"Where has everybody else gone?" Natasha asked, glancing up at John as they walked back through the busy street. Castille walked ahead of them, Adan behind them, and the third man who had been with them in the woods had long since left their presence. None of the other men were to be seen, not even Jack. The streets were filled with strangers, making Natasha's heart race with each one she made eye contact with, wondering if any one of them would try to come for her the way Anne had, the way the man in the woods had.
"I sent them back to the boats. We've been in town too long, we're starting to raise suspicions." John kept his eyes forward, but Natasha couldn't help but look around at the men and women in the streets again at John's words. Most of them eyed their small group as they passed, turning to talk to their companions with hushed words and furrowed brows. Women looked troubled and afraid, but Natasha could also see the way their gazes lingered on John longer than anybody else, a sort of gleaming curiosity in their eyes. Men looked suspicious, angered, darker looks on their faces as their eyes stayed trained on John while they pulled their wives closer and squared their shoulders. It was increasingly evident that their presence was unwanted.
"Best not to look at them, ma'm. We don't want to draw attention," Adan said in a low voice from over her right shoulder, and Natasha snapped her eyes back to Castille's figure, feeling a chill travel down her spine as she looked away from a haggard looking man standing in the mouth of an alley with eyes that seemed to bear right through her. She tried to resist the urge to look back at him, but felt herself compelled to glance over her shoulder in his direction as their group turned towards the mouth of a different alley. She stared at the spot where she had seen him, but he was no longer there. She looked back at John, a bad feeling about the man's disappearance stirring in her stomach, but it didn't seem as if any of the three men had noticed or were concerned as she was.
"Adan, stand guard outside. Let us know if any trouble starts coming our way," John instructed, as they veered off the road towards the mouth of a wide alley. Adan nodded and Natasha watched as broke away from them at the entrance, leaning against the wall of the alley just inside from the main street, wondering why John would split them up if, with the way the entire town seemed to be on edge watching them, they were clearly better off staying together.
John looked at Castille next then and nodded, and without a word Castille moved down the alley and then disappeared through a door to their left. Natasha watched Castille go, wondering what that wordless exchange had meant to the two men.
"Natasha." She looked up at John, taking note of the faintest expression of alertness behind his eyes. "Do you still have your dagger?" Natasha nodded, more aware now of the leather sheath pressed against her calf. She had momentarily debated abandoning the weapon in the forest, uncomfortable with the blade resting against her skin, but as they walked away from the body the weapon had been taken from, she decided to keep it, at least for now, afraid now of the unknowns of the village that had had previously excited her.
"Good. Ask your questions quickly and stay close to me. We've been made by the men on the street so it's only a matter of time before the men inside know who we are as well. We won't have a lot of time. Do you understand?" Natasha nodded once, wanting to ask what kind of place they were walking in to, but John had already started to move towards the door. She followed quickly, staying a pace behind John until reached to open the door and motioned for her to go inside. Natasha looked up at him for a moment before stepping inside the dimly lit space, letting John come in beside her.
The space was dark, redwood floors that matched the ceilings, the only light coming from the warm glow of lanterns hanging from the ceilings and mounted onto the walls in some places. There were no windows, the only light or fresh air coming from when the door behind them opened. The lack of airflow combined with the mass of bodies squeezed into the small space made the air stifling, Natasha's chest tightening with the density, made worse by the reaction the bar's inhabitants when she and John walked inside.
YOU ARE READING
The Nightingale
Adventure[Completed] [Editing/Re-Writing] [10/9/19] For hundreds of years Natasha and the rest of her village have been prisoners within their own town, their own homes, as a punishment for what she believes was a failed revolution attempt against their unju...
