Breaking Chains

Meeting Ms. Crick

“Behave yourself,” Sarah advised. He always behaved himself. Valentine was the picture of control and restraint.

“I always behave myself. I have excellent self-control.” His hallucination raised an eyebrow at him.

“You tried to kill me.”

“I experienced a rare loss of control.” Valentine had a mental record of all the time he had lost control of his emotions and it was exceptionally short.

“I went in your room and then you stabbed me with a knife,” Sarah reminded him. That was a completely different matter entirely. Sarah had rudely invaded his privacy and he had been agitated. Now he was calm and wasn’t about to be anything other than a gentleman in the presence of his darling sister.

“If you’ll recall correctly then you’ll remember that you chose to impale yourself on my knife. In addition, I was planning on killing you but stopped myself, thus demonstrating my self-restraint.”

“Who exactly was this woman?” Indigo interrupted. His curiosity was starting to peak as he watched his brother banter back and forth with the chilly asylum air.

“She is none of your concern.”

“Mr. Thorne,” Sarah said, suddenly in front of him. Her mouth was a thin line of determination but her face was stoic and appraising. “Focus on the task at hand.” She started to pace around him in a circle and presented the situation to him. “Your younger sister and former victim are approaching. The latter has a limp. How long till their arrival?” Their footsteps were still distant and there were several turns they had to go around before arriving at the straight corridor. The limp would slow them down, buy more time.

“Forty,” he decided.

“When Ms. Crick see’s you she’ll grab Celia and run, how do we prevent this?” The corridor they were staring down was long, too long. As soon as they rounded the corner Valentine and Indigo would be spotted and the girls would fly off. Celia. Celia would see them first though; she’d run towards them.

Thirty-five.

“You’re wrong,” Sarah chided. “Idleness has made you sloppy. Celia and Ms. Crick are traveling at the same speed, side by side. There is no telling who will see you first. What do we do?”

Thirty.

Ms. Crick would run no matter what he said and Valentine needed to speak to the both of them to get a firm grasp of the situation. An ambush was the only solution. It was rather cruel and would do nothing to get Ms. Crick to view him in a more friendly light but that was not a very high priority.

Twenty-five.

“We need to get to a different location,” Valentine said. “This one is useless.” He turned to walk away faster than the girls were approaching but it didn’t matter because if they didn’t reach the end of the corridor then they would be spotted no matter how far away they were.

“They have stopped to rest,” Sarah informed him. “You have the disadvantage, Mr. Thorne. You don’t know the playing field and you have no bait for your trap. Use what you do know.” He knew the players. Celia Louise Thorne age seventeen and Samantha Ferris Crick age nineteen. Both white females. Both weakened from malnourishment and mistreatment. Ms. Crick was a sure variable: she saw him and she’d flee. Celia was the loose cannon. She could be used to their advantage with a simple distraction to catch her attention.

“They have started walking again, twenty-five seconds and counting.”

“Celia is the bait.” Indigo grabbed him by the arm and brought him to a hault. Valentine’s fist clenched at Indigo’s unauthorized touch.

“I’m sorry but would you care to explain why you plan to use your poor sisters as bait?” Having not been able to hear Sarah and Valentines conversations, he was feeling quite left out. The prospect of using their sister as bait was not appealing to him either.

“No time,” Sarah warned. “Fifteen seconds left, get to the end of the hall.”

“Unhand me and get to the end of the hall,” Valentine ordered.

“I do so hope you aren’t planning to use our sister as leverage.” His grip on Valentine’s arm was tight enough to break a glass. Green and blue stared down each other.

“They stopped again,” Sarah narrated. “You have more time. Use it wisely.”

“I don’t have time to dumb things down in words you can understand, dear brother,” Valentine said.

“Bad tactic,” Sarah said. “Your brother is a liability, make it so he’s not.”

“I think it’s time we headed back to your cell.” Valentine had forgotten how insufferable his brother protectiveness and in general attitude could be.

“I’d never harm Celia,” he promised. “She is one of the few of my relations who has done nothing to offend me. Believe it or not I’d like to help her.”

“I don’t think she wants what ever kind of help you’re offering.”

“It’s not good enough,” Sarah said. "Try a different tactic."

“Trust me,” Valentine implored. Indigo scoffed.

“He doesn't trust you, nobody in their right minds trusts you,” Sarah said. “You have to trade something for his compliance. They’ve started walking again. Hurry.”

“I’ll tell you who she is, just get to the end of the hall,” Valentine compromised. Indigo’s biggest weakness was his insatiable curiosity, the same weakness that Celia had. Valentine could see the mental battle behind Indigo’s eyes but in the end it was obvious which side would win out. He brother reluctantly un-handed Valentine and matched his quick pace to reach the end of the corridor.

“Five...Four...” Sarah counted.

“Not helpful in the least,” Valentine said.

“Three...Two....” They turned at the bend in the corridor. Safe. “They’re here.” The soft padding of footsteps and soft urgent whispers reached the end of the corridor where Indigo and Valentine waited.

“I assume you have a plan?” Indigo inquired.

“You have such faith in me, my brother,” Valentine said. Sarah stood out in the open, watching the girls approach.

“Mr. Thorne,” Sarah said.

All Valentine needed to do was provide a distraction to attract Celia’s attention, throwing out Indigo’s had perhaps. Once she came running to investigate then Ms. Crick would naturally come limping after her. Celia would have to be quiet though; if she started squealing and screaming that there were people then Ms. Crick would most likely run back to her bed to pretend to sleep and avoid capture. He could tell her they were playing a game. If he worked this right he could even get Celia to coax Ms. Crick to them.

“Mr. Thorne,” Sarah repeated with urgency. Once Ms. Crick got close enough it would be a simple matter of rendering her unconscious and taking her to a more secure location with the help of Celia’s superior knowledge of the compound. Indigo would be tricky to stop from intervening but he could just tell Celia that Ms. Crick was sleeping. A rough plan but--

Something was wrong. Their breathing wasn’t right, their whispers too loud and harsh to be discreet, their footsteps too erratic. He smelled blood, lots of it.

“Something’s wrong,” Indigo stated.

“I know.” It wasn’t Celia who was injured, Ms. Crick would be screaming at the top of her lungs. “Ms. Crick appears to be injured. Hmm...Quite badly too.” Indigo left Valentine’s side faster than Valentine could formulate the sentence to tell him otherwise. Typical.

This chapter is really short because I had to split a chapter into two because it was too long.