Page 89 of The Stolen Princess
Myka continued to walk through the room and Drake followed after her. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately—following after Myka. He’d never been in this position before. Usually, women followed after him.
“What did the other men say about the shelter?” she asked.
“I haven’t told them about it.”
She glanced his way. “Oh.”
He liked having this special secret, something that only the two of them shared.
Myka
Myka spent the nexthour walking around the shelter, sifting through the items. She tried not to think about the fact that Drake had brought her here and no one else. It didn’t mean anything. Really, this stuff was the property of Tolsten. It needed to be transferred to the Tolsten House artifact room, so that was probably why Drake had thought to show her.
She made her way to the corner of the room where the mattresses had been set up. On top was a big pile of blankets and pillows, and Myka found herself wondering about the people who had stayed there. How long had they been trapped in this bomb shelter, hiding out from the catastrophes of the world? In some ways, they were like her, a prisoner locked inside a life that they didn’t want.
On the floor next to the mattress was a trunk of clothes.
“That’s where I found the shirt and pants you’re wearing now,” Drake said, walking past her. “I would have brought you more, but there wasn’t anything else in there that I thought would work.”
Myka nodded. Her hands lingered over another plastic basket full of what she assumed were bathroom supplies. Some of the objects, like a toothbrush, were familiar. This was probably where Drake had found the hairbrush and mirror. She rummaged through the bucket, lifting up an item that almost looked like a thick gun. The faded wordConairwas on the side, and a long cord was attached out the bottom. She put it down, looking over the other items, wondering if there was anything else in there that women used back then that they didn’t have now. A small orange bottle with a white lid caught her eye, and she rotated it so she could see the label. She read the words in her mind.Harper, Madison.Xanax 2 milligrams. Take one to two every four to six hours for anxiety. No more than five per day. Do not mix with alcohol.It was pre-Desolation medicine. Myka had read about stuff like this before. Their strong drugs and medicine were addictive, and if people took too much, the drugs could become deadly.She wondered who Madison Harper was and how long she’d had to live in the bomb shelter. What had she died from? How old was she, and what had caused her anxiety?
Myka glanced at Drake. He was ten feet away, looking through some old plastic cases that saidPS 6on them.She looked back at the medication in her hand, and an idea popped into her head. Did she dare take the bottle back to the shack with her? The medicine might not work anymore. It had an expiration date on it of about two hundred years ago, but what if it did work? What if she could use it against her kidnappers so that she could escape? Her eyes darted to Drake again. Would she be willing to use the drugs on him? Each day, things were shifting and changing between them, and she couldn’t explain it. Maybe she didn’t even want to escape from him. This was a classic example of why a person should never get close to their kidnapper. She shook her head. Drake probably hadn’t thought twice when he had kidnapped her. Why would she think twice about escaping? Her hands closed over the bottle, and she placed it in her jacket pocket. When they got back to the shack, she would find a place to hide the pills just in case she decided to use them.
23
Myka
“Looks like more rain today,” Portlend said as he stood around the fire that afternoon, eating his lunch. He tilted his head up, searching the thick gray clouds above them.
Myka hadn’t said anything to any of the other men since she had stormed off yesterday after reading her father’s letter. She didn’t want to say anything to them. They weren’t like Drake. He was the only operative she could trust, and after they’d spent the morning together in the bomb shelter, she felt like he was starting to trust her too.
Drake leaned over her, holding a plate of food. He peered at her with eyes that seemed to know her. A soft smile touched his lips as his knees brushed up against hers, and the whole heart racing thing began again. They were knees, for heaven’s sake! There was nothing even remotely romantic about knees knocking against someone else’s, and yet, here she was, trying not to drop her entire plate of food into her lap.
They had gone from enemies to something else. Something that felt kind of like friends? Buddies? People of the opposite sex who look at each other a lot? Myka didn’t know, and her lack of experience with men made her feel like she would never figure it out.
After lunch, they walked side by side to the river.
“How are you feeling about your father’s letter?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she finally said. It was the truth. She didn’t know what she was feeling. It was like she had come out from behind her father’s lies, and now she stood in the middle of it all. His lifetime of secrets was suddenly her truth—her future.
It had taken almost a week for her to finally believe the truth about her father. A week didn’t seem like enough time to turn off love between a daughter and a father, but somewhere deep down, she must have known all along.
She’d probably been scared of the truth, but Myka was tired of living in fear. Fear that her father was going to die. Fear that she had nothing to offer Tolsten. Fear that everyone she loved would abandon her. She didn’t want to live that way anymore. She wasn’t the woman whom she intended to be, and for some reason, she’d been okay with that for the last four years, but she wasn’t okay with it now. She wanted to be better than her mother had been. Better than her father.
She turned to Drake, determination in her eyes. “What can I do to help Tolsten?”
He gave her a sideways smile. “What do you mean?”
“What’s the plan to save Tolsten from the mess my father created?”
His smile widened. “Are we on the same team now?”
Her change probably seemed sudden to Drake, but she’d been veering and moving to Drake’s side for the last couple of days, and now it was time to act.
Myka was willing to risk everything to fix what her father had broken. That’s what she’d be doing if she joined Drake. She’d be risking it all—her relationship with her father, her role as princess, her standing with the High Rulers, her position among the ruling class—it would all go up in flames the moment she crossed that line. The stakes of the situation weren’t lost on her. She’d have no future and no family to turn to. Drake would be the only person left, and she didn’t want to be on the opposite side of him anymore. She wanted to be next to him, fighting for a better Tolsten and a better world.
“I’m on your side,” she said. “That is, if you’re okay with it.”
