It was surprisingly easy to get out; but then, no one knew to stop her except Lucyslave, and she was back in the basement working on the Oregonians, unconsciously counting down the seconds until she could raise the alert. Sarahslave got her Outside-tasks kit from her slavequarters: Outside-styled clothes; a passport, a driver’s licence, some other identification, all with Sarahslave’s picture and the name ‘Sarah Smallwood’; and five hundred American dollars. All she had to do then was bludgeon Domestic Mariaslave into trance, loathing herself every moment of it, and steal a camping kit from storage. They were supposed to be for soldier slaves out in the field, like War-Captain Meilingslave’s Oregon expedition, but Sarahslave could survive a night or two on protein bars and sleeping bags.

Not like she had any other choice, now.

The complex was hidden miles and miles away of bad terrain away from anything, for privacy and security, but Sarahslave had been to Cartwright before. She knew there was a bus depot there that could get her to Springfield and from there she could get anywhere. There was a closed private road from the complex into town, but travelling down that would be suicide, once Lucyslave recovered and warned Mistress Iliana. (She ignored the tired voice begging her to take the road and be done with it.) She was going to have to go through the woods.

She hated hiking, wasn’t any good at it. Even with her compass she had trouble keeping on direction to town. She kept getting scratched and stung, despite the camping kit’s heavy boots and jacket. It was a small misery next to the trail of destruction she’d left throughout the complex, but it kept her reminded of how terrible everything had been since that talk with Mistress Iliana. It was dark by the time she stumbled onto the creek’s little falls. It was the first landmark she’d been able to place on the map in hours: she was still several miles from Cartwright, and vastly off track.

She’d camp here, go on again in the morning. Her head start, such as it was, was gone, but she could still hope to avoid the patrols that would be looking for her now that eight hours had passed. As if to confirm her thoughts, she heard the scream of a motorcycle being absolutely hammered down a dirt road, somewhere off to the south. It passed from west to east, along the private road towards town. Someone looking for her, beyond a doubt.

As she unpacked her backpack to set up for the night, she found a satellite phone. She didn’t know its number, but someone surely did, and once the alarm went up it wouldn’t take them long to figure out which kit she’d stolen. Sure enough, there was a text message on it.

Sarah? Where are you? What the fuck did you say to Lucy?

 

In the woods. I told her the truth. I need to protect you, Mistress.

She sent it off and the phone rang within moments. Mistress Iliana had to have been waiting for her to reply. She was making her owner unhappy. But she didn’t pick up the phone, instead chewed a protein bar furiously in a futile effort to distract herself. After the phone shut up, another text came in.

Sarah open red blue green. Know that you are forgiven. Your mistress will make it all alright. Return to me. Sarah close green blue red.

She wanted to believe everything the message said, wanted it so desperately. But it wasn’t working. She even read it aloud, knowing that wouldn’t help.

It doesn’t work written down. :( I have to free you.

She didn’t look at any further messages, to protect herself and to keep from feeling worse. She felt worse anyway.

She slept well, at least, exhausted and dreamless, but awoke cold and uncomfortable. She hadn’t been able to get the tent together, and had just thrown her sleeping bag on the forest floor. She couldn’t figure out how to pack it back up again. Carrying it around loose would just hinder her if she needed escape Mistress Iliana’s patrols. In the end, she left it and the half-assembled tent sitting on the ground behind her. If she was successful, she could tell someone where she’d left them. If it didn’t, nothing would ever matter again.

She dug her nails into her palms to try and end that particular line of thought. She would succeed. She had to! For Mistress Iliana!

At least the second day’s hike was simpler than the first’s. The creek ran through Cartwright, the map told her, so she walked listlessly beside it, following it into town. She’d have time and space to think of a plan once she was on a bus out-of-state. Not that thinking was doing her much good right now. The thoughts kept spinning through her head: the ones urging her to turn herself in, the ones insisting she was paranoid and delusional and a menace to her sister-slaves. Even the ones telling her she was doing the right thing didn’t help - they only reminded her just how much danger she was in.

She reached town at noon, glum and conflicted. The bus depot was two blocks away. As she approached, a tall woman in a black leather jacket lazing on a bench in front of the depot caught her eye. She looked for all the world like some biker chick on a road trip, just relaxing and enjoying the crisp fall air in some small upstate town. It was War-Captain Leahslave. Sarahslave knew that she was examining every person who came within a hundred metres of the bus depot door like a hawk. 

