The Redback Rose

Chapter 2

My eyes flickered open to the early golden sunrise, casting light over the tops of trees to my left. Their shadows stretched over the tall grasses until they disappeared entirely. Songbirds chirped to each other, asking about last night and the mischievous things they got up to.
"I thought you might end up here." His voice shook the daze from my mind and I scrambled away from him. Green Eyes sat cross-legged on the ground a couple yards from me. Hands fiddling with a long piece of wheat grass, he looked at me curiously.
"How did you know I was here." It came out more as a statement than a question, earning a raised eyebrow from the boy. The accusations in my head from the night before still ran wild. My mother was dead because of them, I had every right to be terrified for my life. Instead, I just sat there, silent and seething.
"This place attracts a specific kind of person," I waited for him to continue. "It's meant for people like us." He looked over me into the wilderness, an almost forlorn glance in his eye. I recognized it, and I almost felt sorry for the green-eyed jerk.
"We," I made a point of jabbing my finger at him to highlight my point. "We are not the same." My limbs were stiff when I shifted them out of their places on the ground. The tall grass had been matted down where I laid, and I doubt it would ever grow back straight. I hated that as there would always be some part of me trapped here. Peter watched as I sat up against the tree, his eyes tracing every movement of my legs. Something told me it was because he couldn't meet my eyes. Weakness seemed to be a troubling situation for him.
"That's beside the point." He continued to watch the ground in front of him, fiddling with the wheat in his hands. "Come on, we're needed back at camp."
"What is my purpose here anyway? Just to be some token for your affection?"My memory was still hazy, which makes things more dangerous. The farthest back I could remember was coming home after work, meaning that there were roughly still a dozen hours that I couldn't account for. If I can't remember how I got here, then how else could I stop them from doing something to me again
"Only if you want to be." He sent me that smirk again, but this time it wasn't nearly as convincing. My back wasn't happy in the situation it was in, and the soreness caused by sleeping on the ground was frustrating. I guess sleep was a relative term because cat-napping for short increments of time was probably more accurate. Thus, the likelihood of me getting away from him before he overtook me was greater than I care to admit. As if on cue my stomach rumbled, not loud enough for my adversary to hear, but enough to remind me of how hungry I was. Assuming it was mid-morning, it had been well over half a day since I had eaten anything. Still, my stubbornness won out.
"No, I'm good here." I told him, mustering up an innocent expression. He rolled his eyes at me playfully, but I could see how truly frustrating he thought I was. With no surprise. He was probably used to barking orders to kids all day. Doubt he saw much resistance there.
"Mother Ocean you're difficult" He breathed out a deep sigh as I shot him a look. The irony of his statement didn't escape me, for how dare I, the victim of your kidnapping routine, be a hand-full?
"Either you come with me or I stay here with you. Your choice." He didn't even try to hide his annoyance with me, like his ultimatum should have scared me into submission. But the meadow had been nice to me so far, and I couldn't abandon it now. Green-Eyes clearly wasn't going to hurt me, at least not here. He would have done so before I woke up. They could be waiting for me to attack one of them, or simply assume that they didn't need to lock me up. That would be a risky assumption, they don't know me well enough to ensure that I wouldn't attack with or even without being provoked. Still, a more pressing issue was the large blank spot on the "Why am I here" question. Lots of scenarios could be the winner, the top one, reigning in at enough terror to shut my body down completely, was trafficking. The serial murderer would have gotten rid of me already and the sole beneficiary of my kidnapping would have picked me up by now. Somewhere on the dark web my photo was circulating, waiting for the bidding to close, and the highest customer to claim his reward. A chill ran down my back as I sat in the sunshine.
