Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I try to move, try to do anything to reach back and grab the hilt, but I have no breath. All I can focus on is sucking in air, trying to breathe again. Pain sears through my wrist as a boot crushes it, preventing even my small movements from going any further.
“Ah, ah, ah, not so fast.” This is a new voice, different from the first. I mentally tally the number of people, so I know what I am dealing with.
The boot lifts, and hands wrap tightly around my wrists, squeezing and jerking me forward. “Give me that rope!”
A thick rope wraps around me, pulling tight and cutting into my skin. The dark spots are slowly disappearing, and my breath is returning. I can make out at least four people standing over me, all of varying heights.
This is bad.
I should have fucking listened to Dane and stayed put. Here I thought he was going to be proud of me for finding my way and getting back to camp safely, and instead I am here, hands bound, and at the mercy of these people .
Edmond’s hostility training immediately comes to mind. I never thought I would need it, especially never having left the castle, but now I am glad I listened to him. When I can’t fight, I have to be smart. I have to listen. I have to find out as much information about my attackers so that I can persuade them to free me, or at least get on their side and bide my time to escape.
“I’ve never seen her before.”
“Neither have I, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t one of them. Scum that thinks they run the island.” The speaker spits, not on me, thank gods.
“Bind her feet too. We’ll carry her if we need to. She can’t get away.”
I’m pulled to a seated position, hands bound in front of me as someone kneels next to me and begins wrapping a rope around my feet. I could kick and scream and try to get away with my hands tied, but who would hear me? The only people I know here are Dane and Storm, and one isn’t even on this island anymore.
I decide on a different tactic as soon as I notice who is binding my feet. A girl, slightly younger than me, at least by my world standards. She pulls tight on the knot, cutting it into my ankles just above my boots.
“Mara?” I ask.
Her eyes snap up to mine, a look of shock on her face.
“What did you say?” she sneers.
“Is your name Mara?” I try again. “Dane wanted me to meet you last night, but you didn’t come back.”
“Shut the fuck up, you filthy Castaway.” It was the first voice again. He leans down and yells in my face, finally giving me a good look at my captors. They are not at all what I expected. The youngest looks barely ten years old, and no one looks older than Dane. Mara is the only girl among them, which verifies what Dane told me last night in the sleeping quarters.
I let out a sigh of relief.
These aren’t the Castaways. They are with Dane. These are my people.
I’m safe.
But they don’t know me, and they clearly assume I am a Castaway .
“Dane is going to be beside himself when we bring her back. We finally got one!” The youngest jumps up and cheers.
Footsteps pound from behind me. Not one set, but two.
“What’s going on?”
“We caught one! Now we can finally get answers to where they’re hiding and smoke them out,” the second voice says.
“But I’m not a Castaway! Dane brought me here last night. None of you were there. I didn’t get to meet anyone.”
“Liar!”
“That’s exactly what a Castaway would say.”
“I was there. I would have known if Dane brought someone new.”
“I swear,” I say, trying to keep the pleading out of my voice. I need to remember to stay calm. “How would I know Mara’s name if I wasn’t there?”
“Your brainwashing won’t work on us, bitch.”
“Where’s your leader now? Is he going to come save you?”
“Maybe we can use her as bait and finally snag Weston!”
“Enough!”
The scrawniest of the boys is the one to speak, breaking the silence. He doesn’t look to be the oldest, but definitely commands the most respect among them. Maybe he has been on Dawnlin longest.
“I’m being honest with you,” I say, speaking low and slow. “I’m not a Cast?—”
A foot slams into my stomach, knocking the breath from me yet again. I double over in pain, curling into myself, gasping again for air.
“Gag her,” the boy says. “Blindfold her too. We’re bringing her to Dane.”
I hear the tear of fabric, then feel a thick gag being pulled between my teeth, followed by a blindfold over my eyes.
I have no way of convincing them I am who I say. It will have to be Dane who does that. But Dane isn’t here, and I don’t have any clue how long he will be gone. Once he sees me, he will know that they made a mistake. I just hope they stop injuring me at this point. Traipsing through the island and searching for the cure will not be easy with cracked ribs. I need to stay quiet and wait this out.
I’m just thankful they aren’t the Castaways.
There is a lot of rustling and whispering before I am jostled around, and two bodies come along either side of me. They pick me up under my arms and drag me between them as they walk.
