“Put your hands behind your back. I’m arresting you on suspicion of rebel activities.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t.”
I didn’t want to do this. It’s dangerous. It’s stupid. It’s probably going to get me killed.
I run.
He grabs me by the cloak, but I shed that like a lizard shedding a tail, and I run for my life. I can’t shift again right now. Last time I did that, I passed out. I can’t risk losing consciousness with an officer of the law chasing me.
This is so stupid. I should outrank this guy. I should be a king’s fucking guard. But I’m not. I’m just a naked woman running for what feels like her life through the streets of Eclipse.
Thank God I am fast, and it seems like the officer isn’t used to chasing. He’s more of a pull people over and give them a ticket sort of an officer. I am used to running through the city, too, so I do what I usually do. The problem is it’s hard not to attract attention when you’re naked. I’m just glad that it’s very early morning and most people are asleep.
I do the usual trick of finding clothes hanging on balconies, dress myself on the run, and swing by a bakery to steal a croissant, before heading not to the academy, but to Jory’s shop. There wasn’t much on the line, so I’m wearing someone’s shirt that comes down just below my ass cheeks and not much else. Hardly appropriate attire for, well, anything.
I know Jory rises earlier than most to stoke the furnace and get things going for the day. He’ll be around.
I startle him as I come through the back door. I haven’t done this in months, so I guess he’s not expecting it.
“Fuck!” He curses out loud and drops something that was probably hot. “Darcy, what the hell are you doing?”
“I think I’m in trouble, Jory.”
“When are you not?” He smirks the question as he recovers from his shock.
“I’m serious. You know how I was here, getting my saber sharpened? And all the duels? Those guys are after me, and now the cops are looking for me, and…”
Anyone else would freak out, but not Jory.
“Do you want some coffee? Maybe a croissant? Or some clothes?”
“Please.”
Jory feeds me and gives me coffee. I’m so fucking tired. It has been a horribly long night, and my head is all over the place.
If those guys who abducted me catch up with me, they’re going to be so fucking mad. Not just because I stole their van, but because I’m pretty sure I got it confiscated by law enforcement as well. It was a pretty fancy van.
“When are you going to settle down?” Jory asks the question with a lopsided grin, but his tone is tinged with a note of seriousness I don’t like.
“You sound like Sevilla.”
Sevilla is his girlfriend slash fiancée. I haven’t seen her much lately, because, well, she doesn’t like me and thinks I am a bad influence.
“She’s right about a lot of things. We’re old enough to take things seriously now. Mistakes we make now are going to follow us. It’s not like when we were kids and they just got brushed off. What we do matters.”
“You sound worried, Jory.”
He gives me a look that I recognize from when we were kids. It’s the one he used to get when he’d really, really fucked up. I feel my stomach sinking in sympathy for him, even though I’m the one currently on the run from the law, some kidnappers, and probably in deep shit with the academy.
“What’s wrong? What haveyoudone?”
“I think I got her pregnant,” he says.
“Shit. What’s she going to do?”
He looks at me aghast. “What do you mean? She’s going to be the mother of my children. Always was going to be. It’s just a little earlier than we planned.”
Sure it is.
