Reia- A Novella (COMPLETE)

Chapter 7

A few hours later Morai awoke to a kick in the stomach. He was startled, tired, and now felt he could throw up.

"Get up," someone growled. Morai gathered himself and stood, leaning against the wall. Without further ado, the guard grabbed Morai by the arm and pulled him out into the hallway, where several other guards and Goiya himself were waiting.

Morai was annoyed. "Where's the rest of the Four, Goiya?" he demanded bitterly, straining through the fog of exhaustion and the arms of the guards. "Do they know you're trying to get into the lab?"

"Knock him out again, would you?" Goiya said, looking straight at Morai.

He flinched, but was hit over the head nonetheless.

The Reian Experimental Laboratories building was all the way across town, and there was little urgency at this time, so Morai eventually woke up in the back seat of a dark car. It was cruising through the narrow, winding streets of downtown.

"Ugh," he muttered, closing his eyes tighter. It felt like his skull was splitting apart.

"Ah, our friend is awake," Goiya's voice said from the passenger seat, next to where a guard was driving the vehicle.

Morai tried to raise his hands to his face, but found them locked tightly behind his back. Morai blinked hard, looking to the left. Another guard was sitting in the other back seat, wiping smudges off of a lethal-looking knife. All the guards were wearing black masks or dark sunglasses.

"This is ridiculous," Morai muttered, unable to come up with anything intelligent or threatening to say. Instead, he tried to determine what had happened.

Marfa had locked himself in the WSEC, apparently. He'd never let Goiya and the guards in now, after the curfew incident and Morai's own arrest. Whether Marfa's initial reasoning was to fend off the incoming government guards or simply to concentrate on his work Morai didn't know, but that laboratory was the sturdiest building in the city. Each wall was built to contain explosions or other disasters caused by danger-prone scientists- like, well, Marfa. That door wouldn't come down without damaging the room and perhaps even killing the man who knew how to operate it. This was good. If Goiya really wanted to get into the WSEC, Morai and Marfa had at least a little leverage.

But what about Hazira? Where was she now? Where would she go if he, Morai was kidnapped in the middle of the night? Hazira was smarter than to go to the local law enforcement, wasn't she?

Morai's head started to hurt again. The early morning sun slipped between the buildings, pouring through the front window. This didn't do anything to help Morai's headache. He closed his eyes tighter and ducked his head, trying to think.

Hazira was smart- she was never hasty or brash. She had probably gone to work, knowing that the government could not be trusted. She would want to raise as little suspicion as possible, and, without any way of knowing where Morai was or how to help him, she'd wait. Wait and listen.

But Hazira wasn't safe as long as Morai had information that Goiya wanted. Goiya himself had already proved that "civilians" meant little to him. Morai's heart pounded. What if they tried to use Hazira against him? She had to get away.

How would she get out? And to where? Hazira didn't have a car, and nor did Morai. In a compact place like Reia, it wasn't worth it. Public transportation wasn't really an option either if people were looking for her. But there was one safe place left in the city...!

"Excuse me?" Morai asked. Goiya twitched. "I need some paper and a writing implement."

"What?" Goiya said, not turning around. "Why would you need that?"