They’d been pushed into another room. With a quick glance around—all he was afforded—Cage saw only two chairs and an old mattress on the floor.
Because none of it looked inviting anyway, Cage chose the mattress, thinking he might be able to work his hands down around behind him and under his feet and get out of the zip-cuffs.
“I saw Sarah out there,” Aurora whispered to him with tears in her eyes as she stood motionless in the center of the room.
“Me, too.” He smiled at her, stopping his movement for a moment. “She’s alive.”
She’d likely been here for the whole week-plus that she’d been gone. He hoped his likelihood of execution was low. But he wasn’t sure, and he started trying to get out of the cuffs again.
Aurora saw him. “Not sure what good that's going to do.”
“What do you mean?” He lowered his shoulders and wiggled, working his wrists over his hips, not without struggle. He was close. He could do it.
“So, you get out of the cuffs, then what?” Aurora sat heavily in one of the chairs and stared at him.
“Then we get out of here.” He tipped his head, motioning to the window. It was covered with an old curtain that fit with the rest of the dingy room but looked like it might be blackout quality.
“What's beyond the window?” Aurora asked him as if he were being slow and he was starting to see her point.
There was open desert beyond the window—where they’d just walked for hours to get here. But . . . “There were houses the other direction.”
“That’s true, but which ones do we trust?”
“Which ones don't we?” he countered quickly, still not getting his wrists quite past his own hips. He waited a moment. He’d get it on the next try.
When she looked at him confused, Cage added, “What are the odds that any of them are worse than here?”
She seemed to think about that for a moment and Cage continued trying to get the handcuffs in front of him, then wondering if maybe he'd won the argument.
“Hey!” she said, quickly.
But he’d heard what she was warning him about. Footsteps tromped heavily in the hall. The jiggle of the loose doorknob came almost immediately. Cage barely wiggled back into place with his hands behind his back, sitting cross legged on the mattress before the door was flung wide.
Black Hair—Connor, he now knew—stood in the center of the space, legs planted wide, once again taking up space. Cage didn't like him any better for what he’d seen, but after watching the grown man get whacked upside the head like an abused toddler, he understood a little better.
Connor certainly acted like one of those men who knew nothing to do with himself, except to try to take up as much space as he could. As if that would make things any better for him.
He first looked at Aurora, then at Cage, then he grinned a grin that hit his eyes and announced, “I convinced him not to kill you.”
“That's fantastic!” Cage issued in as sarcastic a tone as he could muster.
Truly, he was exhausted, and he had no idea if this was a game that Connor and Brown Eyes played with every newcomer. Was it an attempt to try to keep people like him and Aurora in line, or was there truly a question about his and Aurora’s future existence?
Right now, the outcome was not execution, so Cage decided to be happy about it.
“However,” Connor added, the darkness still wavering at the edges of his expression, as he tried to exert an air of authority over two people who almost couldn't care less. “You have to do the work. You have to blend in you have to stay hidden.”
He waited as if they would protest or have legitimate questions.
Cage and Aurora stayed quiet, both seeming to hold to the policy of giving as absolutely little as possible away.
Connor continued. “Your first run is tomorrow night. If it doesn't work out, you won't last long.”
Cage guessed that Connor’s continued existence, or maybe just his climbing of the ranks here, would also depend on their working out. Whatever that meant.
“Follow me.” Connor turned and walked away, offering no help.
Aurora looked at Cage for a moment as if to ask, did he need a hand? Not that she really had one to give. He tipped his head as if to motion that he was good and managed to stand up smoothly, hands still tied behind his back.
Connor was already partway down the short hall. “You're here,” he motioned Aurora to the left, “and you're here.” Cage would go to the right.
Cage couldn’t see inside yet, but guessed the rooms were divided by gender. Connor was at least gentler with Aurora as he nudged her into the room.
But she said only “Hey?” as she turned around and flicked her fingers behind her back at him.
Cage had forgotten to ask if she could feel her fingers. At least it seemed she'd managed okay.
With a sigh that he was being put upon to undo the shit he’d done, Connor reached into his back pocket and produced a wicked looking blade. Aurora didn't flinch as he slid the metal along her wrist and sliced open the zip ties.
“Turn around,” he told Cage, still irritated.
It was only when the ties were released, that Cage realized he'd been in this position too long, long enough for his shoulders to be sore. But he didn’t have time to worry, Aurora was gone into the room, Connor closing and locking it from the outside with a padlock that he had a key for in his pocket.
Cage paid attention.
Hopefully, Aurora was in the room with Sarah. As bad as this might be, she had reunited with her daughter. Sarah was alive and maybe Brown Eyes wasn't going to execute them. Not tonight. So maybe, just maybe, there was a way out of this.
Connor shoved Cage’s back, sending him stumbling into the room where he was to stay. But he looked into the empty room and wondered what had happened to the others.