Change of Darkness (The Change Series Book 3) by Jacinta Jade (best new books to read txt) 📕

A big, rolling boom sounded then, the sound of the drum so much louder without the insulating walls of the cell.

‘There was something else I wanted to talk about,’ Baindan said softly from behind her, his voice still managing to carry over the deep, rolling beats to Siray.

Siray tensed. She knew this soft caution in his voice. Knew it was the tone he used when there was bad news that he had to share. News that might cause her pain.

‘What is it?’ she asked without turning around, not wanting him to see that she almost couldn’t bear anything else. She heard Baindan take a quiet breath—if he thought he had to prepare himself first, that was another bad sign.

‘Last night, Raque mentioned that he couldn’t let us out because he had bodies to deal with.’

Baindan paused for a moment, and some part of Siray desperately hoped he wouldn’t finish whatever it was he’d been about to say. She kept her mind blank, in an attempt to avoid considering the meaning of his words so far. But Baindan’s next words shattered any attempt at a calm mind.

‘He might have been talking about the others.’

Siray went still. Her mind froze, and her body went cold all over as the news hit her like a physical blow. ‘No,’ she whispered. Somehow, she managed to wheel about, swaying a little, almost as if she had drunk too much batra juice, and stared Baindan full in the face. ‘No, they wouldn’t have tried it—not when they knew we were in here. They would never abandon us like that.’

Baindan’s eyes were as soft as his voice. ‘I agree. They wouldn’t leave us here. But they might have attempted it, if they thought they could rescue us and then get all nine of us out.’

His logic was sound, and the plan sounded exactly like something Wexner and Kovi might attempt.

One last deep boom sounded from above and then the drum was silent.

And Siray knew that Zale would never have left without her. ‘No,’ she whispered again, so quietly it barely sounded in the still morning air. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. If it had been them … they couldn’t possibly be still alive. Siray didn’t even entertain the hope that any of them might have survived, as the rules had been clear from the start. If one member of a unit was caught escaping, the entire unit would suffer.

She watched through unfocused eyes as Baindan covered the small space between them, but it was as if her mind and body were now disconnected, and all she could think was that one word—‘dead’. Her friends were dead.

Then Baindan was pulling her to him, and the feeling of drowning within the sense of loss eased a little as he held her tightly to him, his brown hair tickling her forehead.

‘Dead,’ Siray whispered, as if to speak it any louder would make it hurt more than it already did. She felt Baindan’s hands on her spine and neck, and she gripped him back, her head on his shoulder. She was so numb from shock that even tears wouldn’t come. Or was she just getting used to losing people she cared about? The images of the faces of those she’d lost began flashing before her eyes … Rowp, Deson, Jorgi, Loce—no. She squeezed her eyes shut so tightly that colour exploded across the black. She refused to even go through that list. Refused to acknowledge … But something inside her twisted painfully.

‘It’s okay. We’ll be okay.’

Just as she knew what Baindan’s soft tone meant, Siray could also tell when he didn’t believe something he was saying. She pulled back from him a little, to better look him in the eyes. ‘If they’re dead’—she shook her head, fighting the surge of emotion—‘then we’re dead too.’ As part of one of the units, they would also be made to suffer the same fate as their friends. As the ultimate example to the other captives.

Baindan’s lips pressed tighter together, and his face became hard. ‘We’re not going to just let them kill us,’ he vowed quietly. ‘If we’re going to die, then we’ll take as many of them with us as we can.’

Siray nodded, then said with a bitter smile, ‘Maybe some of the others will be able to escape if we distract the guards long enough.’

‘Maybe,’ Baindan murmured before he pulled her back in close for another crushing hug.

‘Well, this is touching.’

She and Baindan broke apart immediately at the dry, rolling tone, and Siray’s heart pounded out an odd rhythm in her chest as she looked up into the face of the male who had murdered her friends. She shuddered at the knowing look he cast back at them. Weakness, Siray could practically hear him thinking. Baindan was her weakness, just as she was his. And weakness couldn’t be allowed in a place where only the strong survived. Not that it really matters now, she thought darkly, because as soon as they pull us up from the pit, they will try to execute us.

‘Try’ being the key word.

A clattering sound to Siray’s left made her turn her head. The soldiers were rolling the rope-and-plank ladder out and down into the pit. She looked back to Captain Raque.

‘Move it along, then, unless you’d both like to stay in there for another round?’ the captain asked cheerfully.

Drawing in a tight breath, Siray turned with Baindan towards the rope, but she actually wondered if they might indeed last longer going another night in the pit than they might if they left it.

Baindan, however, indicated with a quick nod that she should climb out first, so she gripped a plank above her head and, placing one foot on a lower board, pushed herself up. It was a trickier climb than she had anticipated, even if it wasn’t far. Lying as close as it was to the wall of the pit, ascending the rope ladder meant that you