AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Wow! This is a pretty long chapter, so I'm going to keep the note short. This part contains a scene from Akeela's past when she was almost raped by David, so if you know you are sensitive, you are fore-warned.
***
Akeela looked behind her, her breath coming out in quick huffs as she struggled against the wind. They hadn't followed her. Her heart jumped in relief and she had almost smiled when she bumped into something solid.
The impulse of the collision knocked Akeela to the ground and threw her glasses off her face.
"Sorry," she mumbled, as she groped around for her glasses. She had just spotted it when a hand reached out and grabbed it before she could. Her heart froze in her chest.
Those hands...
"You really should be more careful Akeela," Dave drawled, inspecting Akeela's blue wire-rimmed frames.
"You wouldn't want to break these now would you?"
"D-Dave," Akeela stammered. "I-I was just-."
"Running away?" Dave asked, raising an eyebrow. "It looks to me like you were running away."
In the confusion of the moment, Akeela hadn't realized that she was surrounded by David's goons.
"I'm n-not," Akeela stuttered. "I-I w-wasn't running away."
Dave rolled his eyes. "Grab her," he whispered. "We need more privacy."
"No!" Akeela screamed as one of the boys effortlessly pinned her hands behind her. "My father is getting suspicious! He'll find out. Please."
Akeela's dark skin mostly hid her bruises from prying eyes, but even her resilient skin could not hide her limps and occasional pained expressions from her father. This was why she had been avoiding Dave for two weeks; she had been giving her body time to heal, before she went for the medical check-up her father had scheduled the following week. She tried explaining this to Dave but he wouldn't listen; his goons just went on dragging her into a dark alleyway. Akeela lashed out and kicked the boy opposite her right in the face, splitting his lip. The boy, outraged by the fact that he was bleeding punched Akeela in the stomach, promptly stilling all her movements. When David's friends threw her into the alleyway, she doubled over in pain, trying not to be sick.
It was getting dark; her father would be worried.
"Two weeks," David growled. "Two bloody weeks, Akeela! Who the fuck you think you are?"
"I-I'm sorry, Dave," Akeela mumbled, squinting her eyes slightly to look around for anything she could use to fend him off. She'd have to get out of this somehow, she knew, with or without her glasses. Finally, her myopic gaze settled upon a stone and she grabbed it discreetly, turning it over in her right hand.
"You know what this means Akeela?" Dave asked, sliding Akeela's glasses into his pocket. "It means I'll have to hit you harder than ever. I really don't want to but you give me no choice."
I have one shot at this, Akeela thought, her left hand clutching, tightly, a pendant she had bought off an old merchant over the course of the week.
It's magic, he had said. It will take you anywhere, as long as you wish it.
Akeela knew it was silly to believe in magic, but what other choice did she have? She couldn't let Dave hit her before she went for the check-up. If anyone found out what Dave was doing to her, Dave had sworn he'd kill Marie. She couldn't let anything happen to Marie.
Akeela clutched the pendant harder in her fist.
It has to work. It just has to.
"Do you have anything to say for yourself, kid?" Dave asked.
"I'm sorry," Akeela apologized, glaring defiantly at Dave.
"That's no way to apolo-" Akeela lunged at David, smashing the stone against his face. He screamed in pain but Akeela didn't wait around to find out how he was doing. She used the momentary confusion she had caused to make a break for it. She had run no more than two meters when she felt some one grab her hair and yank her backwards. She let out a pained gasp and fell hard on her back, the pendant clutched tightly in her left hand.
It was Dave who had grabbed her and he was now ordering his goons to pin Akeela down. The stone had cut him right above his right eye, which was closed to prevent blood from getting into it.
"You stupid, stupid bitch!" Dave screamed, kicking Akeela in the ribs with every word. "Look what you've done!"
Akeela looked but she didn't care. She gritted her teeth, closed her eyes against the pain and clutched the pendant.
It will take you anywhere as long as you wish it.
Please work, she whispered, drowning out the pain from David's kicks. Please work.
She thought of home, of her room and of the soft bed she'd jump on as soon as she was whisked away and she allowed herself a small smile.
"I wish I were home," she whispered. And she waited for the pendant to take her away.
It didn't.
Slowly, Akeela felt the fear mounting in her chest and she gulped back her tears. She clutched the pendant tighter in her desperation and wished and wished and wished but nothing happened.
Of course nothing happened, Akeela chided herself. Magic doesn't exist and you were stupid to ever believe otherwise.
