Space Egg

December 12th-I

    When I see the blond man waiting for me at the door of the building, his hair slicked back in a tight ponytail, endless words rise to my head. None of them kind. But I force the ones I know I need to say out of my mouth.
    "My Mother, she lived here, yes?"
    His lips purse, tilting his head.
    "And it was the Crim, the Crim at the bank?"
    His first act of emotion is a slight twitch in his jaw.
    "Your trying to protect me." I thrust away from Keefie who is still holding one of my bound arms in his grip. "And your doing a terrible job. You want to keep me here? Tell me what's going on. Tell me how I can stay safe. Had you told me this I wouldn't have run, I wouldn't have fought. Hell, I would've come willingly! But you feel the need to keep the allure, the pristine name untarnished. I nearly got away. Train your guards to be able to fight runaways why don't you? Because one of your men is stuck with a black eye and a bloody nose. If I was able to fight them, what do you think the Crims trained assassins could do? I don't want to know Celph. That is your name, or was that another lie you fed to my Mother?"
His brows twitch, the only indication of his surprise.
"Your Mother was so dead set on keeping you away from here I had begun to believe you didn't know a thing about this place."
"My Mom was protecting me." I growl. "Protecting me from this sad excuse for safety."
Celph, the pristine blond man, pushes back his hair as if a invisible strand had come loose. "Pennie, your Mother forced us to do this. Don't you see that? Had she let you come here-"
I take a step forward, my voice low.
"My Mom gave me a childhood. She let me live a life, as different from hers as she could make it. I will forever thank her for that, no matter where it leads now."
Kaz shifts in the doorway behind Celph. A warning as simple and clear as day. I wasn't to take any steps closer. I feel his glances, and warning stance. I decide to push my luck.
I take another step forward, barging into Celphs personal bubble. Keefie and Kaz move forward, put Celph raises a hand. "Let hear speak."
I crane my neck up to stare into his eyes. His height towering over me the least of my worries. My one true worry was Kaz hand sitting lightly on his gun. Still, I speak.
"The Crim, they tried to kill me, kidnap me, whatever the hell that was, why? Why have you, who clearly hates me so much devoid so much into my safety. Your not adding up Celph."
A smile slides onto his lips, reminding me of something I can't quite put my finger on.
"I my dear, have reasons. Your not nearly as useless as you think yourself to be."
My stomach sours at his words. Still, I slide the same smile on my mouth.
"Call me dear one more time, and you'll find yourself at the sharp end of the nearest knife."
A true smile shows on his lips. "I don't doubt it."
Rage boils in my stomach, my smile dropping away. How could I be of any use to these people? If they wanted information, I had none. I only knew what my Mom had told me, told me as false prefixes. Even now I was digging through what had been part of the tale and part of the truth.
    "Time to go Pennie." I feel Keefie pull my arm, directing me around Celph back into the building. I let him, because quite frankly if he wasn't going to pull me away from the man's smug smile I want sure what I was going to do. I didn't trust myself not to lash out at the man again.
I let myself be dragged forward back into the same hall as before, opposite the wooden door. My feet fall forward instinctively to the door I recognize as the one that has kept me captured and concealed. The inside of the hall was such a stark difference to the outside of the building I can barely believe they were one of the same. The only hint they belonged together was the cobble floor and water damage in the office.
"This one." Keefie corrects, pulling me one door past the previous room. "Gotta have a working alarm system."
I raise my brow skeptically.
"I promise I won't escape. I don't feel like being kidnapped. Again." I tug at the bond at my wrist, feeling the dirt and grime caking my hands.
"Hmm," Keefie hums tapping his chin. "I feel like someone told me that once before."
I can't help but roll my eyes. No matter my situation, he was infuriating.
"And you still ran. So, needless to say I feel like you need a security system. Both to keep you in, and others out." He tuts, walking into the room behind me. The room is nearly identical to the last one, lacking a window or any source of natural light. I groan at the grey darkness of the room.
