The Amazons

Eleven

 Ira charged into the base. Soldiers turned and looked at her, their faces filled with surprise, but Ira gave them no time to react. She slashed with her spear, stabbing, cutting, hitting with the other end of it. Suddenly the whole base was on high alert. Shouts of alarm rang out, orders were shouted, men scrambled around.

Ira heard and saw nothing. Everything was a blur. Afterwards all she could remember was the pure, blinding grief.

Then a sharp pain came from her thigh. She looked down to see a small dart. She pulled it out immediately, staring up at the soldier who had fired it. He was holding a strange small back thing, it wasn't made out of wood. Ira ran at him, but her vision went cloudy and her muscles weak. Her knees buckled and she fell to the ground in a heap.

°°°

Sounds tried to make their way into Ira's head, but she couldn't make them out. They sounded distant and dull. Her nerves tingled, as her eyes accustomed themselves to the bright light. Someone was saying her name.

Her senses sharpened suddenly, the sounds transformed themselves into loud conversations and jeers, people shuffling about around the camp. Ira became aware that her arms were above her head, she tried to pull them down but couldn't. She looked up. Her hands had been tied with rope to a wooden rack. She thrashed out instinctively with her legs. Her wrists burned against the rope and her shoulders ached with the weight of her body. She placed her feet back down on the ground, her heels couldn't touch the floor.

"Ira! Don't. It's not worth it, you'll just tire yourself out." A voice came from beside her. She turned. It was Jett. Her fury at him arose inside of her once more.

"You animal!" She screamed. "How could you do that to my sister? How could you?" She kicked her legs out at him, her breath ragged. Jett protested, his eyes laced with confusion and shock.

"Ira! What are you talking about?"

"My sister! I trusted you to look after her! I trusted you!" Her voice was raw. Jett's heart dropped. He had been dreading having to explain what had happened to Azie.

"I tried! I swear to you I tried to save her!" Ira kept fighting.

"You betrayed her. You left her there!"

"I was taken! I'm tied up next to you!" Jett complained. Ira calmed slightly, observing the scene in front of her. Jett was indeed tied up exactly how Ira was.

"I tried to save Azie. We were found in the jungle by the captain. She tried to escape but he shot her." Jett explained with haste. "I'm so sorry. Kinzie was shot too. She's alive though, they took her into a cell. I don't know why."

Ira's head spun. She had so many unanswered questions floating around her head.

"What's 'shot'?" Was the only one she could muster.

"It's when a bullet hits you." Ira looked at him in confusion.

"From a gun." Her expression remained the same. "A gun is a weapon. A bullet, which is a small metal ball, comes out of it very quickly and it makes a hole when it hits things." Jett struggled to explain.

"The 'gun', is it small and black?" She questioned.

"Some of them are. There are a lot of different types of guns. Semi-automatics and pistols are small and black." Jett sensed Ira's fear of having to talk about Azie and obliged in steering clear from the topic.

"I was shot." Ira proclaimed determinedly.

"Really? Where?"

"On my thigh. It was like a dart." She gestured at the small dot of blood on her leg.