Akeela slowly opened her eyes to look at Dave, who had finally stopped kicking her and she didn't like what she saw one bit. David was looking at her strangely, like he had just found out something about Akeela that had always been hidden. She felt his eyes raking her body, thinking of how best he could hurt her.
Finally, he asked in a low silent voice, "How old are you?"
"T-thirteen," Akeela stammered.
Dave narrowed his eyes. "How long till you are fourteen?"
"A week," Akeela moaned, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in her ribs.
"Only two years younger than me then," Dave said dangerously. "That's good enough for me."
And then he started to unbuckle his belt.
Akeela's lips went dry when she realized what was happening.
"No," she whispered. "No please David! Please you said you wouldn't. You promised!"
She struggled to release her hands from the clutches of David's friends but it was no use; they were just too strong and Akeela had never been anything but frail.
"You hit me Akeela," David growled. "No one hits me. Ever."
"Please, please David," Akeela begged. "I'll do anything. Anything. Just don't do this to me."
"H-hey Dave. You're not really going to are you?" she heard one of David's friends ask nervously. "This is just sick man; she just a kid."
"Shut up Mike," David next. "Or next time it'll be your sister on the ground." Mike paled and made not another sound.
Akeela was crying now, her vision blurred by the tears in her eyes. She lashed out with her legs but Dave caught them and pinned them down. She tried to scream when she felt him on top of her, but his kicks had done more damage than she had realized because all she let out was a strangled gasp. She sobbed harder when she felt his pot breath on her face as he kissed her cheeks, his hands touching her, unzipping her trousers, doing disgusting things to her.
"P-please," she prayed. "Oh, God help me. Please." Akeela tried screaming again, but she only succeeded in choking on her sobs.
The alley she was in was very close to the housing area, Akeela knew. If she could manage to scream, someone would definitely hear her. Someone would come and save her. If only she could scream...
Scream, Akeela thought. Please scream.
She closed her eyes and concentrated, trying to ignore David's hands as they scratched her, trying to pry her legs apart.
You're hurting me, she wanted to say, but she knew she'd only end up exciting Dave; he loved to hurt people.
Akeela clenched her fists in anguish.
When she felt the pendant in her left hand, she felt rage bubbling within her. She was angry, angry with herself for ever believing that the pendant could save her. Angry at the old merchant for lying to her and most of all angry at David because of what he was doing to her. Akeela tapped into the hot fury, a fury so intense that it was almost suffocating, and let out a tortured scream that echoed through the night.
***
Ever since Raina had jammed the Agiel into her ear, Akeela had kept slipping in and out of consciousness. The first time she came to she saw a handsome dark-haired man with startling blue eyes slap a girl in red leather across the face with a dark-red rod. There was a whirring sound but the dazed Akeela failed to place it.
"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA OF WHAT YOU HAVE DONE?" the dark-haired man bellowed.
"I-I'm sorry Lord Rahl," the girl said, her voice breaking. Like the man, she had dark hair, though hers was plaited into a tight braid. Her blood splattered face triggered something at the back of Akeela's mind, but Akeela could not hold onto the memory.
"Silence Raina!" the man said, thrusting the rod into the girl's side. Again, Akeela heard the strange whirring sound and heard the girl gasp in pain.
My mistress, Akeela thought. He's hurting my Mistress.
"Because you wanted to protect your love, Raina," he seethed, repeatedly striking the girl, "You may have cost me the Seer!"
The last series of strikes had her mistress doubled over, panting hard.
"How many times must I tell you that love is WEAKNESS?" the man screamed.
The man knelt down before the girl and thrust the strange rod into her temple. He held the rod there until she whimpered and collapsed from the pain.
"Take her away," Akeela heard the one her mistress called Lord Rahl say in distaste, before she blacked out.
And then she had that dream again.
David and his goons dragging her into the alleyway. Akeela attacking Dave with the stone, and the pendant not working. She didn't know why she kept having the same terrible dream over and over again and she really wished it would stop. This was why she was more than grateful when she opened her eyes the second time and the dream faded away, her scream dying out with it.
When she opened her eyes, Akeela noticed she was in a dimly lit room made entirely out of stone. Akeela herself was lay on a cold stone table, a wet napkin draped across her forehead.
Where am I? she asked herself as her eyes explored the room, noticing the bloody chains attached to its walls. She tried to speak, but her throat was so dry that the words came out low and raspy.
