It was dark inside the jail. The timid moon was hiding behind rain clouds and the only lantern was resting with the watchman beyond the bars, but to at least two of the prisoners, the darkness was not a problem. Gabriel used sensitive fingers to search the walls for imperfections and weaknesses. Diego's shining eyes passed through the dimness easily, letting him see clearly into the rest of the jailhouse in search of any detail that might be useful to them. All the while, the demi-human kept a keen eye on the negligent jailer, and he was to alert the others with a cough if the watchman moved. The man who called himself Hendrik worked quietly in his own cell, looking for anything that might urge him toward an idea.
For nearly an hour, they all worked carefully but diligently, and when that time was up, they came together where the bars met against the back wall to hold council over what they'd found.
"Nothing," Gabriel said. "The place is old, but seems solid."
"Same," Hendrik's deep voice informed them. "But these bars aren't much. I think I could bend them."
If Gabriel could have stared at the man in disbelief, he would have—just as Diego was doing.
"Bend these bars?" the feline questioned. "You mean you could actually do that?"
A man that could bend sturdy iron bars was someone Diego was glad had not caught up with him on that street. Though, once they were out of here, he was sure to find out what the stalking had been about, and now he had something new to be wary of.
The tall man seemed to sense this unease. He seemed to enjoy it.
"Not enough that it would help me get out," Hendrik said, an arrogant smile playing across his lips. "So I see little good that it would do."
Diego focused on the large man, staring hard at him. Who was he? Though of course, he could not ask now, just after he'd said that he didn't care for the moment. There was undoubtedly something odd about that man's eyes—that light brown with shining flecks of green. Something familiar? No; it was something else.
"How about you, Diego? Did you find anything?"
Gabriel had broken in with these words, unaware of the silent confrontation. Diego immediately thought better of the stare-down and shook himself free. He cast his hand into his pocket and carefully fished out his spoil.
"Possibly our only hope, mon ami," he said. "Rat bones. They're somewhat brittle, but it's possible that I could pick the lock with them. They may be our only means of escape. We have, however, other obstacles."
After he'd said this, Diego began to step toward the bars that lined the front of the cell. Gabriel followed his sound while Hendrik followed his movement. They stopped just in front of the bars, side by side, even though metal obstructions separated Hendrik from the others. If indeed one problem had been solved with the find of the rat bones, then their next hindrance was sitting in a chair nearby.
"If we could get him to come close enough, I could snap his neck," Hendrik said after a moment of silence, a seemingly anxious growl in his voice.
Diego peered past Gabriel to give the taller man a questioning look.
"Then that will truly make us murderers, won't it," the demi-human said with some degree of aversion.
"It's not as if we will get away from here without being marked as criminals," injected Gabriel with very little emotion concerning either choice. "We will still be murderers to the eyes of the world."
If the watchman heard them talking, or knew that they were lined against the bars staring at him, he did not show it. The man sat with his back to them, looking over Diego's pistol.
"If you do manage to pick the lock, there are three of us and only one of him," Hendrik pointed out. His words seemed familiar to the other prisoners, and they nearly brought a smile to Gabriel's scarred lips—nearly.
"Certainly, you and my friend Gabriel share the same logic," Diego said with mild disapproval, "but if the guard catches wind that we are trying to escape, he could run out to alert others, or far worse, shoot us on the spot. Therefore we must somehow dispatch the guard, for how are you to bend the bars enough to let the two of us into your side of the cell?"
It was odd how the notion did not occur to the other two until then, and Hendrik appeared perturbed that it had been the demi-human who'd thought of it. With all three of them in the same cell, there would be only one lock to pick.
"Could you possibly move the bars that much?" Gabriel asked. There seemed to be a tinge of hope in his voice that hadn't been there before.
"I don't think it would be much trouble," Hendrik said.
"Still, the guard cannot be allowed to hear any disturbance," Diego said, trailing off into his own thought.
