Bound by Prophecy

Chapter One

I tried to turn to see where he'd gone, out some back entrance apparently, but I had limited mobility, suspended as I was. When I swung back to straight, there was a face inches from mine. I admit I may have jumped, if only a little.

"Where is my sister?" she hissed.

Under normal circumstances, my mouth might have fallen open.

She smacked me. "My sister. What did you do to her?"

I shook my head. Glanced at the chain hoist that attached my harness to the warehouse wall. "No," I started, but the girl wasn't looking at me now. She was watching the door.

The sirens were getting closer. And something else, a muffled buzzing.

"They're coming here?" I asked.

The girl turned back to me, nodded. I was struggling to find my focus, to sway her to co-operate. She seemed a bit panicked, but for the wrong reasons.

"Here." I tilted my head up to indicate my bindings. "Untie me. I will help you find her."

Her eyes narrowed and her mouth screwed up as she considered my proposition.

The sirens were at the gate.

"Two minutes," I warned. "It's the only way you'll find her."

Car doors slammed. She knew I was right.

I had her.

And then she was gone. "Wait," I shouted,"where are you going?"

She didn't look back as she ran across the open floor. She moved with such unrestrained fervor, I half expected her to slam into the wall. As she reached up, she pulled a screwdriver from her back jeans pocket, and pried the lever that held my chain.

An instant later, I slammed into the concrete floor.

Fire spread through my shoulder, but the pounding in my head was replaced with the reverberations of a small, clanging bell. Tingling prickled my limbs a moment before I realized my feet were being jerked, and the twinkling lights flashing against blackness were the first indication to my brain that I couldn't see anything. The tingle turned to pinpricks and the ringing in my ears quieted as I tried to bat my eyelids open.

The jerking at my feet ceased.

"Can you stand?"

Her face was in my line of sight again, this time sideways.

"Gll...tthhh," I answered.

She grimaced.

The girl reached down to grab my arm, and the fire increased tenfold. I said something like, "Aaaaah," and she let go.

Apparently, I'd managed to keep from busting my skull against concrete by shifting my head sideways during the fall, but had taken the brunt of the hit on my shoulder, which was likely now broken.

The girl was pulling up on my other side."Come on," she hissed, "we have to go."

Two deep male voices echoed off the exterior walls of the warehouse.

"Now."

She yanked hard against me, and eventually my instincts kicked in. Or at least adrenaline. I was up, nearly falling forward before being pulled behind her toward a short flight of metal grate stairs. My right arm swung limp behind me; I was completely unable to support it since my other arm was held within her considerable grip.

As we climbed, I glanced behind us, saw a shadow through the open warehouse door, and then stumbled on the threshold of a back entrance as I was dragged into daylight.