Sound From the Crowd

Chapter Four

She woke up with a start and looked at me with terrified eyes, "They took me, the car came and they took me!" "It's okay, I'm here." I said, hugging and rocking her. "What are you going to do to us now?" I asked the guards who had just caught up to me. "Take you to a holding cell until the boss decides what to do with you," was a response from somewhere in the back of the group. They walked forward and surrounded us. Erica wrapped her arms around my waist and I scooped her up ignoring the pain in my shoulder blade where the large shard of glass was still stubbornly embedded. We walked to a row of cells that looked exactly like they were pulled out of a movie. A guard shoved us into one and pulled the gate closed, locking it behind him. I blinked at them and they vanished into thin air. At least they let me stay with Erica who was still holding onto my waist like it was a life preserver in the middle of an ocean. I groped around the walls of the cell trying to find a light switch and eventually found one on the back wall which was the only one made of concrete. I flicked it up and a dim lightbulb flickered on revealing a small room with barred walls. It had three cots side by side, a sink and a hole in the ground that I was pretty sure I knew what was meant for. I sat down on one of the cots and set Erica down beside me. She didn't look like the Erica I knew before the accident, she looked older, which I guess was to be expected because she was asleep for three years. She noticed the trickle of blood coming from my shoulder and said, "You're hurt!" "I'm fine," I replied not wanting to worry her. "NO YOU'RE NOT." She said sternly. Back in Nebraska our mother was a nurse and she took my sister to work with her all the time. She had probably seen things most nine year old girls shouldn't have seen but she did know how to tend to anything that bled. She unlaced her shoes and took off the socks. She rushed over to the sink and wet one down she took the shard out and gasped. That's when I knew it had cut down to the bone. She tied the dry sock around the wet one and tied that to my dress strap. "FYI, Eliza, I L.O.V.E that outfit where did you get it?" I told her that I was a celebrity and that she had been asleep for three years. I found a pile of old, dirty clothes and I found a khaki outfit didn't have too much grime on it. I untied the makeshift bandage. As I put it on Erica stared at me in disgust. Just then I heard a door open and the guards came in. The one in front was dragging a boy who looked like he had been knocked out cold. "Looks like the third person that cot belongs to is here," Said Erica. A guard opened the gate and tossed the boy in like he was a rag doll. The guards vanished once again into thin air. I ran over to the boy and grabbed him by the ankles. I dragged him over to the third cot and pulled him onto it. For the first time I could see his features. He looked about my age so probably 19 or 20 and he had short, curly black hair and olive skin. He was also beat up. That boy looked like someone clawed at him then punched him with a fist as large as his body. He had bruises everywhere and a black eye. He had cuts all over and his black t-shirt was ripped. It looked like he had put a fight. Just from the looks of him I knew he wasn't waking up for a pretty long time.