As Hollow As A Mannequins Grin (Keveridge)

30 - I'll Meet You There And We'll Never Grow Old

*lil bit of smut - but not too much...just a lil*

When Kier and I had come down from the roof, it seemed like we'd won the battle now that The Cardinal was dead and was no longer going to hurt us. There was nothing now standing between us and my rightful rule to the kingdom once again - everything had worked out all right.

The main hall was for the third time in my life a blood bath - but for the first time there was actually people alive and pacing about checking on others. Cyrus, Drew and Luke were among the first few that we saw that night, going around and helping mend those who were bleeding or had some kind of broken limb. Those who had been fighting on The Cardinal's side were all rounded up in the corner of the room with shackles on their wrists to make sure they could do no more damage than had already been done. As we walked past them I threw them a dirty look before joining our friends in the center.

"How many dead?" Kier asked.

"Hard to say, but from what we can tell around two hundred or so...from both sides," Luke answered, scanning his eyes round the room once again until they returned and settled on me. "Jeez, what the hell happened to you?!"

I realised what he was talking about when I looked down and saw the blood still seeping through my shoulder, and my hand and knuckles which were bruised and had various cuts on them. "Got into a fight with The Cardinal... he's a better fighter than I gave him credit for up there," I brushed it off with a small laugh as Drew came near me to have a look at the wound.

"So everything seems relatively normal now that it's all been sorted?... That's not so bad then..." Kier murmured thoughtfully, looking over at me with a smile.

"Well... not quite... Something doesn't seem quite right. Sure we've rounded up those who were fighting against Laurence, and there are more of them dead under our feet - but a lot seem to be missing," Cyrus said, speaking in a quiet tone so no one around us would hear and think the worst of it.

"A faction of them seem to have just disappeared like that," Drew said as he clicked his fingers together before returning to patching my shoulder up.

I suddenly had a sinking feeling in my stomach and I could practically feel my face go pale at the thought. Someone said something to me but I didn't hear it or reply. I don't know what made me think of it, or why the thought was even in my head in the first place - all I knew was something wasn't right with all those people going missing. Something else was said and I felt myself being shaken slightly but I pushed whoever it was away and turned, running as fast as I could outside the hall and outside into the drizzly night.

My heart was thumping fast as I got outside, looking up to the roof to find my bearings as to where it should be. My clothes were already soaked through and were now just sticking to my skin, but going back outside just seemed to make me feel wetter and colder all at once. The other four had joined me by now and were looking at me as though I was insane.

"Laurence, come back inside! Drew needs to sort your shoulder out before it gets infected!" Kier called over the rain, holding onto my good arm.

"Where is he?! He fell right around here and there's no body!" I cried out, moving away from the group and looking around the grounds. "HE'S NOT HERE!"

The others seemed to catch on fairly quickly and their expressions matched mine as they joined in the search for the body, but after thirty minutes of looking round, it became clear that there was no body here.

"Maybe he was just taken away by some animals..." Drew suggested timidly, his shoulders sagging.

"YOU KNOW THAT'S NOT TRUE DREW, DON'T BE A FUCKING IDIOT!"