World of Io

5. The Threat of Death

Annie found herself in another pair of arms and had to clench her teeth to prevent a string of obscenities from leaving her lips. She was tired of being carried around like a useless piece of inconvenience. She tried to struggle out of the woman's grasp, but the resulting pounding ache in her hip was enough to keep her reined in. That damn table, she grumbled. Apparently it was made entirely out of sharp angles, sticking out just to hurt her. So, even if it grated her, she allowed the woman to carry her outside. Mostly because she knew she would slow them down if she insisted, and that wouldn't help them find Vito.

"That idiot must have been taken by the Magisters," Villain, or whatever his name was, said, looking at the brown haired woman while excluding her completely. She wasn't surprised. His impression of her must be rather strange based on what they had seen of each other so far. She continuously tried to get his attention, and she even used some of her old tricks, but so far it wasn't working. 

"Attention from the Magisters, nicely done!" the woman said in a weird voice. It was like a man's, and taunting, very taunting.

"They must have seen his eyes, and then it wouldn't have helped his case if he passed out and started to talk of his visions," Villain said, clearly agitated.

He still only spoke to the woman, and it pissed her off. Why couldn't he speak to her? Was that too much to ask? She felt a lump growing in her stomach, she hated being ignored. 

"Well then, I'm not one to judge, but perhaps he's safer with the Magisters than out here with you," the woman replied. Villain didn't respond to that which caused a wide grin to spread across her face. She didn't like the woman, and she didn't want Villain to like her either.

"Where do we put the girl?" the woman continued.

Annie almost exploded at the words, and would have if not for the fact that she would seem childish if she did. Now was not the time to throw a tantrum, irrespective of how angry she was.

"I would like to come with you, but my hip will slow us down. I'll stay here if you put me down," she tried to keep her voice even, hiding her anger. Her words were met with surprised stares, as if they noticed her for real this time.

"You're injured?"

Villain's question wasn't said with any particular feeling, more like a statement. That hurt even more: that he didn't seem to care.

"Nothing life threatening, I can assure you. Now go and get Vito back!"

She glared at the Nyx, getting impatient with his attitude, and more than a little hurt that he chose to disregard her completely. He didn't glare back. Damn, she thought that she at least had a chance of producing some kind of response in him, but no.

The other two didn't say anything in return. The woman just put her down, and then they disappeared unbelievably fast. She hadn't felt so frustrated, or angry, in a long time. This was not at all what she had imagined when he had carried her away from her old life. In fact, she had dreamt of something different as she had lain in his arms.

-----

Milo couldn't relax. Vigilante's presence was disturbing, uncomfortable. He didn't trust her to keep her word, or rather, they had not defined what later meant. He was also reacting to her in other ways, which was the main reason for the unease that festered in his stomach. However, his objective was to locate Qumo, which meant that he had to find this white eyed young man and possibly save him from the Magisters. It was more than enough complications, with or without her presence.

"I suggest we wait until finding this friend of yours before we resume what we started."

He was startled to hear her real voice. He looked her way but saw nothing in her expression that made him trust her.