Lavender Blu

Chapter eight

I was walking through a really dense forest that couldn't be any where near my house. The trees were parting themselves as I walked. My clothes were torn and I was covered in bruises but I still had a determined look on my face as I came to what I assumed to be the centre of the forest. I stepped out of the dense vegetation and saw a large lake, I could see nothing on the opposite shore, except a large patch of weeds and plants. I didn't stop though. I just carried on walking, as I neared the lake I saw that all sorts of plants and Lilly pads had formed a path on the surface of the water, so I just carried on, walking on water. I neared the opposite shore and gracefully stepped off the water, I was now directly in front of the patch of weeds and plants, as I neared it I noticed that in the middle of it all was a man, I couldn't see his face but I knew who he was. I saw that his clothes were also torn, and his hands seemed to be bound by nettle cords. I looked down at him my face like stone, I had no pity left for him, only loathing. He whimpered and begged for forgiveness, but I had already given him as much forgiveness as I could, but he just threw the chances I gave him away, all for power. His wrists started to bleed as the bonds that held him tightened. When suddenly I heard it a gentle voice in my head, one I'd heard many times, "princess think, please don't do anything you will regret, just take it and leave take the....."

I woke up sweat dripping down my face. I know it was just a dream, but my dreams have become so life like recently. The person that spoke to me must have been Justin, no one else calls me princess, but even now I couldn't work out who the man was, although I knew who he was in the dream. I looked over at my clock it was 4:30. I gently lay back down, then decided against it and climbed out of bed. I pulled on some jeans and a t-shirt. I grabbed my jacket and shoes then slipped out the front door. I couldn't stay in the house and at that moment I completely forgot about my promise to Justin just the night before. Yes, I know you feel something is going to go terribly wrong and you think I'm stupid, and afterwards, I did too.
I wandered around randomly, going down one road coming back another. Then at about 6:30 I started to get hungry so headed back to my house. As I passed Justin's house I stopped and just looked, all the curtains were drawn and there were no lights on. It was then, when I was thinking about Justin that I remembered my promise. I walked towards my house, a bit faster then before.
A man in a jogging suit jogged around the corner a few meters in front of me, he was pretty broad and about 6ft tall probably something like ten years older then me. I doubted him to be in his thirties just yet, he slowed down as he neared me I stopped rooted to the floor, I couldn't go around him as he was standing right in front of my gate when he came to a stop.
"Good morning," he smiled cheerily "you're up early."
"Yes, out for my morning stroll." I smiled back at him tensly.
"I like your shoes."
"Um thanks" I looked down at my tattered trainers, what would you have done, if someone compliments something of yours you immediately look at it. His leg swung out and knocked me off my feet, I cracked my head against the small garden gate as i crashed to the floor. My vision blurred for a second and I struggled to have balance as I tried to get to my feet. My head throbbed.
"I wouldn't do that if I was you." He lashed out again kicking me in the stomach this time. I gasped for air, my already trembling legs collapsed. Scared is an understatement of what I felt, who was this guy and, why me. Plus in case you've forgotten it's my birthday not a good start to my supposedly special day. I am now 17, woo, hoo, but at the time I didn't feel like celebrating. As I was on the floor gasping for breath a van decided to show up next to us 'oh great' I thought. The man grabbed me by my jacket and hauled me into the back of the van. I was about to scream when the doors slammed shut encircling me in the darkness. The only light was from a little window at the front where you could see the driver, it was just big enough for my eyes to see out, but only just. I could just make out there voices and was about to tap on the glass when the van lurched forward and knocked me off balance I whacked my head exactly where I had had the stitches done. I screamed. The man at the drivers side (the one who kicked me) opened a little flap that I didn't notice next to the window.
"No point screamin lil lady, eint no body gonna hear ya." I was shocked at the accent, he must have put one the accent outside. I couldn't pin point what the accent was but it sure wasn't English, some sort of American? Texan?
