The next morning, I was determined to find Chad. I didn’t care what it took to locate him. He was lurking, hiding like a coward on my home planet, and I was going to sniff him out if it killed me.

I had to dive into the root of the problem and figure out what the issue was. More importantly, I had to find out why it was taking my guards an excessive extended amount of time to locate Chad’s whereabouts. I was growing more impatient by the day.

I also brainstormed the perfect plan against him and it began with his pixie-like, blonde wisp of a girlfriend. She would crack. I’d make sure of it. She wasn’t as strong as Georgia. That much I’d already determined about her personality.

Yes, I hoped that Katie would be my key to unlocking the issues with not only Chad, but with Georgia as well. I would put intense pressure on her until she gave me the information I wanted.

I went to the place where the royal police were harboring Katie. I hoped that she would be ready and ripe to answer whatever questions I demanded answers of her. I didn’t care how long it took me to pull them out of her, piece by piece. I had all the time in the world, but at the same time, the clock was ticking for Georgia.

I didn’t care if I had to spend all night there. Katie was going to spill her guts and confess everything she knew. I would make her sweat. I would make her fear for the worst. She was my lab rat now.

When I arrived, I expected Katie to be on the defensive, with her sharp talons ready to attack. I was surprised when her demeanor somewhat shocked me.

She had sizably changed her tune now that I was meeting her under less than desirable circumstances. It was apparent and obvious upon studying her that she had finally come to her senses.

There was nothing funny about the graveness of the actions which she had participated in. Now that I saw her, I knew she’d be an easy egg to crack.

It seemed as if cooling her heels in a dark, damp dungeon for a day had made her change her perspective. If she was smart and didn’t want to spend any further time locked down there, she’d help me.

This was great news for me, because I needed Katie’s cooperation and assistance as badly as she groveled to be released to freedom and sunlight once again. Nobody wanted to be locked in the dungeons. It was the perfect punishment.

I walked down to the dungeon with a lantern in hand and met the guard at the front, who greeted me with a swift bow and a respectful nod of his head. He stood at attention. His broad shoulders were stiff as a board.

“Good morning,” I greeted him in a friendly tone and a smile.

“Good morning, Prince Kylin,” he responded, happy to oblige me with a partial smile, but he knew his place as my solider.

“I need to speak with the female prisoner,” I requested of my guard because I knew Katie was the only girl down there.

“Yes, sir.” He graciously pulled open the iron-clad door leading to the quarters where the prisoners were held. The door was heavy and rusty and made a squeaking sound as it creaked open.

“Do you need assistance down there?” He raised an eyebrow in concern as if he didn’t trust me to go down there alone. He was doing his due diligence.

“No, thank you.” I grinned at him. “I will be just fine.” I had confidence that I could take care of myself.

Katie was thin, mousy, and hardly a threat to someone like me, who towered over her by several substantial feet. She would be scared straight just by the looks of me leering down at her.

I trekked down the hallway toward the end where Katie’s cell was located. The only sound from the dungeon was my footsteps on the pavement and the occasional drip of water plopping into a puddle in the cold, wet area.

It wasn’t necessary to have my lantern because there were flames flickering from oil lanterns on the wall, but I wanted to use it to make Katie sweat.

I needed to observe and digest her facial expressions and regulate whether her eyes exposed any lies. She had the secrets. Now was the time to give them up. Finally, I made my way to her cell and stood in front of it.

The first thing I noticed about Katie was the fact that she had tucked her tiny little body into a ball and she sat in the corner with her head down. Her arms and the side of her face were caked with dried dirt. I cleared my throat to alert her of my entrance.

She gasped and sharply went into a standing position, trembling on the side of the wall. She cowered under my presence, just as I anticipated.

“What do you want?” She brushed some dirt that had collected on her face off her cheek and sniffed with defensiveness.

“I am here to talk to you,” I told her. “I just want to have a civilized conversation, if you will agree to participate.” I only wanted to bring out the claws if she gave me a hard time.

“Okay,” she said warily and crossed her arms protectively over her chest as if she didn’t believe me.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I reassured her. “I just want answers.”

“I don’t have the kind you want.” She shook her head and flicked her eyes to the ground as if she was filled with sorrow that reached to oblivion.

