Poison

Poison part 3

TWENTY TWO

Slade sat, his wrists tied to the pole behind him, back to back with Avrie, in some sort of Vampire prison room far away from the others who had no idea what had happened to either of them, but at the moment, he felt the most relieved he had been in a long time. So Avrie did appear to be sick, but it wasn’t as major as Grin had made it sound. Go figure. She would be all right.

He sat quietly, twisting his hands against the rope, and wondering what the Vampires planned to do with them. Leave them there and let them starve to death? That wouldn’t take long. Execute them? Make them Slaves? What exactly did they do to trespassers? And what was going on with everyone else? Was Fiira still alive? Had the scorpion killed anyone else before it finally died? Had the group moved on, thinking he and Avrie were dead? Or were they still there, searching, waiting for them to return? What time was it? Where were they?

So many questions buzzed through Slade’s head, yet his mind still always averted back to how to keep Avrie safe. At least he had gotten her to make that promise… so that counted for something.

He was starving, and exhausted, his hair and cloths still covered in sand from being out in that horrid storm.

Behind him, Avrie went into another fit of coughing. Even he could feel the racket of how hard she shook with each cough. He hoped she was okay…

Suddenly, there was a click, and the door to the left of them swung open. Hitting them with a beam of light from outside. He squinted and tried to see who was standing in the doorway. It was a tall, muscular man, with very broad shoulders and dark, ash grey hair. His hard, stony face matched up perfectly with his rigid mud brown eyes which were glaring at them hatefully. He was standing straight up with his arms behind his back like some sort of general.

They all, sat or stood in silence staring at each other, waiting for one or the other to speak. Finally, the soldier dude spoke up, his voice was deep and brusque.

“You two are Telarians.” He stated. He also had a heavy accent, making it clear that this was a second language to him.

“Yeah.” Slade blinked. The man only glared, and Slade got the feeling he wasn’t supposed to speak.

“You realize you crossed illegally onto Vampire territory. And have no way to plead innocence.” The man said darkly, as if taking joy in what he had just said.

“We got lost in the storm.” Slade explained. “We didn’t know we crossed the border.”

The man sneered. “Boy, you were a full mile from the border when my men found you. No one can walk that far in a storm. Especially a Telarian.” Slade gapped. A mile? That meant the dome had been on their property too. Why hadn’t Ell known this?

“Besides, Telarians do not come to Leathe for fun. You are obviously up to something. An invasion? War? Spies?”

“What? No!” Slade cried. “I told you; it was an accident! We didn’t mean to trespass!”

“Lies!” the Vampire snarled. “I believe we have caught a pair of spies for the king who is after our sources again.”

“No, we’re not!” Slade argued. “We didn’t even want to run into you guys at all! We we’re going to-”

“Silence, boy.” He growled and pulled out a razor sharp dagger from a pack on his leg. “You realize the punishment for invading our country is death, right?” Slade felt his gut tighten in fear while Avrie whimpered behind him.

“Please…” Slade panted. “We only meant to-”

“Shut up!” the man snapped, and brought his knife down sharply towards Slade’s face. He flinched and Avrie screamed, but the blade only sank into the wood above his head.