The Child of Scraps

Chapter 24

Noah woke up in a dark and empty room. She opened her eyes slowly, but she could barely tell the difference between closing and opening them. The room had very little light coming from a few holes in the wall. It was unfurnished, with only concrete bricks at her foot and back. She breathed in very dusty air, and she was thankful that she didn't asthma in addition to being deaf. She assumed that she was being imprisoned in an unfinished jail for kids.

She noticed the faint outline of a door at the side. Why was there a door in the unfinished room, she couldn't answer. She walked there slowly, and tried to twist the doorknob, but found that it was being locked.

Noah was stuck in a room with no light, no air circulation, and a door that was locked from the outside. How convenient.

She tried to look through the little gap between the door and its frame. She could barely see anything, but she noticed a shadow getting bigger.

She jumped back, just in time for Elias to come in.

When he noticed that the girl was awake, he motioned for her to follow him. Noah felt too powerless to say no, so she just followed him out of the room.

They seemed to be in a house that was never finished. Noah noticed that there were tables and chairs and even outlets –to be fair, construction equipment of larger sizes needed outlets to handle that much magic- and the dust swept to the side indicated that the building had been occupied for at least quite some time.

Elias brought her to another room, where it was enclosed but there were metal bars blocking the pathway. Elias got a device on the side of the door, and used magic to push the bars aside. He gestured for Noah to go inside, and she did with much reluctance.

After she was inside, she just stayed near the 'door.' Elias used the magic device to put the metal bars back, barring Noah from coming outside. She started to go further into the room, but Elias signaled for her to stay near.

When Noah sat down in front of the door, Elias got a sheet of paper and a permanent marker. He started writing on the paper. He gave it to her as he finished. 'Are you okay?'

Noah was not in the best mood, but she decided to humor Elias. 'Maybe. Why didn't you just put me here in the first place?'

'There's another prisoner in the room as well. Aguirre was suspecting that you'd attempt to communicate with him and escape with your combined strengths, but I convinced him that you were not going to do any harm, especially since you were deaf.'

Noah turned around and surveyed the room. She saw a tall man in the corner, sleeping 'peacefully.' She had the realization that she was looking at Avery's father, which was strange, because with the dark hair and tanned skin, he looked nothing like her.

She turned around to find another message on the paper. 'Why did you come back?'

She looked into Elias's eyes, dark and full of melancholy. She wondered if he was feeling pity for her. And she wanted to say sorry, but she couldn't. She would be lying if she did.

She wrote down, 'We needed to confirm Aguirre's goodness. We needed to know.'

It was the closest to the truth that she could tell Elias without breaking Avery's and Leandro's trust. But it hurt Elias, who replied, 'Can't you trust him? What has he done that you cannot forgive so easily?'

Oh, if only she could tell him. But would he even understand? 'I'm sorry, but I can't tell you without betraying my friends.'

Elias looked so hurt when he read it. 'I see. I suppose I understand. I would do the same for Aguirre.'