The two prisoners with eyes examined their captor, sizing him up. He was a man of average height and frame, and wasn't especially young. He appeared primitive, unskilled, and wouldn't have made a difficult opponent for any of them—save for the exception of the bars and also the weapons in the guard's possession.
"Let's get him over here," Hendrik said, a wicked smile emerging on his lips.
Diego once again gave him a daring look of disapproval.
"I could knock him out as easily as kill him," the tall man explained.
"I don't know that I trust you."
Clear, untainted anger arose in Hendrik's strange eyes. "Disobeying your own point, filth? You have to trust me."
He was hardly aware that his voice had sprung up louder than a whisper, but it was only a moment after that that the warden had turned his head, seeing them all standing dangerously close to the bars.
"Ey! Wot's this then?"
Tucking the pistol he had procured into the front of his pants, the jailer took up a club from the tabletop and advanced toward the cells deliberately. When the prisoners showed no effort to move back, he slammed the club forcefully into the bars. They were good enough to back up a few steps then, and the man gave another nice jolt to Hendrik's side of the holding, just for the fact that the prisoner was bigger than he was.
"Havin' some secret murderers' conference, are ye?"
At that, there was not much action on the part of anyone, and it was just as the guard took a step backward that a voice rose up among them. It was Gabriel's.
"As frightening as you are on that side of the bars, I think you should sit your pompous, inadequate self back down before I feel obliged to let you in on a secret."
The guard's eyes narrowed menacingly at this one who'd dared to speak.
"An' what's that?"
"You say we killed that girl? We're going to kill you next."
The words were like strange magic. They ensnared the guard, making him focus solely on Gabriel, and while the scarred man stepped closer to the bars, the other two prisoners backed slowly out of the direct line of sight. Taking his turn, the jailer stepped up to meet Gabriel face to face.
"Kill me? Oh yes; after ye escape, I imagine?"
"You assume we're amateurs? That we haven't pulled these stunts elsewhere? It was all a trick from the beginning. You see, sir, I'm not even blind. Have a look."
Slowly, Gabriel slipped his fingers within the bandages that were tied across his eyes, and with a tug, they came down across his cheeks. The guard took in a sharp breath but was unable to let it back out again.
The sight was hideous, and Diego turned away from it in time to save himself from the image being fully imprinted on his mind, but the guard was not so lucky. He stared at the horrible, twisted, eyeless flesh of Gabriel's face. The skin was a strip of pale white, untouched by the sun, cross-crossed with scars. There had been cuts here like on the rest of his body, only it seemed that the flesh here had been sewn back together, which made for greater disfiguration. It was nothing like the guard had ever seen, and no doubt he wondered how a man could still be alive after suffering that sort of wound.
"My God..."
The man stumbled back to escape the gruesome sight—but Hendrik was quick to grip his collar in a fist. He pulled the man forward harshly so that his head hit against the bars. Two times he did this—and once more for good measure. There was no cry as the guard met with unconsciousness, and there was no protest when his shoulder popped beneath him against the floor. His breathing, however, was apparent. The man was not dead, though it would undoubtedly be a while before he arose.
Diego voiced his approval.
"That was good," he said jovially.
"Sounded good," Gabriel said blandly, replacing his bandages.
Hendrik immediately gripped the bars that separated the cells. Diego made a hopeful attempt to reach the warden's keys, but the man had fallen too far out of reach. Shrugging it off, the demi-human surrendered to the promise of the large man's strength.
Gabriel stood by silently, and while he could not see the iron bars bending, he could certainly hear their strain. They growled as they were forced apart, but the man bending them hardly even changed his breathing pattern. What the blind man could not see, the keen-eyed demi-human certainly did, and Diego had to admit that he was amazed by it. As he watched though—the bars inching apart—he felt more strongly that something was not quite right with this man. This stranger named Hendrik was an impressive-looking man in the physical sense, but there was something inhuman about his strength.
