Hollows In Time (✔️) | 'Hollows' Book Ⅱ

Chapter Ten

_________________________________

H o l l o w s I n
T I M E
_________________________________

The air was colder inside than outside. It was something I found normal; it was dangerously familiar to me. The five Guardians who had followed me in—Jameson, and three other guys accompanied by only one woman, look as if they'd just seen a wild torture chamber. It was. But I was well-adjusted to the skin crawling feeling of the cold darkness that always scalded my skin.

I walked on in, right up to the nearest cage and pushed the key into it. It was a woman, maybe in her sixties, and she looked up at me, a numb expression making her grateful smile simply disappear as if it never existed. I pulled open the cage door and it let out a strangled groan as I yanked it from its jammed position.

Cold touches met as I grasped onto her hand, trying to help her out. Someone crouched beside me and held their hand out towards her too, and I was surprised when the satanic man himself was trying to fix a minor hitch in a big problem. But he wouldn't be able to fix me. With a yank from him and a helping hand from me, we managed to get the mangled lady out of her cage. Her limbs had been squeezed into tight spaces, and so she found it difficult to get onto her feet—so we let her be. The Guardians tended to her whilst I dived in for the next cage.

I was surprised to see a girl no older than myself, and we just sat there and stared at each other for a while, as if trying to figure out each others stories. She must know mine—all those horrid men ever did was taunt me with those God forsaken nicknames.

"You really are pretty." The girl murmured as she reached out, a finger poking through the hole of the bars as if she was going to touch my 'pretty face'. I smiled at her and trialled two very alike keys before finally succeeding on the third. Like the woman, she was crippled too, but her age gave her stamina that the lady didn't, and she was on her feet, standing beside me as if she couldn't bear to leave. A Guardian tried to tend to her like he had the woman but the girl flinched away from his touch and instead followed me to my third cage.

"What's your name?" I asked the girl as I peered into the cage, seeing a young man, maybe in his thirties. He just stared at his fingers and said nothing as I tried to find the right key. The right key, there's always a right key. Must be a right key. Must have one.

"Angeline." The girl responded and my hand flinched as I tried to insert the key. Angeline. Angel. Angela. My eyes fluttered as little flickers of a past life trickled into my minds eye. Angela—a radiant burst of sunshine, a fallen sunshine. My eyes glazed over with what I could only imagine as my new resolve as I put in the key and twisted it.

"I had a friend called Angela." I told Angeline, as if she would care, and then I wondered why I had said it. Did I want attention? Attention I had been missing for what seemed like a decade?

Angeline watched as I placed a hand on the mans quivering ones. Somehow, I had never lost the ability to help. Or maybe I just felt a sense of duty towards those I was imprisoned with.

"Can I know your name, pretty-face?" Angeline asked and a bittersweet smile made its way onto my face at the sound of my nickname. I helped the man out before replying, a sour look sure to be written on my face.

"Sky." I told her and watched her as she responded, but she didn't express any feelings, so I continued. "My name is Sky."

"Pretty name for a pretty-face." She commented and took the keys from my hand, gesturing to the last two cages.

"One of these is my boyfriend." She told me before walking over to the two remaining cages, crouching down in front of them. After a few moments, she reached out, hands fumbling to find the right key, and unlocked the door to the cage on the left.