"Oh" he saw that I was bleeding and stopped, his cool seemed to leave him, " um, you're bleedin. Not really my speciality. Um rupert? Lil help."
(To be said in an Irish accent) "Marshal, do you think she should come and sit in the front with us? There are three seats and she doesn't look very comfortable back there." Rupert risked a glance back at me. I was sitting there with my hand on my bleeding head eyebrows raised, I wasn't sure I wanted to sit up front.
"What!? up front!? Heck no, no way."
Five minutes later I was sitting between the two of them, Marshal sulking on my left. Even though they had just kidnapped me I couldn't help liking Rupert. He was nice. He was in his mid twenty's and had longish blonde hair, kind of like Chris Hemsworth in 'Thor' (good movie)
"Here you are miss." He handed me some tissues for my head.
"Um thanks." I said gently dabbing them on my head. "So, um why did you guys kidnap me?" I tried to sound braver than I felt.
Rupert looked horrified "kidnap you!? We didn't kidnap you."
"Um, yes you did."
"Rupert, we sorta did."
"No, no, no." He shook his head "We were just sent to pick you up by our boss."
"Kidnapping, so, whose your boss?" This conversation was getting a little weird.
"Mr..."
"Shut up Rupert, you can't just go tellin her the name of our boss."
"Oh, yea, forgot." He nudged me "don't worry about him, he acts like a daddy's boy but is really mummy's little angel." He winked at me.
"What!? No I'm not. Well, actually I am" he smiled smugly "my mom is a boxer."
"It was metaphorical, plus I thought you were adopted."
Marshal slumped down in his chair "shut up."
"back to my question, why were you sent to pick me up?"
"You'll find out soon enough, we're almost there."
I looked around, we were absolutely no where. " um, almost where?" And then I saw it, I must say it was beautiful. It was the biggest house I've ever seen. "Wow" I said, louder then intended.
"Isn't it?" Rupert obviously hearing my 'wow'. I mean, of course he did I said it pretty loud.
"Who owns this place?"
Rupert opened his mouth to speak but Marshal obviously worried Rupert would 'spill the beans' jumped in "our boss, remember lavender, you might not actually see him, ya see he has a special room just for questionin and it's one of those one sided mirror things so he can see you but you can't see him. But you'll be able to talk with him, sure."
"You do know that my parents are probably already looking for me realising I'm not home." I was hoping to catch them out, make them worried.
Marshal laughed "don't worry Lav, we have it all sorted it all out, we left a note on the kitchen table saying you left early to meet up with Katrina."
"How do you know Katrina!? And how did you get in my house!?"
"We picked the lock, plus, we know everythin."
"Actually to be honest with you miss Lavender, that was a slight or rather big exaggeration. We don't know much, we saw you with her the other day."
Marshal slapped his forehead "SHUT UP RUPERT."
Rupert parked the car and we all got out, my hands were tied around my back even though they would be able to over power me easily, you know, me with no combat training whatsoever. Marshal, sulking again, walked faster than me and Rupert so we took the time to chat. Yes I was chatting with my captor.
"I'm not actually as dumb as I act, I just like annoying him" he motioned to Marshal, "I find it quite amusing."
I laughed
"I'm really sorry about all of this by the way, I honestly didn't know about it, I was just the getaway car for whatever scheme my boss and Marshal came up with. But don't worry I won't let anyone harm you lavender."
Not sure whether to trust him or not I just nodded and kept walking.
"How come I haven't seen this before? Surely it being this close to my house I would have seen it."
Rupert laughed "To mortals it looks like ruins and if they come close they get a strange feeling that they should leave and never come back, and they don't. My dad actually cast that spell, he can do force fields or something like that, we're not real close, but he's obviously pretty cool, my dad is good friends with my boss. So" he looked over a me "what can you do?"
I stopped and stared at him, "seriously!? That's what this is about? Magic?"
