Chapter 17

--Dawn’s Cabin 10:30 pm--

I lied awake listening to the quiet sound of Dawn’s breathing. She fell asleep about half an hour ago and I had been laying here going over my plan to keep myself awake. I carefully slipped off the bed and tapped Faith on the shoulder, letting her know it was time to move. I crept into the bathroom, retrieved the hastily written notes and set them on the pillow I had been using. I felt bad leaving like this, Dawn has been a good friend, but I had to take care of my family first.

Faith and I sneaked down to Shelly’s cabin. We were supposed to be sharing it with her, but we haven’t actually spent much time in there. Faith peeked in the window for a minute then crawled back to me and nodded before quietly opening the door and slipping inside. I kept an eye out for any movement outside until she her came back out with our backpacks. We quickly headed to the back of the cabin and outside the boundary of the pens.

Breathing a sigh of relief, we both dug into our packs and quickly put some clothes on. Creeping around in the dark was bad enough, but doing it naked really set your nerves on edge. Fully dressed, we shouldered our packs and headed around the south side of the island on the beach. We were moving as quickly as we could and reached the water passage to the ocean in good time.

I whispered to Faith, “Hold on a minute, I think I see something.” Slipping under the bridge, she followed behind me and muttered ‘shit’ when she saw what I was looking at. There were warning flags every five feet across the water coming up from a metal bar that ran just under the water line.

“It’s some kind of grate, probably to keep any larger predators out of the lagoon. At low tide, it would be right at the water line but the tides here are minimal,” Faith said. “We’ll have to be careful getting over this so we don’t damage the jet skis. Good thing you noticed it or we could have hit it in the dark. Let’s keep moving. We don’t know how much time we have before someone notices we’re gone.”

We crossed the bridge, and quickly made our way around to where the jet skis were stored. “Go check the gas tanks, I’ll grab the gas can and life jackets,” Faith whispered. “Check the storage compartments on them as well; we can grab some food and water to put in them. I think we’ll need the water at least, it’s a long ride.”

I checked the gas on both skis and was surprised to find them full. Maybe they filled them when they filled the main tank; it would make sense to fill them all so the main tank would not need to be filled again for a while. Faith came out carrying the gas can with a nervous look on her face. “Hope, the gas can is already full. Do you think we’re being set up?”

“No, the skis are full to. I even checked a couple of the small ones to be sure. Remember overhearing Master say something about someone coming to refill the main tank here? They probably have to bring a tanker truck of some kind, and filled everything at the same time so it would last longer,” I replied as I checked the storage compartments. Just emergency kits and some tools. I left the tools on the beach, as we couldn’t repair one of these if we had to, but the emergency kits might be useful. “Did you find any food or water?”

“If you can call it food I did,” she said as she held up a box of food bars. “Remember during the tour when Master told us where the emergency shelters were. He mentioned the ski shack could be used as one if you were caught out here and couldn’t get to the regular ones. This is the emergency food supply. Seventy two food bars that probably taste like flavored cardboard, but it’s small and light enough we can easily carry it in a backpack. There are bottles of water in there as well. We should grab one of the cases and put it in the Jet Ski’s storage compartment, then get a few extra to carry on the way.”

We grabbed the water and pulled on our life jackets, then tied the gas can to the back of the Jet Ski. “It should stay put as long as we don’t hit any really rough bumps. Are you ready sis,” Faith asked as she untied the skis.

“As ready as I am ever going to get,” I responded as I pushed my ski back into the water. “Just remember to keep it slow until we get out of the lagoon. These are fairly quiet until you get them going fast, so we should get out to the ocean before we open them up.”

I turned on the ski and jumped a little. It sounded loud in the silence of the night, but I knew it wouldn’t carry too far. We turned south and followed the beach line until we hit the ocean gate and turned off the engines. It took both of us to push each ski over the top of the grate but we managed to get them both out after a few minutes. “Head straight south for a bit, we want to get out of sight of the island before we turn to the other one. We turn to 285 degrees on the compass. Both skis have one, so we can both watch that we don’t get off course. If we miss the island we will probably die floating out here,” I reminded Faith as we started the jet skis back up.

It was probably just after midnight. We should reach the other island around daybreak and be able to sleep for a couple hours before trying to find a way off. I looked over and could see Faith was as scared of doing this as I was, but the thought of our mother selling Sophia in ten years like she did to us was enough to harden our resolve.

We got lucky. Our Master cared about his pet’s welfare, but I doubted that was normal for girls who were sold into sexual slavery. We knew mom would burn through the money she got for selling us no time. Sophia was already a beauty at six years old, and would be a knockout by the time she turned fourteen. If mom got away with selling us, we knew she would do the same to Sophia, so we had to stop her.

I saw Faith looking back at the island longingly and I reached out for her hand. “I feel the same way sis, but we have to go. Master will be mad when he finds out we’re missing, but it’s up to us to save Sophia.”

She looked at me and nodded, then we took off into the night.

--Dawn’s Cabin 3:00 a.m.--

‘God damn it‘ I thought as my eyes popped open and I realized it is still dark. ‘I wish my body would hurry up and adjust to the change in time zones already. Maybe the Faith was right in taking an afternoon nap when they felt tired. Where is Faith anyway?‘ I wondered as I got up and went to the bathroom.

As I came out of the bathroom, I realized both of the twins were gone and I noticed a note on my pillow. ‘Or maybe that afternoon nap made them wake up even earlier, and they couldn’t get back to sleep. They probably went out for a walk to try to get tired again,’ I thought as I picked up the note. ‘Why is there a second note? The top one has my name, but the other says ‘For Master’ on it.‘ I flipped on the lamp by my bed and quickly read the note.

Dawn,

We’re sorry that we have to say goodbye like this, but we couldn’t tell you what we were planning. We love everyone here but we have to go save our sister. If our mother gets away with selling us, she won’t hesitate to do the same with our younger sister and we have to prevent doing that. We’re leaving the island tonight. You have been a good friend, and we will miss you, but family comes first. Please give the other letter to Master in the morning. We know he’ll be upset, but we hope he’ll understand why we had to leave.

Love Hope and Faith.

‘Oh my god, they’re trying to run away. What do I do? If I wait until morning it would give them more time to get away, but Master would be more upset, and I would be punished as well. However, if I go tell him now, it’s guaranteed they will be caught. I don’t want to betray my friends like that. Even if I wait though, Master will just fly to Tahiti and pick them up there. It is the only place they could get a flight back to the U.S. With the private plane, he would get there long before they could and I would be punished for nothing. I have to go tell Master, I’m so sorry, but I can’t help you.‘

I ran down to the trainer’s cabin and found Jason and Brandon sleeping. I quickly woke them up, and told them I needed to speak with Master immediately. They looked over at the clock; saw it was only 3:15 AM and asked what it was that couldn’t wait until morning. When I told that Hope and Faith had run away they jumped out of bed. Brandon rushed off, saying he would check the cabins while Jason got me into one of the carts to take me to Master’s cabin.

When we got there I burst through the door and ran to the bed where Master ass still sleeping, calling out to him. “Master you need to wake up, there is an emergency. Hope and Faith are gone!”

He sat up as Kayla stirred beside him and I threw myself into his arms. “Please Master, I woke up and noticed the twins were gone, then I found this note on my pillow,” I told him as I handed him the note. He turned the light on and quickly scanned the note as Jason walked through the door. Master rubbed my back as he looked at Jason and asked, “When did this happen?”