Shadow War: Book 3 of the Shadows Rising Trilogy (WIP Rough Draft)

27. Between the Gaps

9th of Braxos, continued

[Addended From the Personal Correspondence of Brenorra Warring; Items from Captain Rathe Arramy of the Coalition Navy, record #245]

ARRAMY
Larra

If you come back and I'm not here, stay. Please. I'm out looking for you, but I'll be back by nightfall. 

10th of Braxos

Larra

You still haven't come back.

You never reported to the cannery yesterday.

Where would you go? What would you have done other than go to work? No one knows where you are. How am I supposed to find you if you didn't leave a trail to follow? Make sure someone can see you, make sure you don't go anywhere alone. Why didn't you follow the rules?

11th of Braxoz

Larra

I keep thinking you're going to walk into the kitchen. It's so strong, I turn around to look for you.

I started going door to door this morning.

Mrs. Arrdeshi remembers you were on your way to Grint's, but when I checked at Grint's, you never made it there.

I ask myself what you must have been doing, why you left, and part of me wonders if you ran away from me. I wouldn't blame you.

But you didn't take any money, nor any of your things, only the clothes you were wearing and your commissary tickets.

Where are you?  What has happened to you?

Why am I asking a piece of paper?

~~~

BRENORRA

The rustle of cloth against my ears. A checkerboard of blue and brown squares... No, not squares... The open weave of sacking...

Rough hands on my face... The smell of bitter almonds and burnt leaves...

Floating... drifting... swaying...

Someone leaning over me, a blur of silhouette, a voice telling me to lie still or I'll get the knock-out rag again...

Clink... Clink-clink... Clink... Clink-clink.

~~~

A sliver of light darted into being, painfully white. The sliver disappeared almost as quickly, but the darkness was no longer absolute. 

Clink... Clink-clink... Clink-clink... Clink... Clink...

I took a slow breath.

Oil. Hot metal. My left cheek against something gritty.

Clink... Clink-clink... Clink...

I opened my eyes again, deliberately this time. I could only lift my right eyelid. The left was stuck shut.

Ever so slightly I moved my head, blinking as my vision wavered in and out of focus.

Light was streaming through a small, barred window high above me on a green, corrugated metal wall, creating a moat of gold in the dust that hung in the air.

Clink... Clink-clink-clink... Clink... Clink-clink...

Another slow breath, this one threaded with the reek of feces, urine, and stale sweat. I gagged, then had to cringe and clutch at my skull as liquid fire went streaking through my brain, centering in my left temple.

Something dragged at my wrists, accompanied by a metallic rasp and a dull thump from somewhere in front of me.

Carefully, I opened my good eye and tried to focus.

A girl was lying there, looking at me.

She was quite pretty, with fine-boned features, rippling wheat-blonde hair, an upturned nose and thick black eyelashes, but there was something wrong with her face. It was slack. Immobile. Her eyes were fixed and cloudy, and there was an oddly grey cast beneath the ivory of her skin.

She was dead. The dull thump had been her skull hitting the floor. Her shoulder had shifted when I raised my hand – shifted because there was a shackle on her arm, and the chain welded to that shackle led to a shackle on my own wrist.

My breath left me on a silent scream as my drug-foggy brain finally worked out where I was.

All around me, the song of the Shadow Road sounded again: Clink... Clink... Clink-clink... Clink... chain swaying against chain.  

~~~

.......................................
AN: Some of you might remember this passage a bit if you've been reading this for a while. One big difference is the addition of Arramy's voice. So, question 1: is this too sudden? I'm only going to use this device a few more times, through letters he writes to Bren, and I'm not going to keep any chapter entirely in his POV (that drives me nuts when I'm reading along, and the author suddenly switches to another character out of the blue, although maybe that's just me), but I thought it might be interesting to give a glimpse of what he's going through while this is happening. Question 2: does he sound like Arramy, or Bren? I don't think he'd write with an accent, so it's all turn of phrase, but these notes are so short there isn't enough to set up any real pattern...
Thoughts? Comments? Throw 'em at me!
Anna