Ruby Shadows

Cold

Updated: June 18, 2019

*L*

When I was younger, I hid behind my mother and father. They protected me and Sophie with their lives. They sacrificed their lives for us in the heat of battle or the dead of night. Not a day went by that they didn't check in with us and make sure we were both alright, still as happy as we were the previous day. I often dream about them. My mother, my father, and Sophie – oh poor Sophie. Watching her die hurt the most. She screamed out at the top of her lungs for someone to help her and to put her body back together piece by piece. And I failed her. However, I watched her die until her blood ran cold and the beautiful soul inside her heart lifted and escaped the cruel world that betrayed her. Sometimes I wished I had taken her place. Maybe Sophie would've had a better life if she had been the one to survive. The Council would surely believe a girl much younger than me would never have had anything to do with the attack.

Instead, I lived. And Sophie died.

My eyes fluttered open to black with hints of grays and silver. My hand reached out and found cold stone beneath me. My fingers stretched to grab anything except the warm blood underneath my arms. I coughed, knees curling, and I pulled my arms so I lay in a ball on the ground. Wherever I was, it wasn't my old cell. Even though I couldn't see, the ground where I lived for a decade was softer than this-this was rock hard and cold as ice. I couldn't bring my mouth to open, the sweat dripping from my forehead froze almost as soon as it emerged from the pores. Cracks on my flesh burned from the cold; chapped over and daring me to move even an inch. If I did the scabbed over wounds would snap open again releasing a new rush of crimson blood.

Someone person shuffled inside the bunker. Their breathing hardly registered but their footsteps echoed through the chamber. They were pacing as if in thought. They'd been pacing since I woke up but I didn't take notice until now. Maybe a part of me wanted this. At least here I knew my fate. On the outside, I was at the mercy of the elements and rogues craving my blood.

"You're cold," a male voice, one I didn't recognize, came from in front of me. A gate swung open on rusty hinges and the footsteps grew nearer but I couldn't move backward. My muscles ached all over, and every time I sucked in a breath my lungs screamed for me to stop. Every muscle in my body twitched to get away from whoever shared the cell with me but I couldn't scramble away, only shiver desperately with my eyes wide open. "Are you?" They inquired further expecting an answer I wasn't sure I wanted to give them. "Eleanor are you cold?"

I turned my head up at the name. "E-Eleanor?" I choked out through chapped lips. My brows furrowed and I rested my head on the ground again. Dark hair splayed over my face in thin strands and curtains. I searched my brain for the name – I heard it once before but the memory strayed far away and out of reach from my grasp.

"That is your name, isn't it?"

"M-my name is L," I muttered and pulled my knees to my chest again, tighter than before to conserve as much heat as I managed to create.

"L—," he started. The man's knees popped as he knelt. Fabric shuffled and something draped over my shoulder, folding over my body. The trapped warmth flooded my skin and bones, heating the nerves in my fingers again. "Are you cold?" I sucked in as much of the warm air as I could, pulling whatever he draped over me closer to my face to shield it from the elements around me.

I pulled the blanket with my fingers, wrapping the soft fabric around each visible part of my body until my head and neck poked out, but the rest of me was buried underneath the warm blanket. I continued to shiver but at least the cold couldn't get to me, at least for now.

"Y-yes," I finally answered. "I-I'm cold."

A moment passed and the man stood from his place next to me. I curled further into the blanket, my heart humming as I did so hoping he'd leave. A chuckle trickled from his lips and a hand grabbed the fabric, pulling it away from my body. The cold air on the outside rushed down, hitting my flesh like bullets fired from a gun. I called out for the blanket but it, like the name inside my memory, was out of reach from my trembling hands.

"Good," he hissed. My heart sunk, shattering as my one ounce of warmth lasted only a second.

"No!" I yelled, reaching out but the door slammed leaving me alone. His footsteps softened until another door closed, leaving me with the sound of my cries and yells for him to come back. "No come back!" I screamed. I reached again, this time until the chains snapped into place with a heavy clang. My hands recoiled from the snap in a painful tug of the shackles around my wrists.

I shut my teary eyes, my hand outstretched toward the front of the cell. My fingers stretched as far as they could, latching to any protruding jut in the concrete floor until the bones on the back of my hands protruded underneath the skin in an enhanced visual of the skeletal pieces.

__________________________

Hey all,

Here's your bonus chapter!

Two more chapters until the end of BAF! These next two are the hardest to write - they deal with so much emotion and fear for my main characters. It'll be hard to see this end but then a new beginning, a much more forceful beginning, will show up as the second of three books! Yay! 

QOC: Where do you think L is? Who do you think the man was? Do you think she will survive to her court date?

Much love to all of you,

Like, comment, and follow if you enjoyed! 

-Kate