"Akeela?" she heard someone call in a concerned voice. "Akeela are you alright?"
Akeela turned in the direction of the voice and let out a loud gasp at what she saw.
Dangling from one of the pairs of chains Akeela had seen in the room, was a half-naked blonde woman. Her eyes reminded Akeela of the eyes of the one her mistress had called Lord Rahl for like his, they were a startling shade of blue. Akeela could tell that the woman was beautiful, but her beauty had been marred by the angry red bruises, blisters and sores that covered the woman's body.
Akeela felt her heart beat faster. The woman was being tortured; this was a dungeon.
"Oh God," Akeela rasped as she struggled to get up. "I have to get out of here."
"Akeela, wait!" the woman called out. "You're not strong enough."
But Akeela was deaf to her warning. She had just rolled herself of the table unto her feet, the wet napkin falling on the table, when the dungeon swum around her, her legs buckling under her own weight. She was surprised when instead of the cold hard ground, she felt the arms of a woman in red leather break her fall.
Mistress, she remembered thinking, before she sunk again into the same awful dream.
I wish I were home, Akeela whispered.
But the pendant didn't work. David was savagely kicking her ribs, panting with effort. Akeela heard him unbuckle his belt and she fought savagely to break free but she was too weak; she could only cry and beg him to stop. Then there came the rage, the anger that gave her the strength to scream, waking her from the dream.
This time, Akeela kept her eyes closed, afraid of what she would find if she opened them.
"You're sure she moved," she heard a man ask. She remembered that voice; it belonged to Lord Rahl, the dark-haired man who had hurt her mistress.
"Yes, Lord Rahl," another voice answered, female, by the sound of it.
"She managed to get off the table before collapsing."
"Mmmm, so she can still move," Lord Rahl said. "We should be grateful for that at least; I was afraid healing her would not work. Alas, as great as I am, my healing abilities are somewhat... deficient. We must wait until she has fully awakened before we can determine the extent of the damage Raina may have inflicted."
"Yes, Lord Rahl."
Lord Rahl touched Akeela's face and she promptly stiffened praying that Lord Rahl would fail to notice.
"She's awake," Rahl said softly and Akeela swore in her head.
"Open your eyes Akeela," Rahl urged. "No one's going to hurt you." Akeela heard someone scoff to her right as she blinked, trying to focus the blurry image her eyes were feeding her.
When her vision cleared, she found herself staring at the handsome face of the man called Lord Rahl.
"How are you feeling Akeela?" he asked kindly. He seemed so nice but Akeela knew he was dangerous; she'd seen him hurt her mistress. She looked around the dungeon, her eyes falling on the woman in red leather who had caught her when she had fallen. The woman had green eyes and dark-brown hair, but she was not Akeela's mistress; her mistress had dark hair and dark eyes. Akeela glanced around the dungeon, her eyes settling on two more women in red leather flanking the door, both wearing their long hairs in braids, but none of them looked like her mistress.
"Where's my mistress?" Akeela asked, frowning at the sound of her husky voice. She cleared her throat and coughed, licking her dry lips.
"She's thirsty," she heard someone say. "She hasn't drunk anything in days Rahl. Give her some water."
The voice sounded familiar and when Akeela looked to her right, she knew why. It was the same blonde woman who she'd seen when she had woken up the second time; the one who despite being chained to the ceiling, seemed more concerned about Akeela's well-being than her own.
Why does she care so much? Could she be my mistress?
No, Akeela's mistress had long dark hair, not short blond hair.
"How dare you speak to Lord Rahl that way," the woman with the green eyes snarled, taking out the same strange rods Lord Rahl had hurt Akeela's mistress with. The ones that made that awful high-pitched whirring. The woman was poised to strike when Lord Rahl stopped her.
"Easy Dahlia," Rahl said. "Cara is right. Fetch Akeela some water."
Dahlia...
That name sounded so familiar. Why couldn't she remember where she'd heard it? Dahlia clenched her teeth in silent anger and reluctantly returned the rods to her belt.
"Yes, Lord Rahl," she murmured before exiting the dungeon.
Akeela sat up with great effort and turned her attention to the blonde woman, the one Rahl had called Cara.
"What did she do?" Akeela asked. "Why do have her chained up like that?"
Akeela felt that she had said something wrong when she Cara's sharp intake of breath.
"You don't remember?" Lord Rahl asked, his blue eyes calculating.
"R-remember what?" Akeela asked. "Wh-what am I supposed to remember?"
***