    "If your so dead set on keeping me safe why threaten my life just to keep me here? Don't you think it would make more sense to use a taser or something that wouldn't hurt me?" I ask, peering around to see if there was a curtain blocking a window. I find none.
    "Just the stress of the moment." He shrugs.
    I spin on my heel, working hard not to stumble with my arms still tightly bound behind me. I face him, staring up into his eyes.
    "Your lying."
    His freckled face scrunches, failing to hide his guilt. "What?"
    "Your lying." I declare again, not letting the subject rest. "The gun had nothing in it, right? There's no way you would be aloud to threaten the life of someone as irrational as me."
    "Elfy," he assures taking a step back from my close proximity. "The gun was loaded. I couldn't have you run. You would be In a lot more trouble with the Crim than a tranquilizer."
    My heart stumbles in my chest, the reality of the situation clocking in my head. These people were willing to threaten my life to keep me here. Did that really make them any better than the Crim? Still I press. I couldn't believe this boy, my age, freckled and harmless looking, could threaten my life.
    "That's not possible. You know what lengths I have gone through to escape, how would you know I wasn't going to run?" My voice is tight, my heart pulsing faster and faster. My fear growing.
    "I didn't." He saids, the same guilt eating up his voice. It wasn't guilt of being caught in a lie, it was guilt for his actions. He felt bad for what he did. He felt bad because need be it, he would've shot.
The realness of the danger was so close. I was sitting at deaths cliff hanging my legs over the edge with no safety net. I was tempting fate, and as we sit, fate was not on my terms. 
A hysteric laugh bubbles in my chest, bursting from my lips.
"Kind of hypocritical." I murmur shaking my head. It was hypocritical. They were willing to risk my life to keep my life theirs. Willing to give my life to save my life. Pieces aren't fitting in place, and as I stand the only answer I understand is that this all lead back to my Mom. She had tried to warn me. And my gosh, she had done a terrible job at it. Either that or I was irreversibly stupid. Both are either as likely. 
"There you go." Keefie mutters giving my shoulder a pat as he slices through the zip ties holding my wrist tight. The same leather bound knife glints off the LED lights humming in the ceiling. With a click, he slides it back Into it's sheath.
    I let my arms fall to my side, taking in the warmth of the air. Numbness nicks at my fingers, dirt and grime dug tight under my nails. Tingles move up my fingers, slowly dissipating the stiffness in my hands.
    "Am I going to be kept in this room for the rest of my life?" I question, propping my aching body at the edge of the cot facing Keefie. The metal frame of the cot pushes against my legs, forcing me to lift them ever so slightly off the ground to relieve the pain.
    Keefie shakes his head. "I'm not sure what I can tell, right now-"
    His voice cuts short as the door of the room creaks open. His body spins around, his hand resting on his gun ready to draw at a moments notice. I don't fail to notice how natural the motion comes to him, how unfazed he seems to be at the notion of needing to threaten a life.
    "I can talk." Kaz mutters stepping into the room. His muddied boots leave shoe prints on the cream colored linoleum floors, each foot step sinking with the pound of my heart.
    "Pennie, the man you punched will be fine. You only surprised him."
    My hands clutch into fist. Every ounce of willpower I've ever possessed is crammed into not flinching away from Kaz. I swear I can feel the blood seeping through my fingers, coating my skin. The metallic sent filling my nose.
    "How will I know your not lying?" I force the words to come out of my mouth, but fail to hide the quake that accompanies them.
    The night I walked into this mess plays in my head like a silent film, every motion I took stretched and drawn out. Now I understand why I recognized Kazs voice, why the scene playing out felt all too familiar. Red hides in my vision, the clicking of a gun echoing in my head.
    "I have no reason to lie." He assures opening his hands, a sign of surrender. He sits down on a chair, the exact same metal appearance as the one from the room over. Metal drags along the floor as he pulls the chair forward ever so slightly, a creak painfully reaching my ears.