“I think you have exactly what I’m looking for in that head of yours.” I lowered my voice and furrowed my brow, glancing at her with a knowing expression. I leaned in against the bars of her cell door.

“I just want to get out of here.” Her voice was desperate and hopeless at the same time as it cracked, giving a glimpse of her state of mind. She was breaking already. This would be a piece of cake.

“Are you willing to tell me what I want to hear?” I raised an eyebrow at her and reached the lantern through the cell bars so that I could gauge her expression with more aptitude.

“Yes.” She adamantly nodded her head and wiped a single tear that had escaped her eye and trickled softly down her cheek. She sniffed again, and her lower lip quivered.

I decided to cut to the chase and start the interrogation with a bang. “Do you know where Chad is?” I asked the one blatant question that she knew would be coming.

I didn’t really expect her to give me a promising answer, but I had to take a stab at it nonetheless. Who knew? Maybe she’d surprise me.

“I don’t know.” She whispered in fear as she trembled. I could tell that she was mentally torn between the boundaries of gaining her freedom and betraying her boyfriend.

I could tell that she was communicating the truth. Her eyes spoke volumes. She had no clue where he had run off to. He’d left her here to rot. I’m sure that was part of the reason she was now willing to help me as the harsh reality began to sink in.

“Are you sure?” I said softly and guardedly.

“Yes, I have no idea. He probably left me here for dead and went back to Earth.”

Her voice sounded heartbroken. For a few moments, I actually pitied her. She was all alone and betrayed by someone who was supposed to love her. She had her own set of problems.

“He can’t get off the planet,” I advised her. “He would be shot down by my police and Interstellar Protection Agency before he even took off.” I hoped this reassured her. The empathy that radiated from Georgia was beginning to rub off on me too.

Katie peered up at me with her huge, wide blue eyes, studying me reflectively. It was if she was trying to wager whether I was bluffing or luring her into a trap.

“Do you think he is dead?” she croaked. She looked petrified of finding out the answer.

I shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea.” If he was dead, he hadn’t been found yet, or else his body would have been brought back here to me. I kept that tidbit of information to myself.

“Oh.” She sagged her shoulders and glanced at the ground again. She sounded depleted, disappointed, and shell-shocked.

“You don’t have any idea where he could be hiding based on the personality traits you know about him?” I studied her hard.

I clung to the hope that she could at least mollify me with a clue or a step in the right direction. Katie seemed like a smart enough girl. She needed to dig into the depths of her psyche to try and figure out where he could have run off to.

“No.” Katie cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where he is.” She glanced at the ground and shook her head with shame. She hated being in the dark about Chad’s whereabouts as much as I did.

“Hmm.” I deliberated this snag. There had to be another way.

“What are you going to do if you find him?” Katie’s voice was high and squeaky, fitting her slight size perfectly. I watched as she wrung her trembling hands together.

“That’s none of your concern.” I shifted my weight and peered into the cell at her.

“Tell me what happened here. Explain to me how we got to this point where you were able to trick both Georgia and me into having completely different views about what contract we were signing and getting ourselves into.”

Katie was quiet for a moment. I could tell that she was trying to concoct a perfect answer that would get her out of trouble.

“Katie,” I told her in a domineering tone, “you are not doing yourself any favors by withholding crucial information that I need.” I needed to show this girl tough love.

She sighed with exasperation, at last acting like a person with a shred of dignity.

“Fine,” she groaned and rolled her eyes. She had been beaten. I had won. Almost.

“Start at the beginning,” I ordered with a hint of a bark to my tone.

Katie met my gaze and quickly flicked her eyes away again, but she began to speak, spilling the long-awaited truth that I had been wanting to hear ever since Chad had disappeared.

“We tricked Georgia,” she began and then stalled on her words again.

“That much is obvious.” I crossed my arms patiently and waited.

Katie sighed dramatically, then continued with her explanation. “It was just supposed to be this dumb joke. I had no idea how many lives would be affected by it.” She flicked her eyes at me, but I wasn’t sure if she was believable.

We made eye contact again and for the first time since meeting Katie, I saw a glimmer of remorse in her expression. Maybe she had a conscience, after all.

