Laura Glass Designs

Prologue

Laila’s heartbeat vibrated throughout her chest. Frantically panting with every ounce of agility she could muster, she ran through the forest undergrowth. The uneven terrain making it difficult to maintain speed. Despite her lungs burning and legs aching, she kept going – her life depended on it.

Amidst the sound of her boots pounding the earth, she could hear the thud of her pursuer’s strides behind her. The aching in her bones told her she wasn’t going to outrun him. Weaving around the towering pines hoping she wouldn’t scrape herself on the scraggly branches randomly protruding, she refused to waste a second of time to glance behind her.

Her mind was blank, no plan, only the notion to keep sprinting. She was solely focused on not losing her footing while gaining as much ground as possible. Toward what destination, she wasn’t sure. Run home? She didn’t want to lead the dark clad stranger there. Run and hide? Doubtful she would secure a spot that he wouldn’t see her sneak into.

Was this it? Was it going to end like this? She hadn’t fully lived her life yet.

Chapter 1: Death’s Cliff

Between sporadic clouds the night sky was teeming with stars – a cosmic mirror of the chaos of thoughts in Jarrett’s head. In the distance, he could see burning street lamps. The rows of barracks and buildings were indistinguishable, yet he could trace the outline of the massive wall surrounding it.

Overhead, the vast constellations reminded him of a greater power at work. Consulting that power was why he felt drawn here. The precipice where he stood was referred to as Death’s cliff.

It was the only place he managed solitude, which was becoming more desirable as of late. The dark expanse gave him space to think. Organizing thoughts and gaining perspective were easier when nothing distracted his attention.

The wind howled softly through the trees behind him. He shivered beneath his black jacket but not because of the cold. A feeling deep in his gut wouldn’t subside; vexing nervousness and anxiety – a premonition.

It wasn’t a new sensation, but rather one that had been growing. He felt it at night whether he stood for countless hours on the ledge or lay on his firm cot in the barrack houses over the last few weeks. A fierce burning would linger, urging him. He knew it wasn’t a physical ailment, but rather an intuitive uneasiness. 

In the time alone to ponder, he was as lost as ever not knowing how to achieve what he felt he needed to do. No matter how many calculations he made, there was no perfect solution. If only there was a way. He wished. 

He knew without a shadow of doubt what was expected of him within the Garwick fortress – that was easy: combat drills, strength training, and skill tests to name a few. They were the same every day, but the true purpose of his regimen was what now bothered him most.

Compared to being so sure, so focused before, the very thing he’d been working towards turned on its head. A paradigm within him shifted as hints he gathered began fitting together like a puzzle. The picture became clearer to him. He was one piece in a large scheme that he didn’t agree with, and he wanted to remove himself from it entirely. But how?

His garrison had been trained to the gills, and even though the exact mission wasn’t revealed to them yet, its vague shadow was drawing nearer with each passing day. He and his comrades were getting antsy, but it was a different anxiety for him.

The accolades he received for the skills he possessed were no longer a spur for pride, but rather a pre-sentencing. The covertness of his officials made it even worse. The conversations they had with whispered voices. The darting eyes when they were huddled in corners. They were part of the reason this fire glowed inside of him. It was precisely why he felt miserably tense as the energy around him changed.  

Jarrett had a knack for calculating every move well in advance. It made him excel through the specialist training. Despite his confident actions, he was often timid against taking risks. Preferring to weigh all the odds before making the first move; like a chess player knowing every step before moving the first pawn. It had served him well when he was strategically ahead of his practice opponents, but with the knowledge that came to light of his impending future, he was unsure of what move to make. He feared a mistake could cost him dearly. This was why he ached; he wanted a sure way to win his freedom, but it wasn’t perceivable.

In a way, Jarrett envied the lower ranked soldiers. Their jobs made them less likely to be missed if they were to run away. Someone in his position was too specific to go unnoticed or, more importantly, unpunished. Despite being adamant now not to be a part of it, getting out of this place was ten times harder than getting in. Garwick excelled at recruiting. Discharging never happened. It was bad business. 

Feeling unable to resolve the situation was most frustrating of all. He couldn’t figure out a foolproof way to leave entirely – inevitably something would follow. He had managed to get past the guards to the cliff tonight and on other occasions, but that was mainly because they didn’t protect this side of the encampment as much as the entrance and remaining perimeter. 

The cliff on the southern edge of Garwick was a tease of freedom. The cliff backed up to a massive rocky overlook on a body of water that stretched as far as the eye could see. Escaping this way led nowhere. Rocky cliff edges were bashed with wave after wave. A peril that would eventually drain even an expert swimmer trying to maneuver their way along the coast for a beach if they survived the plunge.

His mind went in circles with every potential plan he visualized. Every one of them led to getting caught or something going amiss. Without knowing a sure way, he couldn’t make the first move.

Jarrett blamed Gabriel for getting them into this place. It wasn’t his first choice, yet Gabriel had been the one to sign them up before he could object. Gabriel argued that they’d finally be helping the good guys. He agreed to make the best of it and had grown to feel it was purposeful, until now. 

Gabriel and Jarrett were lifelong neighbors, growing up to be close friends. With only a half year in age between them, they acted a lot like brothers. After Gabriel’s parents died of a horrible fever when he was twelve, Jarrett’s parents took him in to keep him from being taken to an orphanage, or worse – left to live on his own. 

Unfortunately, life on the homestead had been nothing but year after year of disappointment and barely getting by. Monarch officials breathed down their necks to pay dues every season. It wasn’t the life that Jarrett wanted to continue in any capacity when he finally became of age to leave. And to his dismay, he now knew that Garwick was the very place that trained the officials who were then hired by local monarchs to do their bidding.

Garwick was training men to become the very people that Jarrett loathed from his childhood. It was because of them that his mother had been working to the bone the last couple years he was at home. They’d put his father in prison for not paying the interest they greedily tacked on and she was left to maintain the declining farm and raise children all by herself. 

Jarrett’s idea to get out of the homestead and make his own life was a dream that he’d set in motion over seven years ago. Before then, he had tried to help with his family’s situation but they kept coming up short. He was convinced that no matter what he did, it wouldn’t change. He would have to make his own life. In fact, his mother encouraged him and his siblings to leave once they were of age. 

Between the two of them, Gabriel with his spontaneity and odious optimism and Jarrett with his expertise in details, they decided to give it a shot. He wasn’t fond of leaving his family behind, but it was for this purpose that he had to. Hope was the only solution and hope was what he desperately prayed for now.