The Price of Freedom by Joanna Wylde Read Free Book Online Page B

eyes.
    "We need to get to the kitchens," she said. "I'm supposed to help prepare the slaves' meal tonight. If I'm late, someone might suspect. Will you help me leave? If you can check the corridor to make sure no one is out there, I can slip away…"
    "Of course," Bethany said quickly. "I'll check for you."
    They crept softly across the room, and Bethany opened the door. She stepped out into the corridor and looked carefully each way. No one.
    "It's safe to come out," she whispered, and Moriah crept out behind her. Quickly, the younger woman scuttled down the hallway toward her own apartments. She had a child, a daughter less than a year old, Bethany remembered. Hopefully someone she could trust had been with her. Another wave of nausea came over her as she realized it was entirely possible that Moriah had been forced to leave the baby all alone. Forced to do so by Bose, her own father.
    She started toward the slave complex to pick up the food carts. It was better not to think about these things. They were entirely out of her control. The day guards were still on duty, lounging outside the main entrance to the complex. The men had been locked in the barracks the cycle before, so there was no reason to leave anyone stationed in the main room or the mine. The two men opened the locked and barricaded doors for her without comment, closing them behind her with a loud, clanging noise.
    She made her way quickly down the short corridor into the main room. To one side was the tunnel leading to the mines, but all she could think of was checking on the slave. Opening the storage room door, she flicked on the light and moved quickly to his pallet. Bragan groaned, rolling over to cover his eyes with his arm.
    "Couldn't you knock first?" he moaned.
    "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I didn't mean to startle you. How is he doing this cycle?"
    "He's fine," Bragan muttered. "I'm going back to sleep. I've still got several minutes before I need to be up and I'm going to use them."
    She nodded, and stepped over the sleeping man to check on the slave. His name was Jess, she reminded herself. Bragan had told her the cycle before. Calling him by name was infinitely better than "the slave". He was lying in the same position she had left him, looking so weak and pale that it scared her.
    How could he still be alive? He hadn't had any food or water for days, yet when she checked his pulse; it was still strong. She gave a sigh of relief for that—she had at least one more day to live. She shook her head, clearing away the morbid thoughts, then stood and left the storeroom.
    There was no time to waste. She had to get the carts to the main kitchen. They would wake the slaves in less than an hour, and the food had to be ready for them. Pushing the first of the three large carts, she made her way back through the main room and down the corridor. The guards let her back through the re-enforced doors, and she walked briskly toward the communal kitchen area.
    Unlike her father's apartment or the slave complex, the kitchen was a sea of activity. All around her, women and young girls were chatting and laughing together as they cleaned up from the last meal of the day. The kitchen was usually like this, at least as long as the kitchen supervisor, a stern and humorless woman named Magda, wasn't around. She usually left just as the evening meal was being served. For many of the women—Bethany included—hours spent in the kitchen following that meal were the most pleasant on the station.
    She didn't have many female friends here. She had left so many years ago to be married that few of the girls she grew up with were still around. Most had moved to various other mining stations to be with their husbands. As a widow without children, she didn't fit in the rest of them. Some of them scorned her, but others looked on her with kindness. She might not have friends, but certainly she wasn't among enemies in the kitchen. At least not in the evening, when the younger