Captive

Chapter 1

      “-and now I’m on weapon-duty for the next three days. I can’t believe it.” He said, throwing his hands up in an exasperated gesticulation.

      “That sucks.” Sienna mumbles, running her knife blade along a smooth pebble.

      “Tell me about it.” Patrick replied lowly, running his slim fingers through a fine crown fawn-coloured hair.

      She looked up from her glinting knife, her amber eyes seeming to glare dangerously from the flames she lounged directly in front of. “Well, I’ll help you. You’re hopeless with the weapons, and you helped me when I got here, so I guess it’s only fair.”

      “NO! TELL ME WHERE I AM!”

      Patrick winced at the voice outside of their huts. The voice sounded ripped raw, as if it had been shouting for days at a time, and it was high and shrieking; frightened out of their mind. “It’s a girl.” He stated glumly.

     Sienna seemed to have picked up on this, too, because her hand she was using to sharpen her blade stilled and she looked like a dog on point as she listened to the voice shrieking obscenities and hearty threats. Looking thoughtful, she directed her illuminated eyes toward where the shouts sounded to be coming from and tilted her head to the left slightly. Finally, she placed the pebble on the woven mat she sat upon and sheathed her weapon.

     She lifted herself up to her feet and turned to Patrick. “I don’t know ‘bout you, but I’m going to check on our new young grasshopper. Want to come with?” She bent her knees slightly and proffered a hand to him.

     He offered her the faint traces of a soft smile before taking her hand and letting her lift him up. “Let’s go.”

     She smiled back, though her own smile was wild and full of mirth. “Right-io.”

     After a while of meandering around, she had finally come upon a stream. She squatted, took some water from the side of the stream with shaking hands, and splashed her face. She could still taste the salty tang of her tears.

      She swallowed and it occurred to her just how sore and dry her throat was.

      It had taken her a while to pull herself after what was either a few minutes or several hours of crying. She couldn’t remember anything. It didn’t help that she didn’t know where she was, either. She knew it was a tropical place; the humidity and brightly coloured, clucking parrots told her as much. She felt like complete and utter crap, but she knew that if she was going to find civilisation, she would have to pull herself together and find something to eat and drink.

     Two people. Mum, and her best friend; the painter, always smiling broadly. That’s all she could remember from her life. She didn’t even know how old she was. She felt her face swap a frown for a grimace for a nanosecond.

     She brought her trembling hands to her quivering, cracked lips and relished in the appreciation of water. She was about to have some more when she heard something –maybe even someone- approaching.

      Snapping her head from side to side in an attempt to locate what direction the snapping of twigs and crunching of fallen leaves was coming from, she forgot about the water and stood back up in a rush, almost teetering forward too far and face planting in the ground. She searched her surroundings wildly-

     “Hi! Look, I know you’re probably freaked out; I was when I got here, so don’t worry-“

      Her eyes found a short, gangly boy with olive skin with thick-rimmed glasses. One of the lenses was cracked and he held a sickle loosely in his left hand. It didn’t seem that he was intending on using it on her, though. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t allowed to feel suspicious.