It had been about an hour, and the girls were getting more worried by the minute.
"He wouldn't leave us for this long." Senka had joined Aeron in her pacing, growing worried for the boy. "You don't think he ran away-"
"No. That's not him. He wouldn't just leave." Aeron broke out of her pacing fit and headed for the door. "I'm going to look for him."
Senka stepped forward confidently. "Then I'm going too."
Senka expected Aeron to resist, but she simply stated, "All right, come on then."
The pair hiked for a few minutes before coming across a small clearing. Senka noticed some singe marks on the wood of the trees around it.
"I think I know where that scream came from." She pointed to the burns. "He sure expelled a lot of energy to do that much damage."
Aeron only grew more worried. If he wasn't here, where was he? She pondered, looking at the ground before her eyes wandered to a mass poking out of the treeline.
It was the same guard William had seen, his jacket all too familiar to the ginger.
"We need to go. Now."
Aeron grabbed Senka's wrist, causing the smaller girl to stumble as she was forced to walk. She didn't ask what was happening, she knew the second she saw Aerons face.
William was taken again. Something Aeron swore to never let happen.
The duo made quick work of beginning their journey back up north, walking until they couldn't anymore, then hitching a ride to Oklahoma. They were able to sneak into a train station (with a little persuasion from Aeron) that would take them all the way to Indiana. Aeron had not relaxed the entire time, and neither had Senka, and they honestly weren't sure they even wanted to.
They waited for their train, Aeron tapping her foot on the ground incessantly.
"We know where he is," Senka attempted to comfort the older girl. "We'll get him back."
"You don't know what they could be doing to him, Sen." Aeron replied not angrily, but worried, knowing the horrors her brother could be currently facing. Both of them ignored the nagging voice in their minds at the possibility that there could be no him to have back when they got there. "I-" Aeron choked down a sob. "I need him."
"Me too," Senka replied, holding back tears of her own, "Me too."
YOU ARE READING
Winter's Burn
General Fiction"Her amber eyes turned almost black as the shadows overtook her thin frame. Tree branches became spindly hands wrapping their serpentine fingers around his body, vines twisting and knotting to pin him to the ground. He could have sworn he saw her le...
