Kaylee had paced the walls of the tiny room dozens of times, looking for the faintest crack in the wall to work with, but each time she came up empty. Every time she tried going near the corner with the holo-door, the silver bands around her wrists would stop her arms from touching it.

She had thought about using parts from the recessed lighting to devise a method of escape, but even if she could reach the panel, the light covering was too hard and thick to break with her bare hands. There was no hope of a tool of any kind, either---every time someone brought her food, the dishes it came on were made of cheap plastic that broke under even moderate pressure. What’s more, the hundan that had locked her up here seemed to think she couldn’t be trusted with a plastic knife—if there was meat of any kind, it came already cut into pieces.

She’d cried herself to sleep the first few nights (or, at least, what she thought was night, as there was still no way for her to tell time in this prison), her energy completely spent. She remembered Simon warning her to take things easy and nap whenever she could, but that was before she’d been locked up by a deranged lunatic who wanted to do Lord-knows-what with her baby.

Kaylee had made herself sick with worry over that thought. Her dreams were haunted with images of needles poking and prodding her child’s tiny little form; of wires protruding from a tiny little head with dark hair and beautiful blue eyes… She’d tried to push the thoughts from her mind, mentally reminding herself that Simon would come for her, that the captain and Zoe and Jayne and even River would come for her, that the tamade xio de lioumang that resembled her husband would never get the chance to hurt her baby—not ever.

Her teeth chattered, and she drew the comforter up around her neck. The thin gown she wore was not enough to keep out the persistent chill in the room. Kaylee had asked—even pleaded—for something warmer, but her guards merely shook their