When it rains in the desert

Hostage

I woke up to the barrel of a gun pressed to the side of my head.

I opened my eyes and felt my body stiffen. Celia was still asleep next to me. "Get up." He said and Celia shot up next to me. Rick moved the gun and stood upright so we could follow his order.

He led us out of the room that i'd realized was one of many cells he had down here. We followed him up three flights of dusty stairs onto the top floor of the compound. It was a room, the entire floor was just one large room. The ceiling was broken and had clearly been "fixed" with planks of wood.

There was a seat in the middle of the room. "Sit down munchkin" He smiled at me. Every time he called me munchkin, I wanted to rip another bone out of his body.

I sat down in the chair and he walked over to Celia, placing her directly in front of me, a few paces back. Then he handed her the gun. She took it and looked back at him.

"Shoot him" He said. She closed her eyes, as though she'd expecting it. As though she'd been waiting for him to take this out on me .

She looked over at him again and he rolled his eyes. "Don't make me do it for you." Still she didn't budge. He crossed his arms over his chest, unamused. "Did you forget what I did the last time you failed to follow my orders Celia?" She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and slid the gun across the floor and back to Rick.

He tilted his head in her direction before picking it up. He looked back and forth between the gun and Celia when she shrugged her shoulders, her arms at her side. "Just shoot me." She said.

She moved so she was stood directly between me and Rick. She was blocking his shot. Even if he wanted to shoot me, he couldn't. Not directly anyway. Celia would get the impact of the shot.

"I have no illusions" She said, tears beginning to stream down her face. "I have no regrets" She was shaking her head. "But I am so tired of this, I'm exhausted Rick. I'm exhausted of all of this." She said, waving her hand at nothing in particular. " Of being afraid, of not being able to love or to trust." She moved one step forward.

"So shoot me" She said, It sent a shock of pain through my body. I couldn't move. I couldn't tell her to shut up and kill me if it meant she could live. I couldn't get up and take her away from all of this. I was paralyzed in my seat.

"Shoot me and let this be over, but please" She sighed "Please don't hurt him" She looked back at me and I tried to plead her to stop with my eyes but it was just for a split second before her eyes moved back to her uncle.

"He did nothing to deserve this, He knows nothing, Let him go and you can be done with this. I won't squirm or run away. You're free to kill me, to get rid of me forever, just please, please don't hurt him."

He began walking towards her but then changed his mind and turned to me. When he got to me, he crouched down so we was at my level "Oh my dear" He said, trailing the gun down my jaw, lifting my chin with it. " I taught you so many times that love is weakness. A beautiful, dangerous, delicious weakness"

He pointed the gun at my head and looked at Celia "Before I blow his brains out, cuff him to the chair" He pulled out a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and threw them at Celia.

She caught them and walked over to me with no hesitation, a sorry look in her eyes. She took my arm and gently fit the handcuff around it, then cuffed it to the chair. Her hands were shaking, she was wringing them as she stepped away.

Rick looked at us and said "You're gunna wish she killed you when I told her to." And then he left, Leaving us alone together. As he disappeared down the stairs Celia sat next to me and began crying into my leg. I took my free hand and ran my fingers through her hair.

"I'm sorry." She whispered. I pulled a strand of her hair and she looked up at me. "Shh were gunna get out of here okay." I didn't promise, I wasn't fond of breaking promises and I wasn't planning on starting now. And if i was honest, I wasn't all that sure we would make it out of there.

"I don't think you get it Jacob. He's not just going to kill you now, he's going to make you beg for it." She said "and he's going to make me watch" She whispered.

Well thanks for making me feel better about the entire situation Ceils.

I knew she was just trying to be blunt with me, not sugar coating it, so I understood the gravity of the situation. But what I needed was for her to tell me it was going to be okay, even if I didn't believe it.

We sat in silence, for a while until I asked "how's your eye?" She lifted her head from where she was laying it on my lap and smiled. "Which one?"

"Both?" I said. She put her head back down "They're okay."

We must've fallen asleep because we were woken up by the sound of a gun shot. My eyes jolted open and my first instinct was to look at Celia, to make sure she wasn't hurt but she was just sat there, her head still on my lap, she was looking straight behind me, unfazed.

I understand now that she knew it wasn't going to be that easy. She knew he wouldn't just come in and shoot me because that wasn't painful enough but at the time, at the time I felt sick.

The bullet was lodged in the wall behind me. The cause of the hole in the wall was stood in front of me, it wasn't Rick. It was the man who had dragged Celia into the room yesterday. The man who I suspected was Maggie.

He looked old, grey stubble forming around his cheeks and the balding spot on his head. His cheeks were pink and his eyes were brown. He was the opposite of Rick.

Rick who had a healthy head of hair and green eyes. Rick who was tall and muscular. Rick who dressed like an overgrown teenager. Rick who took my sister. Rick who was Rory's father. Rick who was holding us both freaking hostage.

This man, Maggie, moved as though he had bricks on his back. He hobbled over to us and lifted up Celia. Pulling her off me and dragging her across the room. "Hey HEY where are you taking her?" He didn't answer.

"BRING HER BACK" I shouted. He didn't answer.

"CELIA" I shouted. She didn't look back.

I didn't understand then, but she didn't look back because she knew the routine of this. She knew what was about to happen and there was no point in delaying the inevitable.

The fucking inevitable