“Okay,” I said. I took a deep breath and waited for her to continue.

“Anyway,” she continued. “The plan was to tell Georgia that she was going to go to Mixis to become a teacher for children here who needed to learn to speak English.”

“How did you get the application?” I interrogated her with a menacing glare.

“We made it up ourselves. Chad knows a guy who is fluent and was able to help us throw the application together so that it would look relatively legitimate.”

“Well, it fooled Georgia, so I guess you met your mark there,” I told her with a flare of sarcasm.

“Yeah . . .” Katie trailed off and leaned against the wall. “So, Chad worked on the other side, putting out the ad for you to see that showed Georgia’s profile. We made sure that the questions were invasive and personal, especially when it came to physical features.”

“That’s how you kept it from me,” I admitted and leaned back. I was furious.

“Right.” Katie raised her eyes to give me a sheepish glance. “I told Chad that Georgia would catch on, but he said she was too stupid and it would fly right over her head. It turns out, he was right.”

“She’s not stupid,” I roared as my fists instinctively clenched at my sides. “How dare you speak about her that way.” I ground my teeth and took heated breaths. This girl was running on razor-thin ice.

“Sorry,” Katie whispered. She knew she’d crossed the line.

“Georgia is a smarter girl than you, and with a million more times kindness. She was a girl who wanted to see her dreams come true, and she obviously had a hopeful attitude.” I loved coming to her defense.

Katie didn’t respond. She continued to stare at the wall in front of her as if she were a sullen child being reprimanded.

I got a sense of prideful joy coming to Georgia’s defense, and I felt it was overdue to put this minx called Katie in her place. I knew her act was purely done because she had been caught.

“We told Georgia that you were a teacher, so that’s where the confusion in the interview room became really overheated,” Katie confessed.

“Unbelievable,” I mumbled under my breath and shook my head at their sheer audacity to devise a devious plan like this. I knew that Chad was the ringleader, but Katie was less than innocent for agreeing to participate.

“In retrospect, I realize now that it was erroneous and imprudent to go along with Chad’s wishes,” Katie admitted sheepishly. I still didn’t know whether I should trust her.

“I’m glad you are finally admitting the foolishness of your actions,” I told her.

“Chad said it would be really funny if we filmed Georgia’s reaction for our holovid channel.”

“What?” My reaction was erupting into lava. It was a good thing Chad wasn’t there right then, because I would have thrown him right through the stone dungeon walls.

“That was the whole point.” Katie stared at me with irrational horror and dread-filled eyes.

I was furious. I had to even the scales and ensure that justice was served on this maniacal prick named Chad.

Without even saying another word to Katie, I raced back down the hallway from which I came, not even bothering to retrieve my lantern. I didn’t care if she cried and wailed behind me, begging to be released.

My feet splashed through puddles as I thrashed my way back up to the palace grounds. My feet boomed, shaking the ground below me.

I could hear Katie’s screams haunting my eardrums as I scurried away. She begged and pleaded to be released, but after a few moments, her faint cries disappeared completely. I would just have to deal with her later.

For now, nobody was left there to hear her pleading cries of despair. My next intention was to confront Georgia.

There were still so many unanswered questions. Katie made it seem like Georgia was completely innocent in this little chain of events, but I needed to discuss what she knew about her brother.

Adrenaline pumped in my veins, charging me with new irritation. I wasn’t angry at Georgia. No. all of that blame still fell directly on Chad and Katie. They were the real enemy in this situation.

Even if Georgia and Chad were estranged, I knew she could still help me in addressing the root of the problem. I wasn’t going to stand for being made a mockery of on my own planet, and I needed Georgia to disclose her wisdom about her brother’s weak spots. She held the key to finding him.

I halted my jolting run at the foot of the palace steps and paused a few seconds before entering the house inside. I wanted to catch my breath and collect my thoughts before I advanced on Georgia with a new quest. I didn’t want to be hasty and brash. She was on my side, and I had to remind myself of that fact.

I had to make sure I didn’t scare her off, because right now, I needed her more than ever. Together, we would take down our enemies one at a time. Alone, we would crumble into nothing.