Winter Getaway - A Storm and Silence Fanfiction

chapter ten - part two

Lilly's POV

I really did not know what they did with girls.

What could they do with girls?

"Kill them, probably."

Why did I have such a negative conscience?

"I said," bandit number one turned towards me now, "do you know what we do with girls?"

He was taller than me, well over one and a half meters. He sported shaggy brown hair that stuck out in a million odd directions. His face was unshaven and his teeth were a mixture of yellow and black. Shod in tattered and dirty clothes, he also smelled of mud and dirt.

"No," I took a big gulp, hating that my fear was clearly showing through.

He did not have a point a knife to my throat like the others did, but he made absolute sure to terrify me into trembling before him with only a strong gaze.

"Oh, I'll tell you what we do with girls," his dark teeth showed as he grinned.

Before I knew what was going on his strong hand had gripped my neck, immediately hindering the airflow.

It could have been my imagination, but I thought I saw Ambrose twitch.

Was he going to do something?

"Probably not!" My voice told me.

She was right. He did not do anything, though, I hadn't really expected him to do anything in the first place. He had five men at his throat and besides his winter coat was new. He couldn't risk ruining it to save his secretary.

My air supply was getting smaller and I was definitely struggling for breath after a few seconds. My tiny hands flew up to my neck and I tried my best to pry the bandit's large fist from around around my neck. It was to no avail.

He started laughing softly and got as close as possible to me, and I immediately tried to lean my head away from his horrible breath.

He whispered to me, "Oh, Croonie will want to see you for sure. We can't let a pretty girl like you go. You'll come in handy."

Croonie? Who's Croonie?

"Ask him," I jerked my head towards Ambrose, "He'll tell you I'm not very useful," I choked.

"Then we'll get to prove to him otherwise," He let go of my neck and I almost fell over, gasping for hair.

"If you want my money," Ambrose spoke again, "You should maybe take care that I don't freeze to death."

I had not even realized that a soft snowfall had started again. Guess I was too busy trying to figure out how to breath with an iron grip around my throat.

"Ay, Spitshine and Crick," the bandit gestured at two of his friends that still had their knives pointed at the driver, "Take him and the carriage home. These ones and I will walk."

While his friends scurried to obey his directions, he turned to Ambrose and smirked, "Since you're so afraid of the cold."

Mr. Ambrose's face remained as stoic as ever and he really did not look the slightest bit concerned that these robbers knew who he was, had a plan for getting all his money, and were going to do to me whatever on earth they did to girls! While that indicated to me that he must have had plan, I was still concerned now that the driver was gone and we had to walk through the soft snow to wherever these low-life's called "home".

After tying up our hands with rope that they brought, we were led through the snow, following the carriage until it disappeared around a bend and into a clearing in the forest that lined the road.

"You live in the woods. Of course. Where else would scary people live?"

"You've got a mouth on you. Seems you don't care about offending. What was your name, lady?"

I glared up at him and stretched my hands that he had tied in rope behind my back, "Why does it matter?"

"Well my name is Boss. That's what everyone calls me."

"Is that what your actual name is or is that what you force people to call you?"

"They willingly call me it, since I operate as the leader."

"You're the leader of a little gang of thieves? How precious."

His hand suddenly yanked on the rope that bound my hands together, tightening it and causing me lots of pain.

I yelped as Boss smiled at me, "You should probably keep your pretty mouth shut."

Mr. Ambrose and Karim were being led a few feet ahead of me and I already knew Mr. Ambrose was probably thinking "I told you so" as he heard me suffer for my smart mouth.

The forest was starting to get a little thicker and my mind was starting to really worry about where "home" was. Were they some type of tree people? Were we all of a sudden going to start to have climbing up the side of trees to reach some type of huge tree house? Is this a dream? Will I get home by tomorrow? Aunt Brank will lose it if I'm not home!

The answer to all of my questions was no. Well, probably. After a few more minutes of quiet walking we reached a large clearing. There were about ten small hut-type shelters surrounding a large pit for a fire. There were a few more men at the camp already, but from what I could see I didn't notice any women. The men were bustling around and bringing in wood for the fire as if it were perfectly normal to live like this in the forest. I noticed the men who had taken the driver standing with him and all of our trunks. I assumed they had tied the horse up somewhere in the trees since the carriage was too big to pull through the dense forest.

"Here we are," Boss announced.

"I'm going to need him tied up to a tree nice and tight, and men watching him on rotations," he continued, gesturing to Karim.

Get the bodyguard away. Smart move.

"Now I'm going to have a little chat with Mr. Ambrose here about getting us that money he's got in London," Boss explained, "You guys take her to Croonie."

Again, who was Croonie?

As we were switched between our kidnappers, I made eye contact with Mr. Ambrose. He only had his usual stormy expression with his mouth set in a harsh line. I raised my eyebrows as if to ask him if he had a plan, but clearly the "reading each other's facial expressions" thing that I read about in books was not happening because his expression did not change in the slightest.

"Ay, come on girl," the men tugged at me and pulled me to one of the shelters that was at the edge of the clearing.

Knocking on the shabby door, one of them yelled, "Croonie! We've got a girl for you!"

"A girl!" A high pitched female voice exclaimed. "Oh goody!"   

author's note: a little shorter than part 1, sorry about that! also, i was planning on stopping at chapter 10 originally but looks like THAT'S NOT HAPPENING. i'm having fun with the story now though, and that keeps me writing more often! also, also, spot the halsey lyric??