Walk up and surrender yourself, something urged her, but she fought it down and did her best to look inconspicuous as she moved towards the station behind the single line of stores that made up Cartwright’s downtown. Her attempt at stealth probably wouldn’t have been good enough to beat a trained combat slave, except that as she came close the war-captain’s phone rang.

“Hey, love,” said Leahslave. Sarahslave knew that meant Mistress Iliana. “Yeah, still just hanging out. These hill towns are great. Never run into anyone in ‘em.” She had seen no sign of Sarahslave. “It’s so nice here, though. Thinking of sticking around. Food’s good, and so’s the scenery. Might just ride the bike up and down for a bit. Fucking lovely country.” She was going to keep watching the bus station, and her team was going to scour the state roads and backroads in all directions until they found Sarahslave. “Oh, here comes Beth. Yeah, she sends her love too, I’m sure. Say hi to Meiling for me.” A second biker chick - Soldier Bethslave - walked up with some foil-wrapped foodstuffs and a couple of steaming styrofoam cups. They set to eating together on the bench, chatting quietly as they did. It would have taken a very paranoid observer to notice that one or the other always had her head up, glancing around the street.

Sarahslave was such an observer, and was already running back towards the woods. She couldn’t walk to Springfield, she had thrown away her tent and sleeping bag like an idiot, and in any case she only had a day or two of food and water left. But she couldn’t stay here either, and she couldn’t go down the roads, and she couldn’t go back. She was going to go into the woods and die like an animal. No, she was going to lose it and just crumple up on somebody’s lawn by the side of the road and sob herself to death. That seemed more likely.

“Hey, stranger,” said a voice, next to her. There was a pickup idling next to her, a middle-aged woman wearing a plaid shirt and worn jeans sitting behind the wheel. “Goin’ someplace, in such a hurry?”

“Going away from, more like,” said Sarahslave. She didn’t know the woman, which was good - she knew all the combat team slaves, everyone at the complex. If she was a stranger, she was from Outside, and could be trusted. At least to not hand Sarahslave back to Mistress Iliana, at any rate.

“Hah. I know how it is, sometimes. Hop in, I’ll give you a ride.” Oh God yes. She got in without question. “Where to?”

“Springfield, I guess. Then anywhere.” 

“Hah. That does bring me back. Mallory, by the way.”

“Sarah.”

“Pleasure’s all mine, Sarah. I’d shake, but, drivin’.” She grinned. Sarah thought it was the most lovely smile she’d ever seen.

As they reached the outskirts of town, which in Cartwright were almost on top of the downtown, Sarahslave slouched down into her seat. Soldier Jessieslave was walking down the shoulder with a camping backpack identical to Sarah’s, the perfect image of a hiker. She glanced in the pickup window as it sped by, but apparently Sarahslave had hidden well enough, because she didn’t react at all. Sarahslave watched her dwindle in the side mirror, but Jessieslave just kept walking, unaware her prey had slipped the net.

“Trouble?” asked Mallory.

“A lot. The worst. Oh, God,” Sarahslave moaned. She stayed slouched, not out of fear of being seen, but simple misery.

“Family? Lover? The law? I’ve seen all three, I don’t judge.”

“Wife,” said Sarahslave. It wasn’t the word she’d ever use with her sister-slaves, or Mistress Iliana, but it was the closest thing Outside English had.

“Well, that’s the easy one, in a way. Someone doesn’t understand who you are or what you need, then you shouldn’t have been with ‘em in the first place.”

Sarahslave moaned. That was what was so awful. Mistress Iliana understood perfectly who she was and what she needed. It was Sarahslave who was refusing to let her owner’s control wash all her problems away. She needed to protect Mistress Iliana. So now she was running away from everyone who loved her. It was so hard.

“You’re in quite a state, ain’t’cha.” Sarahslave didn’t bother to answer. The conversation was just making her feel more awful. “You really are lucky I decided to stick around here an extra day or two after the victory bash, you know that?”

It took Sarahslave much too long to understand what she meant, but Mallory was quiet and let her puzzle it through. 

“Oh God,” whimpered Sarahslave, when it all came together. “You’re the - you - ”

The woman pulled over on the shoulder, turned to her, grinned, and said