No! He would not allow them to keep Tobias. They had no right. Breeder or not, he had a right to a life, a home, and a family, and he belonged with his father!
He needed to think, to figure this out. He wanted his son back and he had no intention of returning Rowan to them. Amro would kill her, he would do to her what they had done to Ina.
* * *
Rowan sat in the underground bunker beneath Silas’ home. He had placed her there so that Captain Amro and his soldiers would not be able to track her from her device as the walls were too thick to allow the signal to penetrate. He had given her instruction that she was not to move an inch. If she did, he would punish her severely.
Silas now knew about his son and so did the elders. The latter had accepted the fact that he would never be returned to his home and expected Silas to as well. But how could they ask a father to abandon his son? What father could?
She stood and walked around the small space. How much time had passed? She scratched her forehead and thought, wanting to do the right thing, unsure what that right thing was. Well, was she unsure though? She knew Captain Amro well enough to know that he would stop at nothing to get to her. He would kill Silas easily, destroy the settlement without a thought as to the people, and he would use Silas’ son without any consideration to the fact that the boy was just that, a boy.
But perhaps if she went to him on her own, he would spare Silas. Spare the village and the boy. She would not know until she tried and if she did nothing but sit here, he could level the village and kill everyone. He had the soldiers and the arms to do it.
But did she want to disobey Silas? And could she walk away?
She had no choice. Sitting here in hiding was cowardly and she was not that.
Rowan rose to her feet and climbed up the ladder, pushing the door open and quietly emerging into their shared home. Dark was approaching and she gathered her fur. The journey would be two days, perhaps more, but the sooner she began it, the sooner she would arrive in Andorra and turn herself in to the captain. At least she would have the knowledge that she did what she could and the blood of innocent villagers, among them her friends, would not be on her hands. This thought comforted her as she walked quietly out the door.
Chapter Fourteen
“Where is she?” Silas stormed into the hall the following morning interrupting Jonah and Alistair’s meeting.
“Silas,” Alistair said, shocked at his abrupt entrance.
“Where is Rowan?”
“I told you we would give you a day to decide. I do not know where she is, I assume she is where you left her.”
“She is not.”
“Then perhaps she chose herself to do the right thing,” Alistair replied. He had always been the harder of the two men.
Silas looked at them and knew they were not lying. He turned and walked out the door and into his office to collect his tablet. He hadn’t even reached the edge of the settlement when the device located her.
“Shit!”
Without stopping for food or any other materials, Silas went after her knowing she was on her way back to the colony.
“Damn it!” he muttered, walking fast. He knew her plan exactly, knew how her mind worked. She would go back, give herself up to the colony in exchange for the release of his son, for the safety of his settlement. The idea, as noble and wholly selfless as it was, was naïve at best.
Silas steeled himself. No, it was important now to remember that her disobedience could very well cost her her life, and not only hers, but those of the people of his settlement as well as his son. As courageous as her action was, it was also stupid.
She had some hours’ start on him, but the path she was taking was not the shortest and if he were fast, he could cut her off at the very waterfall they had so enjoyed the last time. He’d warned her to stay put and when he found her, after ensuring that she was all right, he would teach her a lesson in obedience she would not soon forget.
* * *
Rowan looked around her, trying to get her bearings. She took a sip of water from the jug she carried and sat down on a rock under a lone tree. Her gaze traveled the panoramic scene before her, heat rising off the earth in blurred waves as the sound of a faraway insect carried on the slight breeze to her ears. She looked up at the position of the sun, knowing at least to follow a general northerly direction but unsure of how far she’d gone off the path last night. She hadn’t wanted to rest but to get as far from the village as she could instead. She hadn’t planned well, carrying no food, and she knew Silas would come after her.
A few moments of rest and she climbed back onto her feet. When she felt like she would drop from exhaustion, she came upon a landmark she recognized, a specific tree that looked to be leaning heavily in one direction. She smiled and with a renewed energy, began the mile long walk to the waterfall.