Budding Hope

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Maria

The floor shifts and jolts underneath me and my head swims with the motion. A stabbing pain soon slices into my forehead with each jolt. I open my eyes slowly and wince in at the blinding white light overhead.

"Lizzy?" a voice asks.

A figure slips in front of the blinding light and slowly my eyes focus onto his face. It's Brandon.

"Hey," I grumble at him, lifting my head and struggling to sit up.

He grasps my shoulder and helps me into a sitting position, leaning against the wall behind me. The rest of the room jolts into focus. We're in a cage. It is not large enough to stand in and Brandon's head brushes the roof from his kneeling position. The cage is a rectangular prism, the space between the bars only as wide as my wrist. Brandon sits back down as I orientate myself with the room. The cage is in the centre, accompanied by two others on either side. The cage is locked with a large padlock and chain. Along the longest sides of the room are two wide metal benches, on which eight men and two woman sit. None are looking at us, but instead are chatting quietly; one whispering urgently into a small navy blue cell phone. To our left, at the other end of the room, two large, black, steel doors take up the entire wall. A latch, positioned around the centre, allows both doors to open from the inside. At the opposite side of the room is a round tinted window. I peer out of it and realise suddenly that we are in the back of a truck. No, a van. The memories flood back abruptly. The van that had rushed into the clearing, this must be it. I clench my teeth as the truck rocks again on the rough surface of the bitumen below. I look down at my hands; they are bound together with a pair of cuffs and are connected with a chain to the cuffs around my ankles. I struggle against them, feeling the cold metal dig into my wrists. I know I could probably break them if I really wanted too, but maybe now was not the best time. I look back up and meet the gaze of the woman I had fought back at the train station. She stares at me hard, drilling holes into my head with her gaze. Her sturdy, chocolate brown hands are folded on her lap, grasping the formidable black form of a small shotgun.

"Lizzy!" Brandon yells to me.

I jerk around in surprise. The woman who had been staring at me so intently only seconds before turns abruptly.

"Shut up!" she yells back at him.

"Are you ready to get out of here?" Brandon says to me again loudly, over exaggerating his voice so that everyone in the van can hear him. "It's getting really boring and I need to stretch my legs."

I look to him in confusion. What is he doing? Who is Lizzy? All the men and woman in the truck are now staring at us. Something flickers in their eyes; fear? Fear of us? Whatever it is, they quickly disguise it. The woman's hands tighten on the gun, as if she is actually considering shooting us. Brandon sees the small movement too but does not seem to care.

"Who are you?" I ask the woman, meeting her stern gaze.

"Agent Malcolm," she says with a cold tone, lifting her hands to shift the black sunglasses perched in her plaited brown hair.

"Hey, I'm really getting bored here, and I'm not playing around. You should let us out before I start to amuse myself," Brandon taunts the agents lamely.

'Shut up Brandon, you'll only get us into more trouble.' I think to myself, sending him an icy glare.

Agent Malcolm leans forward, clasping her hands together. She bows her head but lifts it almost instantly. It is as if she was not expecting to have to deal with two teenagers and doesn't know how to proceed. She seems to decide to use the 'good cop' act.