The delivery truck had canvas flaps for sides, easy to get in and out of. And since the truck bed sat low to the ground, it wouldn’t have been difficult to jump off once the vehicle stopped at a red light. Julia had gotten into the very last crate, a large one right next to the tailgate. It held ropes and a pickax. The only mistake she’d made was not realizing how much equipment Karim meant to take. At the last minute, he’d put a box on her crate. Then a box on top of that. Enough weight so she couldn’t push it aside. Luckily, her crate had plenty of cracks in it so she could breathe. But the pickax dug into her side. Her limbs were going numb. They’d been traveling for hours, and she was thirsty and hungry. She could have brought food and water—there’d been plenty of it in her room—but as she had planned on parting company with Karim within minutes of him driving through the palace gate, she hadn’t. She had to go to the bathroom so badly her eyes were crossing. The space was too uncomfortable to sleep, too small to move.