Neither of us said a word for a while, and the boy went back to messing with the wheatgrass in his hands. I watched the sunrise high into the sky, the birdsong filling the silence. Golden grasses extended over the entire length of the meadow and in the morning light I could now spot violet flowers filling the barren places in the grass. They weren't as tall, so sitting down the only way to spot them was when the wind wove through and bent down the stalks in front of them. They were a beautiful color, the sun reflecting off the dark purple, making it even brighter. I glanced at my companion on the grass beside me again and noticed as the wind messed with his chestnut brown hair. Virtue and vice. I couldn't help but feel like the purple flowers were taunting me, that they should return, year after year, with no end in sight. Of course, they didn't notice the callused hands of fate wrapping around my neck, my last breath uncertain. I hated them for that.
The boy had his gaze fixed to the ground, not once did he look up as I leveled my angry gaze at him. He had to be the oldest, by the tone of his voice and his obvious leadership role amongst the boys, but he had a younger face. It's possible he was my age, both of us stuck in between the temptress of teen-hood and the reality of the outside world. Still, I think nineteen is a little young to be running your own personal gang.
"Why is this place special to you?" The question was on the verge of a whisper, but he must have heard me because he lifted his head from its gaze at the ground. Pretending not to be genuinely interested, I nosed around a pebble with the tip of my pointer finger. From the tops of my eyelids I could see him watching me for a moment before he responded, as if it required some type of delicate strategizing.
"I knew someone once, a long time ago." He paused, letting the feeling sink into the air. "I come here to feel close to her," I knew that his excuse was easier than having the words she's dead drip from your mouth. He shifted uncomfortably and uncurled his legs out from under him.
"I've lost people too," I found myself opening up without hesitation, but I reminded myself of my position. The stupid things that empathy does to you. "But I guess you know that already." And like a flower I closed back up, hoping to make it through the winter that's bound to come. It was stupid, he stalked me, of course, he knows sections of my life that people don't like to talk about. I felt violated all over again, and I hugged my knees closer to my chest. They know the times I sing to myself to clear away the sadness that threatens to sink me, and the times I'm scared of the emptiness of my own house. When I would stare at the family pictures and wonder how I could be the only one left, the only one that cared at the very least. That's when another thing got strike off the list for my potential fake. Ransom. My family didn't care enough, nor did they have any valuables worth taking. It was every sibling for themselves, and if you got into trouble then you got yourself out of it because no one was going to help you.
The boy didn't say anything, instead, he kept fiddling with the grass. His overconfidence was wavering. Clearly, it was a façade with the other boys, he was probably compensating for not having any real leadership experience. Rule with fear and they will respect you, whatever the Machiavelli nonsense.
"We had to make sure we made the right choice." He lifted his gaze to me now, as if the reminder of his methods was a trigger. The green in his eyes was a cold emerald. Calculating. Manipulative.
I didn't say anything.
A quail cooed in a nearby thicket of grass, a sound I hadn't heard in a long time. It's dark feather adorning its head popping about, completely lacking any instinct to hide from the people sitting to it's right a few yards away. I flicked the pebble in its direction, and immediately it took off towards the inner clearing.
"Well, that was mean." Green-Eye's smug expression stared back at me as I turned away from the quail's direction. I just shrugged and slowly got to my feet. My hips were stiff but after a moment of reconfiguring, I was able to stand. There was perpetual tension in my back, and to Green-Eye's amusement, no amount of odd twists and turns could relieve it.
"Well, I'm done sitting." But it would be gladly appreciated if you'd stay here, I finished in my head. I knew there was almost no way that he'd leave me alone after finally finding me this morning, but I tried to leave my expression void of annoyance as he got up with me. Even a place as remote as this, on which I haven't seen any other hospitable life forms excluding the quail, he still managed to track me down. I don't know how big the coast is that we're on, but the mountains in the distance are more than a day's walk. It should have been physically impossible for him to find me so quickly. That's when another thought hit me, it was impossible. The only way that they knew how to find me was by tracking me. I fumbled around on the hem of my shirt, and jeans, checking for unexplainable bumps in the seams. Nothing.
"Whatcha doing there?" The boy stood several yards away, coming out from behind the undergrowth in exact time to catch my tribal tracker dance.
