Left Alone

Caught

Chapter Five

"Gonna lay down my burdens... Down by the riverside!"

I winced at the harsh sound in my ear. All I wanted was to go back to sleep. I needed rest before I went out.

"Wake up!" Someone wheezed. My eyes snapped open and I took in my surroundings. I was outside, that much I could tell. The world tilted a bit, making me nauseous. I groaned and tried to control my unruly stomach.

"What the hell?!" I realized that the reason why I felt so sick was because I was suspended in the air.

"God, you're heavy," a gruff voice said. That explained the bouncing.

"I am not!" I hollered, too confused by the situation to consider anything else other than the fact that he basically just called me fat.

"Keep your voice down!" The voice hissed. It was Mary's husband, the man who's name I'd never bothered to learn. I squirmed in his grip, but it was pointless. For such a small man, he sure had a grip like iron.

"What is going on?" I snapped.

"If you had bothered to get up when I first told you to, Princess, we wouldn't be having this problem." Kane. He was here.

I took in my surroundings. We were headed up the main road, toward the gate. The morning sun was beginning to rise, casting pinks and purples to the otherwise black sky. It reminded me of fire, eagerly lapping and devouring, with smoke billowing around it. That's how the sky looked to me.

"Wait," I tell the man. "You can't go this way."

He chuckled. "And why not?"

He didn't slow down at all, and fear made it's presence known in my chest. I squirmed again and failed. Soon I was outright struggling, fighting this man's grip on me. It did nothing.

"For God's sake, man, put me down!" I fought again and whimpers escaped me. "You are heading right towards them!"

"That's the point, dear," Mary said. Her voice came to me from the left and I twisted around to see her beady eyes trained ahead, not bothering to look at me. I struggled again, to no avail.

"What is going on?" I asked in what was supposed to be a calm voice. Mary laughed, sending chills down my spine. I hated that sound, hated the dread that had taken residence in my belly. No. No, no, no, no. Please.

"I see you have figured it out then," Mary told me. I then realized that I had been saying this out loud. She smiled and once again I shuddered at the sight. "We are taking you to the agents and they will deal with you however they want to."

"You can't do that!" I screeched, my mind blank to anything but her voice. "They'll kill you too!"

"They haven't any other time," she replied coolly. I scowled at her.

"You have been trading other people's lives so that you can survive?" I was horrified. "How could you? That's barbaric!"

Her eyes flashed and her head snapped up so that she could look at me. "What's barbaric," she snarled. "Are those hostiles running around, causing trouble. You blame me for trying to survive, to feed my family. This is the only way! I will do anything I can to make sure I live, and if that means killing you, then so be it." With that, she stomped off ahead of the group. I learned that everyone who had been in hiding had come to see Kane and me off, even little Nessie.

"Now you know why people don't come here," Nessie whispered to me. "We have to kill them, kill you. Mommy is pregnant again and the agents are saying that there are too many people. They will come for us." She looked at me with soulless, childlike eyes. She was the devil. "If you die, my mommy can have her child. She needs this one so very much. She's lost too many. I'm the only survivor. I want a sister."

"I don't think I've heard you say so much," I told her in a bored tone. "You know, you could have a brother." I said this just to annoy her, but it was a big mistake. She snatched my arm from her father's grip and pulled out her knife.

"I want a sister!" She howled, just before slamming the sharp end of the knife into my arm. I screamed at the pain. Mary stomped over to where we were and grabbed Nessie's arm, just as the blade came down and sunk into my skin for the second time. The jerking movement caused the blade to go in deeper and slice down to my wrist. I screamed.

"Stop it, Nessie!" Mary yelled. "We need her!"

"Sister sister sister sister!" Each word was punctuated by another stab with the knife. I could do nothing to fight back, as I was still trapped in the arms of the man, who was apparently too stunned to function properly.

"Stop!" I hollered. "Let me go! Please!"

"Somebody get that freak off of her!" Kane yelled, looking panic stricken. Mary glared at him before walking over to where he was perched on a different man's shoulders and slapped him. I winced at the sound, but didn't say anything, too afraid that if I did, more pain would come. These people were crazy.

"That is my daughter, you pathetic worm," Mary hissed, turning an ugly shade of red. Honestly, not the words I would have chosen. "Now everyone just shut up! We are going to move forward until the agents take these two away. Then we go home. Today is no different from every other time that we've done this. Get. Over. It." She looked at every person individually, making sure that they understood before nodding and continuing to walk towards the tower, where the agents were stationed. Fear blazed through me, but I no longer fought. There was no point.

I am so sorry, Star, I thought. Closing my eyes, I awaited my death in silent anguish.