Breaking Ice

5.

I awoke with a start. My lungs grasped for air and my heartbeat, erratic like my thoughts, pulsed loudly in my ear. Its thumps attempted to comfort me but it only made me wish I were dead. The chilling wish for a fatal end frightened me. 

Frantically, my eyes searched their surroundings and relaxed once the familiarity of the darkness of the trunk settled in. There was no girl, no television screen, no pills- just me, the zip ties and an empty pit in my stomach. Was that a dream? The distant pang in my head made me believe otherwise.

Breathe in, breathe out.

The words of lady number three rang clear in my mind. I decided to listen to her advice. 

In. Out. In. Out.

I felt like a pregnant woman preparing for childbirth, except my child would be a big fat pile of nothingness that'd only further make my current situation worse. 

In. Out. Woosah.

Abruptly, a rush of blinding light entered into my confinement, illuminating the space and driving away the darkness that had already swallowed me whole. I winced at the brightness, half scared to see what was before me and half tired of having to deal with whatever was to come. I was already over the entire ordeal. The kiss, the kidnapping, the dream...it was just all too much. The peace death was offering looked really promising. 

"Hey, are you okay?" Liam's voice filtered through the bright light. His body casted a shadow making him luminescent. He looked like an angel sent here to save me right in the nick of time. But we both knew that he was no angel. Not anymore, at least.

I peered through my eyelids but only could make out the vague figure in the sun's rays. The shoulders were too broad, the arms too long, and the chest too puffed out to be Liam's, but the voice that asked if I were okay was distinctively his. I chalked up the difference in appearance to a matter of perspective and instead focused on adjusting my eyes to the new source of light.

"Listen, Ali-"

"Don't say his name. Are you crazy?" said a man who appeared from behind. He must be the man who was fighting with Liam in the car earlier. His buzzed cut hair and stark green eyes gave the strong impression that he wasn't one to mess with. What would someone like Liam have to do with someone like this guy? 

 Accustomed to the gleaming brightness, the fuzzy shapes of the men in front of me became clearer. Liam's face, noticeably worried, looked darker and wider, his features more prominent than before. His heavy gaze was fixated on me and tears rimmed his eyes, one blink away from going over the edge. Instinctively, my hand reached out to touch him, but he pulled away the moment we made contact.

"Come on buddy," the other man gruffed, "let's get you out of this trunk." Liam quickly said something to him in a foreign language and the man drew a blade with a whitewashed wooden handle and sliced my hands and feet free from the zip ties.

I didn't know Liam spoke another language.

"I know this is going to be...hard." Liam started as the man leaned into the trunk to pull me out. After a moment of dizziness and imbalance, I found stability leaning on the side of the car. The heat of the exterior contrasted with the gloomy sky above us. I tried to make out where we could possibly be, but not knowing how long I was unconscious for dulled my estimation abilities. Liam turned his back on me and anxiously ran his fingers through his hair.

I have never seen him anxious like this before, either.

A cold wind blew and he stood still, hands behind his neck, face upward toward the sky.

"Your new name is Kai. You can't use your old name. If you do, this whole thing blows up." his voice was cool and calculated as if he were a judge rendering a life sentence verdict. 

"Under no circumstances are you allowed to tell anyone, anything about yourself unless you are directly asked by a member of the Blue Line." added the other man. He tried to make his eyes look kind but they lacked empathy. Empty, that's how they looked. 

"The name's John, nice to meet you, Kai. I'm sorry it had to come to this." he stuck out his hand and looked disappointed when I scorned the gesture. Liam's back still faced me but his eyes now bore a hole in the ground. This wasn't Liam, it couldn't be.

"What the hell is going on, Liam?" the words left my mouth too quickly, my voice raspy and unfiltered. Anger dripped off each word like a leaky tap over an overflowing sink. I hadn't meant to sound that harsh but it got him to look at me.

His eyes were almond shaped, his skin a cool tone of tan, his hair a rich black --everything was different about him except for his voice. His fingers were too calloused, his ears too big, his nose not wide enough. This couldn't possibly be my friend.

Terror rose to my face and I could feel the panic settling into my bones, threatening to throw all sense of reason out of the window. John muttered something in that foreign language but before Liam could even mumble a response, I bolted away. 

I mustered every ounce of adrenaline in my body to propel me forward while the faintest smell of soil wafted up to my nose. My legs trembled beneath me and my knees precariously buckled but I willed myself to keep moving forward. There was no time for falling down. 

For the first time, I took in the scenery. Thick trees lined both sides of the gravel driveway. Up ahead, a modern building wrapped in flowering vines jutted from the uneven terrain. The foliage encapsulated the edifice so well it looked as if it, too, had been a product of nature. In the sky, large birds circled one another, cawing in unison as the clouds grew darker and heavier. The smell of precipitation intensified and seconds later the clouds shattered, releasing a downpour so heavy, even the trees bent under the weight of the droplets. 

Thunder cracked in the distance and a lightning bolt caught a tree, ten feet ahead of me. Sparks flew up and a little flame ignited. Panic had turned into hysteria causing me to run even faster. My feet slipped on the gravel and I slid across the ground, reopening the cut on my forehead. 

"There's no time for recovery," I said to myself and jolted upright. I sprinted, dodging gaping holes and falling branches, for what seemed like hours. Nervously, I looked behind me but saw no one in the distance.

Thank God. 

  But being a sitting duck was not an option. I tried to get my legs to cooperate with my brain but they had given out, my lungs burned from the intake of cold air, and my body temperature had dropped. Shivers racked my body as I stumbled to find a place amongst the trees to hide. 

There was a tree, about a quarter of a mile away, that I could see had a large enough trunk to hide behind.  But before I could take one more step, my right leg was yanked out from under my body and I went dashing through the air.