Silence

Chapter Four

Something bangs against my head, hard. I clench my teeth and roll over slowly. My already fast breath only quickens as I try to calm myself from the dream I had just endured. It wasn't real. Fake. I repeatedly think to myself in an attempt to snap out of my haze. I had dreamed of the night my father left, the night my mother died. Only this time my sister was forced down on my knees as my mother must've been. Her hands tied behind her back, her skull rattling screams and pleads filling my ears, making me tremble. I couldn't move, didn't dare hop out of the chest I was hiding in. Coward. Selfish. Incapable. I sat and watched her suffer. Luscy's eyes were gleaming with terror, boring into mine as the barrel of the gun was raised to her head. I closed my eyes listening as the crack of gun silenced her screams. 

Tears well in my eyes and I don't stop them from coming. I choke and cough on my cries, trying to keep my show of weakness and vulnerability silent. A sob escapes me and voices I had missed somehow, slowed their conversation to a stop, reminding me where I am. I start to panic and I feel a rumble beneath me. I'm moving. The revelation only lasts a few seconds, which is as long as it takes for me to realize that whoever I'm with slowed down.

"Have a good night?" A boy, Pip, if I'm remembering his gentle voice correctly. I rub the back of my head where I had slammed it when I woke up. Not particularly. I sit up squinting through the light half-blinding me. "I take that as a no." He sifts through his golden hair, carefully mending it to spike in just the right spots. He is wearing black from top to bottom which given his name and relatively soft complexion with his blonde hair, rounded face, and peachy cheeks. He lifts an eyebrow as if prompting me to do or say something. "You really not going to talk?" He laughs through his nose and shrugs. Looking around at my surroundings, I find that I'm in the back of a truck laying on the floor. Pip sits across from me on a bench, his arm resting on the edge of the vehicle. "Hey Jane! Pull over would ya?" He calls to the the driver. The truck merges slowly to the side of the road in response. A girl climbs out of the front seat, she looks no older than me. She has hickory brown hair that is tied into a loose braid. She is slim but build and is overall stunning. 

She waves at Pip in annoyance before asking, "What? We can't delay much longer Pip. Diego is waiting at Cherome expected a load of em before dawn and we've got nothing to show besides the two we gathered and the dang tardy slip we'll be receiving 'cause of the boy!" With her volume rising, her voice sounds like icicles, bewitching, yet sharp. I can't help but lingering on the word two in her rampage. They had captured another one of us from the school? Where are they headed? The Cherome, as she had called it. 

"Calm down Bri." Pip starts.

"Briella." She interupts. He just rolls his eyes.

"We'll be fine, where's the boy?" He asks.

"In the front, I'll go get him." She reaches in the passenger seat, pulling out a boy with a towel stained red tied on his ear. The boy's face is twisted and winced, and I can't help but freeze there. 140 stumbles out of the car, groaning as she tightened her grip on his arm. "Bruised and beautiful."