Sapphire Angel / Lucas Wong (Wong Yukhei)

Part 9 - Not Alone

*** Wang Lei is not in reference to any specific person, just a Chinese name I researched and liked ***

~Chinese dialogue will be labeled *C* ~

****** 

I awoke in almost complete darkness, with only one single lightbulb illuminating the entire room from the center of the hallway.

"Miss Zeda!" I heard Lucas call.

My head shot up, and I immediately got a raging headache radiating through my skull. I groaned and tried to sit up, my arms shaky and water still dripping from my hair onto the floor. I coughed and turned my head, and I saw none other than Lucas next to me in a different cell, with his hands wrapped around the rusty dirt covered bars.

"Lucas?" I groaned.

I felt something warm coming from my nose, and when I sat back and felt it with my hand, I could see it was blood.

"Baby, what did they do to you? Why are you all wet?"

I clutched my head and felt tears flooding to my eyes. Every single inch of my body was in pain. 

I glanced to my other side and saw Winwin, in another separate cell sitting against the back wall facing the cell door, with his knees to his chest and his arms crossed on top of them, his head down on his arms. 

I suddenly began to sob profusely. What happened? Just an hour ago I was in Lucas's arms, the happiest I've ever been. Well probably more than an hour ... how long had I been passed out?

"Lucas ... I'm so sorry." I cried, my back heaving and the tears covering my face.

"This isn't your fault." His voice cracked.

I groaned as I got myself up and scooted towards him.

"Lucas ... I'm so sorry for being upset with you, the way I was talking to you ... I don't know what came over me I just-"

"Miss Zeda, you do not need to apologize for the way you feel. I just wish you would have let me explain."

"What happened to you up there?" 

"He tried ... talking to me again and ... he got mad and threw me into the wall and then he... he threw me off the ship." 

Lucas looked angered and his brows furrowed.

"And then ... the guys I pushed off were still down there and ... one of them ... tried to drown me."

"I'll kill him. I promise you I'm going to kill him." He told me.

"Is Winwin okay?" I sniffled.

"I think so." Lucas looked over to him, but he remained in his same position against the wall.

I tried to calm myself down and took deep breaths.

"What do you think is going to happen to us?"

"I really don't know."

"Do you know who these guys are?"

He stared off at the wall and nodded.

"They are ... very bad men. We know their route and usually avoid it, but ... when the ship was stalled, we must have ... drifted into their territory."

"You ... you know them?"

He nodded. "They are ... very ... bad ... men." 

My stomach churned. I get rescued only to die somewhere else and cause others to perish also. If they hadn't stopped to save me, they might not have run into these guys. My mind went back to the man I pushed off the plank.

"I killed someone, Lucas." I said, the tears returning.

"Do not worry about it. They kill people every day."

"Where's Johnny?"

He shrugged. "Hopefully just hiding on the other ship, they are towing it behind this one."

He reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone.

"Idiots did not check our pockets." He chuckled and looked to be sending a text.

"I will text him. Hopefully he still has his phone, too."

After he finished, he tapped the screen twice to shut it off and then slid it under a pile of dirt in his cell. 

In my dizzy and pain stricken state, I found my mind wandering ... what if I was going to die right here in this spot in this dirty, smelly cell.

I thought of Lucas, when I opened my eyes to him holding me when I thought I was dead. I got a tingling in my heart that I had never felt in my life. It ran throughout my veins and tingled my fingertips when I touched his chest, glistening in the morning sun. Just the vision in my mind, the memory I would hold forever of being in his arms the first time, brought the feeling back to me. Butterflies formed in my stomach and for a few seconds I almost couldn't feel the pain that was radiating through every inch of my body.

"I need to ... tell you something." I muttered, and he brought his face close to the bars between us. 

"What is it, Miss Zeda?"

"Lucas I ... I lo-"

But I was stopped when voices emerged from the hallway and then three men stood before us. One being Lei. 

One opened the door to my cell and approached me, my heart pounding.

*C* "Mind if we borrow her for a while?" Lei smirked to Lucas.

Lucas shook his head in anger, his fists clenched. 

Lei chuckled, *C* "No, no. We'll just be cleaning her up and getting her something to eat." 

*C* "And what about us?" He asked, looking over to Winwin.

Lei just laughed again.

The man in my cell grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet.

*C* "Hey! I told you to be careful with that one." Lei yelled at the man, and he loosened his grip on me.

"What's happening?" I asked, groggily. 

"They said they're going to clean you up and feed you."

"What about ... you guys?"

The man closed the door to my cell, and I was now in the hallway being eyed down by Lei and the man beside him.

"Doesn't seem like they care about us."

*C* "Now hold on ..." Lei pondered.

*C* "If I want to talk to her ... I need you, too." Lei pointed to Lucas.

The man holding me passed me off to Lei while he and the other guard opened Lucas's cell door. 

*C* "The only man we had that spoke a little English was the one she decided to kill." Lei laughed.

They tied him up and he didn't resist, and then they walked us up one set of stairs to a kitchen and dining room. It was much cleaner than the basement was, but definitely wasn't as nice as Lucas's boat.

Lei sat me down in a chair and then took the seat beside me. The two men stood Lucas in the corner, still grasping both his tied arms and another man emerged from the entryway and got something from the kitchen. 

He brought me a bowl of some kind of soup and then started examining my injuries.