“Can’t see them going to all this trouble keeping us away if it’s just a crate,” she replied.
That was true. We pulled the stool beneath the grate and Yani wrestled with the cover, pulling it off. I handed her Sookie.
“Aft bay,” she told the little hedgegopher.
Sookie wiggled her nose at Yani, and then vanished into the duct.
“I hope they don’t spot her.” I bit my lip, suddenly uneasy.
Yani wasn’t as worried as me. “Even if they do, they aren’t likely to think we’re using her as a spy. They’ll just think we have a rodent infestation.”
We huddled over the datapad, staring at the tiny screen as Sookie hurried through the ducts. My quarters were in the ship’s midsection, but the ship wasn’t huge, so it wasn’t too far for her to go.
The hedgegopher only took one wrong turn. There was no lighting in the duct, but every time she passed a vent into a room, it cast illumination into the duct itself.
Therefore, periods of darkness interspersed with brightness. Sookie paused at each vent, before moving on. We got rapid glimpses into the rooms they serviced, including one of Kurt sitting with theDrakes in the galley. I figured they’d be still ignoring him, but instead they seemed to be engaged in a conversation.
Before we could get a good look, Sookie moved on. A moment later she peered through another grate, and I saw Senaik and one of the guards leaning against the wall to each side of the aft storage bay door.
The screen went dark again, and I think we both held our breath.
Then she was there. The storage bay was serviced by five different ducts. Sookie paused briefly at each one, before moving on.
I narrowed my eyes, trying to see all there was to see. And there was a lot to gawk at. The first glimpse revealed a cage mounted in the center of the bay itself. An actual cage, with thick bars and a metal grate floor with waste containment beneath it.
But it was what was suspended within them that I couldn’t wrap my mind around. Three Drakes, with manacled wrists stretched and fastened above their heads. Metal mesh wrapped their wings to their bodies, and their tails were similarly strapped to one leg.
It was like getting kicked in the gut. My heart hammered and I couldn’t breathe—surely, I had to be wrong.
The screen went dark again, as Sookie turned around to make her trip back.
“Can we get still photos?” I requested.
Yani punched a few buttons, and called up a pic of the cage with its occupants. She studied my face.
“Have you seen them before?” she asked.
As I avoided her gaze, my heart raced so hard that I shook. Because it was as though everything in my life had come together to arrive at this very point.
People had a word for it. And it echoed now through my very soul.
Fate.
6
Jaz
Yani and I spent the next two hours trying to figure out why Tazier Drakes were taking three members of the Raptor Clan to the Nirzks.
My friend kept examining me as though she was trying to read my mind. Which she likely was. I kinda wished she could, because maybe then she could enlighten me on a few crucial details.
Like why my green-eyed Drake was hanging from chains in my storage bay.
MyDrake? See, this was why I needed her to read my mind. Where the hell had that come from?
They were the enemy. Who I need to runfrom.
After Sookie returned, we sent her out a second time so we could get more pictures. But none of them explained anything. They only confirmed what we’d already seen.
