Rachel and Jeff sat in the red dorm comune room when Janice walked in and saw someone in her usual spot. Without worrying about it she moved to Amanda’s spot since she was still gone on her shopping trip. She watched the two play checkers in silence. It was quite clear that he was taking it easy on her as well. Still in the end he won decisively.

  “ So who’s your girlfriend.”

  She meant it only as teasing, but the girl's face went red and Jeff took a drink of wine to cover up his own embarrassment.

  “ Hi, I’m Rachel, a healer,”

  Rachel offered her hand to the other woman and Janice took it with a smile on her face.

  “ Hello Rachel, I am Janice. I am in charge of the group's communications. Here let me do this.”

  Janice twisted her wrist slightly and this caused a message to appear in front of Rachael.

  Rachael blinked before she mentally accepted and she found herself in a chat room with two others.

  Rachael blinked again surprised and unintentionally thought out a comment.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Rachel opened her eyes wide before schooling her face to look more natural. In addition, she stopped moving her eyes like she was reading and focused on the checkers game.

  “ She catches on quick. So Jeff, I can see adding a healer to the group is good, but why her and why now?”

  Jeff glanced over toward Rachel before focusing on the board again.

  “ After we got here on day one, we became fast friends. Yet, what happened to us was too... raw. We should have been working closer together, instead we separated to better understand what happened with that demonstration the duke put on with those five...”

  Jeff pauses and all three shudder from the memory.

  After that, I tried to reach out to her, but...”

  “ It’s fine. I was tricked by my maid to enter an ambush set by several others of us and was charmed. If you have not heard about what happened to us...”

  Rachel looked down to her fidgeting hands and closed her eyes.

  “ It was bad. How they kept it hidden for several days, I don’t know. But it was more than them forcing themselves on us whenever they wanted. They wanted details about our classes, our educational backgrounds, and anything that we thought we expected would be useful to make from our homeworlds... Some of the others... they have given up. Next week, if nothing changes, most of them... They will have their cards called in.”

  This was news to both Jeff and Janice. If having their ‘cards’ was more calling in their debts. Then most of them, if not all, will go from one incident of losing their freedom to another more permanent one. Worse of all, there would be no escaping it this time.

  Jeff turned to Janice to see her as conflicted about this as he was and he shook his head signaling he could not help them. He was barely in a position to help himself. After some awkward silence, Janice sighed, reset the checkers game, and gestured for Rachel to play her.

  “ So what about the others?

  Rachel blinked at that and focused on the board. She moves a piece and relaxes her tense muscles.

  “ Right, the others. There is a small group of us that are... recovering. Then there is the family of some of the victims who are picking up some of the slack. Honestly, we have not been thinking much of the future till Jeff pointed it out to me that we have not. Right now, we plan on sticking together for the most part. When we leave this place we plan on roaming the land and helping out others in need.”