Noticing I'd stopped Rupert came to a halt. " yea, what did you think it was about? Now come on we need to hurry?" He started walking again and after a few seconds I followed once I'd caught up he started talking again.
"Well? What can you do? Grumpy pants over there has a very powerful telepathy power, not really sure about it but I know he can block other people from using it and he can hack into other people's conversations.
"That's cool, I can't do anything yet, besides telepathy of course."
"Oh, how old are you?"
"Seventeen today" I replied.
"Really!?" He looked sorry for me "Happy birthday, sorry it had to be today. Well your power should be along soon. Mine is that by touching something locked I can unlock it, that's how we got in your house by the way, yeaaaa, sorry about that."
"I thought you were just the getaway car?" I sighed when I saw him about to answer "If the circumstance was different I would have liked to hear more on your power, it sounds pretty cool, but I don't want to hear any more on that subject now."
"I understand, we're here now anyway."
We walked up the steps and I looked back over the drive which I'm sure you gathered is very long. Marshal was waiting and by the way Rupert opened the door I realized it was probably locked, if I wanted to escape I would have to find a different way out, Rupert kept the door open for me and I walked in after him.
The hall was very nice it was also very large the high ceiling was covered in swirls and patterns, the walls were a peculiar shade of green and along the left side there was a coat rack and a chest of draws, further on the hall branched out into smaller corridors and rooms.
"This way" Marshal took the lead, we followed him down the corridor, I've got to say it looks really old.
A few minutes of wandering around in the huge maze, there was probably a quicker way, they were just trying to confuse me, it worked. I was sent into a small room by myself, but they were kind enough to untie my hands.
"Now sit right there and just answer the questions now." Rupert and marshal left shutting the door. I tried the door, locked, okay, no escape now. With nothing else to do I sat down and inspected my surroundings. The chair was cold when I sat on it, directly in front of me was a large white table and I was under the impression that this was an interrogation room. The walls were white and there was a large mirror in front of me taking up most of the wall. Realizing this must be the room Marshal was talking about the mirror being a one way mirror. I was still looking around, not that there as much to see, when I heard a loud voice boom into the room. I quickly looked for the source and saw a speaker built into the ceiling above me.
"Hello lavender, um, can you hear me?" The voice was obviously computerized. I was about to reply when another voice joined in.
"We'll of course she can hear you, when you spoke she looked around didn't she? Now get to the point."
The first person huffed "I was just making sure, now then Lavender, do you know why you're here?"
Again a voice interrupted the first. "No she doesn't now get to the point."
"Fine, so, lavender where's your dad?"
I waited for the second guy to but in and when he didn't I thought over the question again then replied "why?"
"Just answer the question" this time it was the second guy asking.
"I have no idea" I was quite surprised by how calm I felt, under the circumstances, my head was still throbbing, but the bleeding had thankfully stopped.
"I need you to think long and hard, when was the last time you saw him?"
"About twelve years ago, why?"
"None of your business."
"Well it kind of is after you kidnapped me."
"Yeah, it kind of is" A third person joined in and I began to wonder how many people were behind the mirror.
"Shut up or get out."
"Sorry."
"Now where we're we lavender?"
"You were going to tell me why I'm here,"
"Um, no, no I don't think I was, sorry."
The third person butted in again, I decided that the third person was Rupert, "I think we should tell her a little bit of why she's here."
"You think that do you Rupert?"
Rupert grumbled "now she knows who I am."
The second person decided to join the conversation again, "I'm pretty sure she already did, the way you're acting"
"Oh, shut up Marshal, I know who you are as well just by the way you're talking to Rupert."
I heard Rupert laugh at my comment.
"Go on then tell me why I'm here."
"Fine," 'the boss' had given in, finally. "You're here to help us find the element gemstone."
I raised my eyebrows "but my dad has that and I have no idea where he is."
"Oh, but you will."