All Your Fates (Currently editing/updating)

Chapter 23: Canine

Music Track List:

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Emma's POV

I felt the waterbed roll and quake before the light touch of Gabriel's kiss on my shoulder as he whispered, "Duty calls...don't wait up. You need to catch up on sleep." And then I felt him pull away from me and get off the bed with a slurpy whoosh before my heavy eyes snapped shut again.

I didn't know what time it was when I woke up next. It couldn't have been that late as I could hear the party still in full swing. After some time, I rolled around but the bed was empty beside me so I felt around for the two halves of my bikini and reunited them before venturing outside.

I walked around in a daze through the party that had reached an obnoxious crescendo and realized it must be after one. But where the hell was Gabriel? When I had asked though, no one had seen him since he had snuck off with me, and he was nowhere to be found. A man can't suddenly go missing from a yacht in the middle of the ocean, can he? I hoped he hadn't fallen overboard and no one had noticed, but felt little knots in my stomach that it was much more likely he had snuck off with someone else to another cabin. And I was just a number on his score card.

I did not want to hang out with the belligerent drunks on deck, so I went back to the cabin where Gabriel had left me and sat upright on the bed and waited. I felt...intoxicated, like the edges of the world were blurred out but I didn't remember drinking anything and wondered if Gabriel had slipped me something or was, himself, now my very own drug of choice.

I don't know how long I waited but at one point a yawn shuddered through my body and I flopped forward on the comforter, stretching out, with my head lying against my arms. I started to trace the ugly smooshed pastel psychedelic pattern on the bedspread with my fingers in order to keep myself awake. I don't know how many infinity loops I looped before my eyes became very heavy.

And when I opened them I was standing upright in strange dark room, listening to the jangling of keys.

"Does he know you are down here?" a husky older man's anxious voice asked me.

I blinked a few times to get my bearings. I was standing behind an older dark-uniformed man with a fringe of grey hair with his back toward me while he fussed with a locked door. Sweat beaded down his bald scalp and I didn't know if it was from the heat or his nerves. I shook my head vigorously hoping I'd wake up but my feet remained firmly planted in this dark narrow hallway.

I realized the man was still waiting for a response before opening the door so I quickly lied, "Of course." What else could I say?

That seemed to satisfy him enough to fling the door open and let me pass through. I walked slowly past him...my teeter-tottering high heels and form-fitted long skirt tight at the knees making it slow going. It was then I realized I was in a jail...or a holding area. The flat-grey painted dark room was not overly large, but long enough to contain several cells along the far wall that I faced towards. There was little light but I could see each cell floor was crowded with people dressed in dark plain woolen shirts and breeches that seemed...all too familiar to me for some reason. And then I gasped to myself when I realized there was even children among the riff-raff huddled against each other on the floor, trying to snatch whatever fits of sleep they could muster in such crowded and filthy conditions.

I started to walk a little quicker now, wanting to escape the haunted expressions of those still awake silently following me. As I neared the last cell along the wall, I realized it was empty save for one man who had his back to me. I felt pins prick the back of my neck as my eyes locked onto his taught tense lanky back, and then began to shake my head furiously all the while moving closer towards him.