Page 133 of Rok's Captive
“Your sister-female moved with purpose,” Tharn projects suddenly, his thoughts directed at both of us. “Her path does not wander. She knew where she was going.”
That sounds like Jacqui. Even lost in an alien desert, she would approach the task with her head on her shoulders. No panicked running in circles for my sister.
“Is that good?” I ask, hope fluttering in my chest.
“It means she conserved energy,” Rok explains. “Used her water wisely. That improves her chances.”
Her chances. The phrase sends a chill through me despite the lingering heat of the day. We’re talking about her survival in terms of probability, and I hate it. I hate that we have to think this way.
As the sun, Ain, begins her descent toward the horizon, the stone formations that were my second destination loom before us. There’s a small boulder that Tharn heads toward, gaze shifting from side to side now that we can see the stone formation that marks the rival clan’s territory clearly.
“Justine.” Rok’s voice in my mind pulls me from my thoughts. “Come.”
I turn to find him and Tharn standing a few yards from the boulder, both looking at something on the ground. My heart leaps into my throat as I hurry to join them. “Did you find something?”
Tharn gestures to the sand at our feet. At first, I see nothing unusual—just the endless grains that cover everything on this planet. But then, as I look more carefully, I notice a slight depression, a different texture to the surface.
“Someone rested here,” Tharn projects. “Recently. Within the last two sols.”
“Jacqui?” I can barely breathe around the hope swelling in my chest.
Tharn kneels, his long fingers hovering just above the impression. “The size matches what a being your size might leave.”
I drop to my knees beside him, scanning the area desperately for any other sign. “But where did she go?” I lift my head, looking at the stone formations in the distance. If she went over there…
“There is…something else.”
Tharn moves a few feet away, where the sand seems smoother, more deliberately arranged. Rok follows, crouching beside him, his head tilted in that curious way that reminds me he’s not human, despite how comfortable I’ve become with him.
“What is it?” I ask out loud, joining them.
Rok looks up at me, his golden eyes reflecting the last of the sun’s light. “Markings. In the dust.”
I look down and my breath stops in my throat. There, etched into the surface, are lines and curves that I recognise immediately. Letters. English letters.
“J + J,” I read aloud, my voice cracking. “4 EVER.”
It’s our childhood code, the one we used to carve into trees at summer camp, into the wooden bench at the park, even into the corner of my bedroom windowsill when I was twelve and Jacqui was eleven.
Tears spring to my eyes as I trace the letters with my fingertip. “It’s from Jacqui,” I whisper, then remember I need to use my thoughts. “She was here. She left this for me to find.”
“What does it mean?” Rok asks, studying the markings.
I swallow hard against the lump in my throat. “It’s her way of telling me she was here…and that she’s okay.”
“There is more,” Tharn projects, moving a few feet to the right.
I follow him and find another set of markings, these bigger:
“— H20”
“Water,” I translate. “She found water…” I look over the message, but the arrow has been erased by sand, leaving just part of a long line visible. I turn to the left and right, trying to spot where she might have gone.
Rok follows my gaze. “There are only two caves near here where water collects,” he projects. “We sheltered near one when?—”
“When you saved me from the shadow creatures,” I finish, the memory rushing back. That terrifying night when the predators had nearly caught me, when Rok had carried me up the steep side of a cliff to safety. “Could she have found the same place?”
Rok tilts his head. “Possible.”
