By the time her captors brought her to their destination, her spirits had well and truly faltered and a creeping despair was setting in. Her situation felt hopeless. A cruel end to a life that seemed more pointless and wasted by the moment. She fought against those feelings stubbornly of course, but her struggle was a losing one, and she knew it. If anything was going to change, she would have to do what these men had done, and seize what she wanted. Freedom, yes, but for what? The surface world, now, hardly seemed like it could be a home to her, let alone a positive new direction for her life. Her only other choice was to go back home, as little as she wanted to have to face up to that, to seeing Tae again and having to try to explain herself somehow… of course, if she told the whole truth, explaining wouldn’t be an issue because Tae might well not ever speak to her again… But, she told herself, thoughts like that wouldn’t do her any good until she was free. So she kept paying attention to her surroundings as much as she could, hoping to find something, some chance.

The place they were going was a house. There was a woman there, and a child, a young boy who could hardly walk yet. She was nursing him and looked to Kes with surprise, but did not say anything. The men were talking with one another, nether apparently giving a thought to the woman or the child. One of them said something and the other laughed. It was hard, but Kes had been trying to use her telepathy to understand the meaning of what they were saying to one another. They were talking about her as if she had value to them in some way, and they were pleased with that, but that was all she could make out.

They took her to a room and lay her down ungently on a mat on the floor. One of them said something to the other and left, laughing. The one who remained tied her feet with rope like he had her hands and looked at her. When she met his eyes, he seemed to get upset and got to his feet and kicked her in the belly, saying something contempt-full as he left.