The Lost Kingdom (The Fifth Element Chronicles)

Chapter 14 [part 2]

I didn't expect them to release us, but I didn't expect them to put us in a cage either.

I was freed from the chair and taken directly to the small prison next to Caelus who was still chained.

They closed the bars and we were left inside a small, dark and wet jail.

Caelus grabbed the bars and shook them aggressively.

'Forget your weapons you fool! Get us out of here or I'll kill you!'

'Caelus, take it easy,' I said, touching his shoulder.

He turned abruptly, resulting in my hand falling quickly from his shoulder and looking at me with hatred.

'You really messed up. You have no idea what you did.'

'Of course I know what I did. And I know I have to think about how to get to the weapons. But I think you have to trust that I'll make it.'

'Trust you?' he asked and continued to struggle with the bars.

What was his problem? It was a small prison. It was no worse than being tied up and tortured.

'I thought you trusted me as much as you trusted yourself,' I replied sitting back against the wall and massaging my hands, which had been scarred by the tightness of the rope.

'That was before you volunteered to be part of a heist a few hours before we had to go back to the mountain. And you don't even know what to do.'

'It's the only thing I could come up with, okay? It was either that or let him kill you.'

'You should have let him try. If it wasn't for these damn rules...you have no idea what I'd be capable of.'

The rules that forced him to keep me alive.

I was a liability to him, always would be.

'Listen...just...can you let go of the bars for a second?'

The whole time he spoke to me, he had not let go.

I reached over and took one of his hands.

He was shaking, but this time, he didn't reject the touch. He needed me to help him let go, because for some reason, he couldn't do it by himself.

'It's all right. We're going to get out of here,' I told him as if those were the right words.

He stared at me, disoriented, transfixed, finding my eyes a guide in the darkness.

I pulled him back and sat him next to me, next to the wall.

'Breathe Caelus, just breathe.'

I didn't let go of his hand at any point, but held it tightly in mine. I made sure his heart rate slowly decreased, and I never once wondered why he was like this. I didn't care if he was scared or nervous, or really worried.

I only cared about getting Caelus back.

Because the person looking at me confused and afraid was not the Caelus I knew. It was someone else entirely, a human who had nothing to do with the pirate who had been with me on this journey.

'We will get out of here, the two of us together, and we will achieve our goal, together.'

He lifted his other hand and brought it up to my face.

He combed back one of the strands that had escaped the safety of my braid and for a second I forgot where we were, who we were and absolutely everything that awaited us.

Just for a second we were just Caelus and Gaia, two people who needed each other to move on.

Two people who looked into each other's eyes and met again and again.