When A Life Is Lost (NaNoWriMo 2013)

Chapter 25

Chapter 25

It was cold. Freezing, in fact. They all huddled together, facing each other. It made it a little more bearable, but the biting wind which blew through the cracks in the carriage still gave their faces a beating.

Ania slumped to the ground, frozen tears on her face.

"It's no use," she said sadly, "We're going to die when we get there anyway. It'll be quicker if we freeze to death."

Malus sat down next to her, aiming to put an arm around her. That was before he realised he was handcuffed. She leant against his shoulder, and he sighed sadly, kissing the top of her head.

"It'll be fine Ania," he told her quietly, "We'll all be fine."

"No, we won't!" she cried, leaping up from her position on the floor - as fast as she could with handcuffs that is, "She wants me, and now she'll want you. She'll use us both, then kill us when she's done with us."

Alykana sighed, slumping down on the floor on the opposite side to Malus, where Eoius was currently sitting, attempting to warm his hands.

"We need to get out of here," Alykana said, tiredness slipping into her voice, "Before we get to Geramina."

"How do you know we're going to Geramina?" Eoius asked, blowing warm air into his hands. Alykana looked at him wearily.

"That's where the Ruby is based," she said simply, "And we know that Ania's mother is working for her. She told her that her employer wanted Ania, which implies that..."

She looked at Eoius expectantly, waiting for his answer.

"Oh," he said quietly, "The Ruby wants Ania."

Alykana nodded happily, whilst Malus gave a huge exaggerated nod, with an enormous mocking smile on his face.

"Well done Eoius!" he said in a patronising tone, "You're a little late though. We figured it-"

His speech was interrupted by Ania hitting him with both her handcuffed hands, causing him to grunt in pain and glare at Ania.

"It's very well saying that we need to escape," Ania said, changing the subject back to the matter at hand, "But it's the actual way we escape that we need to figure out."

The group lapsed into silence, looking around the carriage to see whether there was any way out. The carriage was a wooden one, but it looked strong. The only exit and entrance was by climbing through a sliding door at the front of the track, which only opened a little on the side that the group were taken. There were gaps in the slats of the wooden carriage, but when they tried to break them, they were shocked back - there seemed to be a slight electric current when they tried to push their hands through the gaps. When leaning against them, it was fine, but the moment they tried to push their hands through, they were shocked. That stopped any escape attempts by the walls.

There was no way out this time. That was for sure. They tried making a lot of noise, to try to annoy the drivers, like Ania did before. The wall between the prisoners and the drivers seemed to be soundproofed - either that or the drivers were deaf. They tried everything they could think of, but to no avail.

They just had to wait.

"Why did you have to stay?" Ania asked, the desperation of the situation getting to her even more, "You could have gone. You wouldn't be in this situation if you did."

Malus laughed, as if the idea of his leaving was preposterous.

"I couldn't leave you," he said, once he had finished laughing, "I searched for over a year for you. I won't let you go this time."

Ania sighed, putting her head in her hands.

"So that's the story you're sticking to?" Ania asked, becoming angry, "You won't change it, even in this situation?"

"How can I change the truth?" Malus asked, his voice becoming sad, "I have never lied to you Ania. I promise."

"What about the fact that I had to eavesdrop to find out about this?" she cried, her voice growing even angrier, "If it was the truth, you would have just told me."

Malus was starting to grow angry - that Ania knew. He stood up, facing the wall and holding the ceiling with his handcuffed hands for a moment.

"I don't know what I can say," he said, turning to face her again, "Don't you trust me at all?"

Ania sighed, pulling her knees towards her body.

"It can't be true," she whispered, "It can't be."

The group was silent for what seemed like a few minutes, before Eoius spoke.

"He was telling the truth," he said to Ania, seeming slightly scared when she looked at him, "About the Mem, I mean. It was you, and it said "Malus. I love you.""

Ania felt tears forming in her eyes, which she wiped away quickly with her sleeve. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts.

Everything pointed towards the fact that Malus was telling the truth, but Ania still didn't want to believe it. How could a year of her life just disappear? How could someone that was supposedly so important to her just be gone? For one thing, why would he let her leave if she was that special to him? Logic pointed to some answers, but she refused to look into them.

Malus sat down next to her, but she edged away from him, backing as close as she could to the wall. She didn't want to speak to him just yet.

They sat in silence for what seemed like hours - and it probably was - until they began to hear noises outside. Alykana looked through the slats for a moment.

"It's a checkpoint," she told them quietly, almost falling down to the floor as the carriage hit over a bump. Eoius tried to steady her, but it was very hard to do with their handcuffs.

"More criminals?" a voice came from outside. Malus, Eoius and Alykana stood up as the carriage veered to a halt, looking through the slats to see if they could see any. From the outside, it seemed like the slats were invisible from the other side.

They heard the guards close to the sides of the carriage. Ania was both too scared and too tired to look through the slats at the top, so she settled by looking through the slats at the bottom. She saw a pair of leather clad legs pass by, and by the gasps of shock that Alykana and Eoius gave, she was sure that the guard had looked directly towards them.

"Who is it this time?" the guard asked, his voice displaying his proximity to the carriage, "Must be a big one for a carriage like this."

"Oh yeah," a voice came from the other side of the carriage, with footsteps suggesting his movement towards the guard. His voice lowered before he continued, "We have the girl. The one the Ruby wants."

"Metellar?" the guard sounded shocked, his legs turning towards the carriage, "The Metellar."

There was no sound for a moment, where Ania assumed that the man nodded.

"How'd you catch her?" the guard asked, awe seeping into his tone, "It must have been difficult."

"Naw," the man said, laughing, "Someone informed us of their location. It was simple. Once we'd got one of them, we'd got them all."

"Wait," the guard said, his legs stepping back from the cart, "You caught all of 'em?"

The man laughed, banging the side of the carriage.

"Yup!" he told him happily, his footsteps moving towards the front.

"We okay?" the man asked loudly, although his voice sounded a little further away. The guard walked away from the carriage, his footsteps moving around it until they could no longer hear it, or anything he said for that matter.

They assumed that what the guard said was positive, as the carriage started to move again. They watched - through different slats - as the carriage moved forward past the checkpoint.