"Bug." I shrugged it off, but I swear he laughed behind me. If there was ever a time to not be embarrassed, it was on a nature walk with your kidnapper, yet here we are with my ears turning a lovely shade of yikes. I more subtly felt around my forearms and neck for any bumps with no luck. The tracker could be in my shoe, between the twigs stuck there and everything else I doubt I would have noticed. Peeling off one, I dumped it out and watched an unusually high number of debris fall to the ground. I did the same with the other one too, picking off a quail feather that had stuck to the side of my sneaker.
When I slipped my shoe back on, he stood some distance behind me, most likely watching with the same impatient expression he had back at the meadow. It was strange, the clearing couldn't have been more than a short minute walk away, but as soon as we ventured outside the fringe it was gone. Like it had been swallowed whole. My fingers lingered on the edge of a shoelace, where I was contemplating my escape. The boy would be even with me soon, so I had to act quick. Without another warning or though, I took off.
My unsteady legs wobbled in my first strides, nevertheless like a newborn foal, I found my gait. The thick hairs in my ponytail bounced against my neck with the rhythm. The boy's footsteps beating the ground matched pace with my heart. Fear trickled down every avenue in my veins, propelling me forward. In the back of my tired mind, I knew I only ran us towards our mutual destruction. That in a moment he would catch up, but another rogue part of me was itching for trouble. I leaped over a tree root, my feet landing in a soft thud on the other side. The ground was packed together tightly, the ground rubbed raw of any grass on what I could assume was a familiar trail.
In the next instant, I was thrown to the ground.
Peter huffed from overtop of me, and his body weight kept me in place. I licked a place on the inside of my lip, checking for blood, but I hadn't bitten down hard enough to draw any. After a moment of us both inviting feeling back into our limbs, he rolled off me. In doing so, something shiny fell out of one of his exposed pockets. I quickly covered it with my arm in case it was what I hoped it was, a knife. Feeling around the object I nearly cut myself with the exposed blade and I silently thanked whatever God was out there. Carefully and subtly, I'm proud to admit, I slid it in my pocket.
"Why on Earth did you do that?" Green-Eyes had finally settled back with his legs out in front of him, holding onto my left wrist. I tried to yank it back, but his grip never faltered.
"Why am I here?!" I took both hands and ripped my arm away from him from where I was still crumpled in a heap on the ground. "What do you want with me?" The desperation must have made it to my eyes because he paused to search them before responding.
"You get to know when you need to know." The boy locked his jaw and grabbed my wrist again. He tried to haul us both up, but I stayed put, making him lose his grip and his balance. I wonder if this is how serial killers' victims felt, struggling with an undying amount of uncertainty. Not knowing why they were chosen or what made them special. Although one thing was aggravatingly certain, I would not find anything out by sitting here. I shook the sudden shock of the hard ground from my limbs and used my arm as leverage to help myself up.
"M'lady." Green-Eyes, whose name I've officially forgotten, swept his hand out towards the path in a grand gesture. He bowed slightly and tipped his head in my direction in a tainted effort to be gentlemanly. I nearly shoved him for being so over-dramatic. The beaten path rounded behind us into the trees, and the front was much wider than the stretch we had fallen into.
"Where does this go?" The path may have woven out of sight, but it still piqued my interest. It was the first thing for what seemed like miles that wasn't a tree or a bush.
"Wherever you want it to go."
"That's a stupid answer." There wasn't any reason for him to give me a legitimate solution, and I was well aware of that fact. But there couldn't have been any harm in telling a dead girl. Even as I thought that, being killed or trafficked felt like a further step from the truth. Then again, they never would have let me wander if they were intending on keeping me alive, I've seen too much. The possibility I could pick Green-Eyes out of a line-up was becoming concrete.
"It's only stupid if you don't know where you're going. The mind is a curious place." I glanced at the boy and he merely shrugged, his piercing green eyes dancing with mischief. Suddenly, I found myself hoping that there was someone waiting for me on the other side of an auction site.