing I can do. This is a
nightmare that I cannot wake from. Or perhaps this is a nightmare
that is only just beginning.

A bell tolls, jolting me out of
a discordant dream. I jerk up, blinking away the jarring, terrifying
images. The red haze fades from my vision and I gape at the strange,
spinning room in confusion. Where the hell am I?

And who are all these people?

Five girls are standing at the
foot of my mattress, pointing and whispering. They are clutching
towels, mugs, toiletries in their hands and staring at me with mixed
expressions of curiosity and fear. They fall silent when they see
that I have awoken, but two girls continue whispering.

“
...she just came in last
night...”

“
Do you think she was
caught or bought or transferred?”

“
There might be more
coming in tomorrow night...”

“
...yeah, to replace the
last dozen who were...”

“
Shh! She can hear you!”

Well, duh.

I blink their faces into focus.
Three of them look around my age, between eighteen to twenty, while
the other two look a little older, probably in their mid to late
twenties. They are all clad in the same, teeny-weensy sarong which
doesn't quite cover everything it should. I glance down at my own
body. My own sarong is crumpled and askew, exposing one of my
breasts. With a gasp, I snatch up a fistful of cloth and try to
cover myself.

There are some giggles and
unhelpful comments.

My fists clench, but I remind
myself that I am here on a mission. And that mission doesn't call
for unnecessary cat fights. “H-hi,” I manage to croak.