Within minutes, Hendrik had declared that the bars would move no further. Diego got his lithe body into the other cell easily and then proceeded to lend a cautious eye to the man he would have to turn his back on in order to pick the lock. Hendrik looked at the demi-human with sure dislike but made no move against him. Feeling satisfied that Hendrik understood the terms of their agreement, Diego withdrew the rat bones and set to work on the lock.
"The trees are to the east of us now; is that correct?" Gabriel asked, twisting his head to fit through the bars.
"That's right," Diego confirmed, trying his best to work to lock backward. "Hopefully no one will be out in the street to observe us slipping off there."
"Unless we have to pass by the gallows, where there will be men working," Gabriel muttered.
"True..."
The slip of his finger nearly caused one of the rat bones to break, but Diego recovered with a shake of his head. He'd almost gotten it.
"It's a long way until we'll be out of the woods," Hendrik commented lowly as if thinking aloud rather than meaning to converse with the others. "And a bit more until another town."
"With three skilled persons such as ourselves, there shouldn't be too much trouble," Diego said, and at that moment there was a click as the lock gave way.
The cell door creaked open and the prisoners spilled forth from whence they had been dammed. They moved immediately to the table and secured their lost belongings. Diego seemed especially grateful to have his possessions back. He retrieved his own pistol from the guard, planting a little kiss on the barrel before placing it back at his side where it belonged, and he then proceeded to loot the jailer's unconscious body, but didn't come away with much.
Hendrik made sure that at least the old coin on the table found its way back into his pocket, and then searched over the room quickly for anything that might be useful, deciding to lift a knife he found in a drawer as well as the club the guard had been wielding.
Having few things to gather for himself, Gabriel took his sword and moved to the exit, easily recalling the direction they'd been led in from.
Slowly and quietly, the blind man pushed open the wooden door set in the stone wall, but only a minuscule crack so that he could listen to the sounds of the night. The rain had ceased, though it still dripped from roofs and trees. He heard no footsteps sloshing through the mud or voices muttering together, but around the corner, he could hear the sound of hammering—more than likely from the rotten gallows, which couldn't be far from the jailhouse.
"Is anyone around?" Diego asked in a whisper, stooping low to peer through the crack in the door.
The watchful cat's eye saw no one out through the dark, even though the slit orb shifted back and forth tentatively.
"It should be easy to reach the trees," said Hendrik, peering carefully through a window in the side wall. Judging by his observation, the distance was not far and there was no one in sight to stop them—or try to stop them.
"Extinguish the light," Diego said, and even though Hendrik did not enjoy receiving orders from a demi-human, he stepped forward to see to that task.
Near the door, the three hesitated in the darkness. Once they stepped outside, not one among them knew what was to happen—not just inside this village, but much further beyond that. They did not know one another or the secret pasts that were part of who they were. There was another thing, however, and that was the acknowledgment that they could not stay here. They were not afraid of the unknown, and if there was any time to show that, it was now.
"This is it then," Diego said lowly, secretly hoping that his choices on this day had not been irrevocably foolish. "Let's go."
Darkness blended with darkness as the door of the jailhouse opened. On their guard, the three supposed criminals crept out. The demi-human led, with the blind man following the sound of his footsteps, and behind them, the strong man kept an eye out for danger. They moved quietly, minding their footfalls. As they went, a feeling of hope began to grow within each of them, for they believed that they were going to escape this—and each one of them would have agreed that it was the finest thing they'd felt in days.
Further. Further along through the shoddy town that would soon be forgotten behind them, all holding separate intentions inside their minds. They passed from the buildings and into the mud, toward the dark trees that loomed ahead. They did not touch the weapons at their sides, but knew that soon they would have to be on guard from foes much worse than simple human townsfolk.
The edge of the forest was reached, and low branches reached out to embrace the fleeing group. It was then that they began to run.
All had been successful. They had reached the woods and were hidden from sight within. They were free of their bonds—only not of one another. No, the three were very much stuck together. And there was a long way to go.