I slide back, distancing myself even if this man was telling the truth of posing no harm. His eyes were dark and still. A stark contrast to how mine were flighting around the room, my breaths short and shallow. My chest was tight despite the reassuring voice in the back of my head. He can't hurt you I remind myself, over, and over, and over again. Because if he did, what was the point of all of this?
"Pennie." Kaz let's my name sit in the room, and open invitation for met to respond. I leave it there, forcing him to pick it back up. "I understand why your scared of me, I understand what you have been through in the past few weeks has been vastly traumatic, but at this moment I truly believe you'll want to listen to me."
The papery sheets under my shift as I sit on my hands hiding my shaking. I refuse to close my eyes, because I know the moment I do all I'll see is Kazs lifeless face. Then his very alive face illuminated by the glow of the fireplace as he waited for me at the bottom of those stairs. I refuse to think how long I had been monitored as these people waited for the perfect moment to strike.
"Tell me what I need to hear, then leave." I manage to get out without breaking down on the spot.
I can see the guilt on Kazs face as he watched my trembling frame. He knows he's traumatized me beyond repair. He knows he's the monster of my nightmares, and he knows he can do nothing about it.
"Your mother, she worked for us."
My mouth is dry, my shaking hands clutched in my lap.
    "She was a talented women, her shooting skills were amazing." He chuckles, his voice tense despite the joke. "She never did miss a target."
    My voice strains tight as I speak. "Who is 'us'?"
    Kaz pauses at the question, staring openly at my face.
    "You'll find out sooner or later I suppose." He mutters running a hand through his curly brown hair. "Salvio. It means Salvation. That is us."
A sob chokes in my throat. Clambering back I can't seem to get as far away from Keefie and Kaz as possible. I had suspicions, I had hunch's, and I had prayed they weren't true. Hearing them from Kaz was so different from thinking it in my head.
With each coming breath my ribs press further Into the metal frame of the bed. Each breath comes from faster than the next, each filling my lungs with less air. I'm cornered in this small room, my eyes wide like a wild animal trapped in a cage. My Mom hadn't only been telling me stories on those long restless nights by the fireplace, she had been warning me. Telling me of her life, of my life. Why my life? What did I have to do with any of this?!
"Pennie," Keefie approaches with an out stretched hand.
"Don't. Please." I gasp out, my head throbbing with the new revolutions of my Moms past. Had all she told me been true? Was the world truly as twisted as she had spun it to be?
Tears burn down my cheeks in shame. I was panicking again, losing any source of control I had held. And now, not only was I held captive, but I was in true danger. And If any of what my Mom had told me was true, leaving here was quite possibly the stupidest thing I could do at this point. This place offered sanction, and safety I couldn't achieve anywhere else.
    I was stuck. I was trapped. I was cornered on all sides. Leave here, I was kidnapped again. Or dead. Stay here, and I was stuck, held captive.
    Captive but safe a nagging reminder pulls at me.
    Sobs begin to heave at my chest, my arms and legs tucked as tightly under my as possible. I was losing it. I had lost it? Any mental capacity I had left to hold on was gone. My body rocks with each new cry, my head buried in the dark depths of my arms where it was only me and my shame.
    I block out Keefies and Kazs voices talking to me for as long as I can. Finally they dissipate, and I'm left in my own sorrows.
    I have no idea how long I sit there crying, my body pressed tightly against the frame of the bed before I feel a hand rest gently on my shoulder.
    "Relax." A voice breaths softly against my ear. "Shhh, relax." They murmur softly, their thumb moving in soft circles across my forehead as something cold and sharp presses against my neck. I barely register the pain or fear entering my body before I fall slack as the needle is pressed into my skin.
    I expect the fiery pain of the tranquilizer dart, instead I find a peaceful quiet lull waiting for me. I let it take me, my head meeting the pillow beneath, my body slacking into a fetal position. I barely glance as Kaz slips from the room, closing the door behind him with a soft thud.