The journey back takes drags on as I hang between them. I don’t know if it is because Dane and I were so far from camp, or if the blindfold just makes it difficult to get my bearings. Once we finally push through the trees and the light on my blindfold is cast into darkness, I know we’ve arrived at camp.
I stay quiet, letting them jostle me around at their disposal. They keep any communication to a whisper so I can barely hear, but now I’m not really trying to. I know this will all blow over once Dane returns. It just need to wait them out.
They don’t bring me toward the rope ladder I climbed last night. Instead, they stay on the ground, heading to the other side of the clearing. I didn’t realize there was anything else down here because Dane didn’t show me any of it last night.
I hear a creak before I’m thrown onto the ground, dirt and dust kicking up into my face. The creak sounds again, followed by a clicking of a lock.
“Maybe we should wait until tomorrow before we tell Dane about her. A nice long night might help loosen her tongue a little bit.”
My two captors laugh loudly as they walk away, and I’m left here alone.
Oh no.
Hopefully they will be too excited to have caught a ‘Castaway’ that they won’t leave me in here overnight. If Dane goes back for me and I am not there, surely he will come looking for me. Though I doubt he would think to look in their own prison.
But what if he thinks the Castaways took me, after only just warning me about them ?
Please please please tell him tonight.
I don’t want to be locked up in here alone all night, all because of a misunderstanding and a bunch of children who won’t listen.
My hands and feet are still tied, and every time I try to move them, the ropes bite harder into my skin. I listen for a minute, trying to hear if anyone has stayed behind to guard me. Voices in the distance confirm I am alone, and I reach up and push the blindfold away. The gag is harder, tied much tighter than the blindfold, and I can’t reach the knot at the back to get it off.
Great.
I roll onto my back and rock until I am sitting upright so I can take in my surroundings. I am in a wooden cage, one I hadn’t seen in the clearing last night, but it still must be within the confines of camp.
I guess this is it then. I just wait to be rescued.
I shake my head at my stupidity. I easily could have avoided meeting everyone like this if I had just listened. Now, I get to wait them out, because trying to escape before Dane returns would only convince them I am a Castaway, and who knows what they would do then?
I have nothing more to do to pass the time other than to think about all I learned from Dane this morning. I am so grateful it wasn’t the Castaways that attacked and captured me, even though I know I will have a huge bruise from where the boy kicked me earlier. I’d take that rather than having my chances at finding the elixir ruined.
The elixir is hidden, and it doesn’t seem like anyone has found it in years.
According to Edmond, there hadn’t been any mysterious cures in a very long time. Could it be because of Weston? Because he is trying to keep the elixir to himself but can’t get off the island? Dane mentioned that Weston and the Castaways had been slowly kidnapping people he had brought here. Was Weston so cruel that he would take away the hope of those by force, only to trap them on the island and let the loved ones die ?
I shudder at the thought. If Dane hadn’t already painted him as a monster, he definitely is in my mind now.
I need to find it and bring it home to my mother, Weston be damned.
As long as you don’t stay tied up like this for days and can actually get started.
A small glimpse of the pink sky peeks out from the trees above the cage. The suns are setting, and soon it will be dark.
Those bastards are leaving me here.
I don’t know how long it normally takes Dane to answer a summon. Mine took a while because I completely doubted who he was based on our prior friendship. He may be back already and is out searching for me, oblivious to the fact that I’m actually waiting for him to rescue me here.
The grumbling of my stomach distracts me. As a princess, I’ve never been without a meal unless it was of my own choosing. If those children wanted to play games and leave me here starving, I will not be so nice to them when I finally am released.
Children…can I even call them children? Some of them could be two or three times my age, despite looking exactly as they did the moment they left our world. If time doesn’t move here, and no one has found the elixir in years, I could be the youngest and most inexperienced out of everyone. That doesn’t justify them treating me like this.
The excitement turns out to be too much for them, and only moments later, I hear a barrage of voices, talking and shouting over each other.
“We got one! We finally got one!”
“Dane, you’ll be so proud! We pulled the vine and SPLAT! She went down like a tree!”
“We finally have a lead on where they’re hiding! If anyone can get it out of her, you can!”
The commotion gets louder as they get closer, but that means only one thing.
Dane is finally back, and I am about to be set free.