Day 14| Part IV
"Angelina... and we meet again? Missed your screams"
I could see his fake smile from the dark.
"DON'T YOU DARE TALKING TO HER, IDIOT!!!" Sebastian shouted.
"Guys? Make him shut up."
Four men came from the darkness and hit Sebastian down- while two more appeared from nowhere to clench me against a chair. They've gotten a rope and began to imobilize my body part by part, not caring how much I screamed and kicked their hands off.
One turn down, one up, twist, turn again and a knot between palms. This way the more I try to escape... more it tightens.
My throat burned as well as my wrists and ankles, pressed by Damon's scratchy ropes.
"Little girl... where is my chain?" His voice spoke calmly. I groaned and turned my head to the spot I saw Sebastian last. He was in a chair too, his nose bleeding, and his stupid tongue working as always:
"Only if you tell us the reason of this obsession with Angelina's chain."
Damon's face went darker. "It is not hers. Now keep your mouth closed while your friend tells me where it is."
"She won't."
I thought Damon would close his hands around Sebastian's neck and kill him in front of me. But instead he took a long, clean-minded breath.
"You never give up, right, Sebastard? But I think your question will make your girlfriend see this actually has a reason- The chain you hide from me is the only thing capable of saving these poor people you've just met. That's why they are helping me with this ambush." He smiled fake-friendly to the men around. "You think the monk was just searching for free food? And the guards over there, just let you pass because you said you were Arians? And my transformation- brilliant, hu?- Frederic there can switch people's bodies for a limited time."
"You are lying."
"Wish I were- Now give me the chain." Damon turned to me.
I don't know why I did that, my mind wasn't working properly: I shook my head no.
He spent some minutes studying my face with his creepy eyes that I knew- were brown.
Then he went out of patience. He walked heavily toward my chair and rose me into the air. I screamed, shaking my legs vainly while he walked us across the room, down a flight of stairs, to the subway tunnel.
"You did it to yourself." He put my chair in the middle of the trial. "You should know I don't like killing cowards. It just deserves my attention who is brave enough to face me. The weak ones, like you, I always leave. It's a matter of dignity... so it is not me who will kill you, but the train that is going to pass here. And guess what? Your death won't stop me from getting the chain. I think it's fair to take out all your clothes and see what you hide in each fold of your pants after you knock down."
The temperature in there dropped instantly. My blood went colder than a lizard's- because lizards are small, filthy and chicken-hearted; I went gooey like a lizard, I went yellow like them. That's exactly what I was. A putrid lizard.
The chain was somewhere I thought Damon would never put a finger on, but I was wrong. And he was right. The only thing I was sure was that Damon was bad and he would do bad things with the chain- whatever they were. And I had no way out now besides surrender.
I looked at him, trembling from head to toe. But what I saw was way different from the thin smile he was carrying a minute ago.
Damon's face stolid, inexpressive. I saw tension bypassing his body, his gaze becoming rocklike. That's when I heard a low tssss coming from behind, like the noise of a pressure cooker releasing vapor.
I turned my head to see what was going on.
A man was squatted on the trail. He had his face covered by a mask and a tube releaser of smoke, exactly like the one the artist used to mingle with fire.
My heart doubled its pace. The tssss went bigger and louder as more tubes of smoke were activated, and the tunnel we were in soaked in fog.
I only heard Damon coughing once. It was more like a buffalo snorting air in a rodeo. I held my breath tightly, holding myself in the chair, sure that he wouldn't let that stranger disturb what he was there for. I waited, in the dark, for a movement, for something I could call beginning of death. But instead of Damon I felt my wrists being untied- by the someone I couldn't see.
What was I feeling? Was it happiness or despair? I kept my eyes and lips closed for some minutes, maybe because of the smoke, maybe because of fear. I could hear my own breathing and my own heart beat and steps. Not only mine, but also the wide, hard steps of the person pulling me ahead.
He guided me out of the tunnel; away from the fog, and away from Damon. His fists were strong enough to keep me standing without stumbling, which was incredibly useful because I could only see shadows.
Finally, I decided to open my eyes.
I almost fell. The man had a brown hair. The exactly chocolate tone of Oliver Snowfields'- but messier, difficult to domesticate, as if it had not been brushed for years but still kept its beauty.
Vince?
His touch suddenly seemed to duplicate its pressure; l felt like pushing my hand away from that wolf's paw, and like throwing up what I was trying to hold for so long.
People in the station didn't notice the two weirdos walking desperately through them. He kept pulling my wrist til the public restrooms' entrance, where we found ourselves alone.
"Where is the chain?"
His voice went so loud I almost peed in my pants. I was sure it was him, although the mask was still covering his face.
Don't know if he saw I was not going to answer; that I was too shocked to say a thing. My eyes blinked hard. "Did you steal it from Damon?"
He gave a nod. I breathed.
"Is it yours?"
"No." He shook his head, slowly, so I could comprehend what was happening. But despite I was eating everything he was saying, nothing was making sense.
"Princess... you have to choose someone to trust. Tell me, do you want Damon to get the chain?"
His mask was thick, hard as nails, some kind of stoical. Why couldn't I see what was behind? He was only inches from me but it felt like miles. It could be just another man who wanted the chain- or it could be the man I so much wanted to see again. And I would never find out even if we stayed there forever, only because of that mask.
The next letters erupted from me and I didn't know if I would regret for saying them. These were what would change everything.
"Vin- Vince?"
He was looking at me, I knew he was. He was watching all my movements, reading all my thoughts. He knew who I was and who I was going to be.
"Yes." He confirmed.
Vince confirmed.
I leaned against the wall, breathlessly, and started taking off my shoe. Giving it to Vince was the right thing to do. I would never let Damon put his poisoned fingers on that chain. Never.
"Thank you." He said.
The next second passed so fast I couldn't think straight. A woman with a lot of shopping bags came to the restrooms, dancing on her high hills. She faced me as saying "buh, freak girl."- and went ahead. And when I turned to see Vince, he had disappeared.
Vanished, gone, died out, and left no trace of his existence.
That moment when you don't care about the background cause you've spent 24 hours to draw Vince.