Raging Storm {book 2 in SOSfanfic series} [ON HOLD]

What Do You Know

Reyna didn't wake up. It had been four hours and an excess of bloody bandages and now the camp was growing restless.

Mr. Ambrose was pacing circles in the other tent erected when Karim and his party cane back from slaughtering the remnants of the thieves that hadn't died due to the explosion. For them, it was an easy victory, for the camp it was. For Mr. Ambrose, it was not.

"It is done, Sahib. No casualties on our side."

Mr. Ambrose barely nodded.

"Sahib, is something wrong?"

"The ifrit," he still didn't stop pacing round, "she is hurt again. Severely. Lost blood, maybe an eye, hasn't woken up yet."

Karim did not respond. This did not bode well for the entire camp.

"No one knows what to do now. She needs help. In the middle of a desert."

-*-

Reyna woke with her head pounding. She saw nothing but darkness no matter how hard she tried. And in this darkness the faces of all she killed, the blast, the man, erupted and screamed at her. Her friends were back.

Somehow Reyna fought the confusion and lifted her hands to shift and tear the bandages around her head. With every movement pain screeched in her head, clawing at her left eye, threatening to erupt in blood. Her throat was dry and she was already dizzy. She needed water, desperately. The voices screamed in her mind.

She managed to free her right eye and open it to see darkness. Panic burst to the surface but she pushed it down in a heartbeat.

She got up with much difficulty to stare at the darkness that she had befriended long ago and adjust her half sight to darkness to make out vague shapes. One of them a water canteen.

She gulped down all of it.

Well, what now.

She saw a bottle of rum.

I shouldn't.
But the voices. Get better later. Get sane now.

She grabbed the bottle and put it to her mouth, a familiar habit.

Well, I have the rum, the night and my heart and one eye, why not enjoy the night?

She stumbled out of the tent and trudged till the nearest dune. Stepping over the crest, she slid down and came to rest at the foot, providing company to the recently discovered man sitting there already. Wearing a tophat.

Ah, it is the idiot.

Before he could turn to look at her, she warbled out,"Aye, it is I. I just woke up. I had water, so don't worry. I'll go back to sleep in a bit. I'm just enjoying the night for a little while."

She saw his tended shoulders droop. He turned and his gaze hardened on the bottle she clutched. His frame tensed back up again.

"You should not be drinking that!"

Reyna smacked her palm onto his face, effectively blocking his mouth, nose and eyes, while pushing him away. This was good, she should do this more. Very effective.

"I have to."

He wrestled, his strength increasing as her waned.

"No you don't."

That snapped something inside of her. Who was he to tell her?

The bottle flew, abandoned and Reyna jerked forward,using her muscles and weight to topple Mr. Ambrose backwards till he smacked down on the sand.

With ugly fury in her one eye she snarled, like a gone beast, and strangled him as she settled down on top of him.

"Who are you to tell me what I need and not? Who are you to know? What do you know!" She snarled, teeth bared, anger pouring off her in waves.

Her grip on his throat was not hard enough to suffocate him but it got the message through.

"What do you know," her voice cracked as she swayed and her grip loosed as she slouched," of my needs?"

She was the same broken girl in the garden, revealing yet another face of hers.
She was dangerous.

She fell back and crawled to her spot and picked up the half empty bottle. Mr. Ambrose got up again, one hand massaging his throat. There might've been a pang of fear in his eyes once when she had moved, but it had vanished to a heated look that had morphed into anger.

"As an educated man I am aware that one does not consumed large amounts of undiluted alcohol whilst dehydration." He spoke in the same icy tone.

Reyna laughed bitterly, "You know nothing of the demons that swim before me while I am sober though. And of all my demons, these are the ones I must banish."

They remained silent. Afer a while he spoke, "I know what you are thinking. You cannot heal on your own. We must get help. After what happened to you at the godown, then cauterization, then drinking, then this, it is not safe anymore. You require medical attention or you will kill yourself through overwork. Even your body has limits."

Reyna sighed, but she was glad he dropped the topic of her hauntings, and her dangerous fits. There was much, much, to be said, but no one has the courage or the energy right now.

"Alright," she said between swigs, "I know a place. They might help. Might. If they don't, then they kill us in the most horrible, agonizing way that even I can't dream of. But if they do help us, through some miracle, then we can replenish our resources and get food, water, shelter and help. And that is one big if. A tremendous one, really."

Mr. Ambrose nodded. "Where? We can chart a course now."

Reyna laughed again and shook her head. She took a gulp, a faraway but daredevil look in her eye, "No maps. I lead you there and you give your maps to me. I cannot risk anyone knowing where we are."

Mr. Ambrose geit his teeth and heaved a sigh. "Alright." He grit out grudgingly, "Where are we going?"

Her savage smile widened. Rum glistening on her lips, her eyes danced with a mad fervour. She chuckled, "We go to the Ifrit's den. We go home."