Page 112 of The Stolen Princess
Arco nodded and opened the door to the dark staircase. “Good luck,” he said.
Myka offered a half-hearted smile.
She was going to need more than luck.
Myka and Rommelran as fast as they could through the East Woods. The dark night made it difficult to see, even with the hand light Arco had given them. Myka didn’t know what exactly she was looking for. The weapons had to be somewhere in this section of the woods where they used to play.
“My father used to walk out from these trees all the time when I was a girl,” she said, pointing to her left.
“But the property ends over there,” Rommel said, pointing up at the thirty-foot stone wall ahead of them.
“I know, but that has to be where they are.” Myka shone the light ahead of her, looking for anything that seemed out of place or familiar, but everything looked like normal trees. Panic rose inside of her. Any minute now, Stoddard would come looking for them.
Think, Myka. Think.
She tucked a loose piece of hair behind her ear and walked forward, moving the light slowly in front of her. Things would have been easier if it was daytime, but nobody ever escaped in the middle of the day. Everything dramatic happened at night.
Her light flashed across a wall of vines that lined the perimeter of the Tolsten House wall. On the other side was nothing but thick forest. She stilled her light, shining it across the dead vines, and suddenly a long-lost memory floated to the front of her mind. Her parents had been shouting at each other as Myka played in the trees.
Her mother had pointed to the vines. “This is illegal!” she had shouted. “And you won’t get away with it!” Her mother had turned to go, but her father had caught her by the arm.
“Who’s going to stop me?” he had asked, getting in her mother’s face.
“I am! I’m going to tell the Council everything!”
Then her father had slapped her.
Myka flinched like she was somehow back in that moment, like the sound of the slap was still fresh in her ears.
“Rommel! Over here!” Myka called as she rushed forward, not knowing what she was going to find.
Her hands went to the wall of vines, frantically digging between them. Thorns scratched her fingers, drawing blood, but Myka kept searching. She reached into the darkness behind the vines, expecting to hit a wall or something but there was nothing there. Her heart sank. Maybe she didn’t know where the weapons were. Maybe her father had never told her. She thought back to the memory of her parents, trying to put herself back in that moment.
Myka closed her eyes.
“You’re a fool for hiding them so close to Tolsten House,” her mother had said. “Someone will find them.”
“No one will think to look here,” her father had laughed. “It’s too easy.”
“I hope they do, and I hope they stop you,” her mother had said.
She opened her eyes.
They have to be here somewhere.
She pulled branch after branch back, snapping them in half, feeling around in the darkness until her fingers brushed up against something hard and cold.
“It’s here,” she breathed out.
They worked together, pulling back the thick layers of dead branches until they had uncovered a door that looked like what Drake had shown her back at the camp.
“It’s a pre-Desolation bomb shelter,” she said.
Rommel looked at her. “Sounds like the perfect place to hide illegal weapons.” He reached for the door, but it was locked. Probably her father was the only one with the key. Myka pulled out Arco’s gun from the waist of her pants. “Step back,” she said. She fired the weapon at the lock four times until the handle was blown to pieces.
They dove forward, pushing the door open. The beam of the hand light scanned across the inside of the shelter, illuminating weapons of every size.
Myka gasped.
