Prisoner Thirty-One

Alec: Friends

Initially my run back from the meeting was spent thinking about all the better ways I could have argued with that Lady. Who was she to think that she could split us up? I was in half a mind to tell her we didn't want to stay in her compound, when my conversation with Kimba last night came back to me.

She had waited until just after Joe had fallen asleep to come back and join me. "We have been a bit too harsh on him." I stayed looking at Fe trying not to make it obvious I had just been thinking the same thing. "He's not the best at dealing with people and all, but you can't say the guy doesn't care and he tries his best." Slowly, I turned to Kimba, and then to Joe who was sleeping so deeply that he was already snoring.

"Yeah it's just been a stressful day all around." Sighing, I looked back at the lifeless girl in front of me, willing her too squeeze my hand or at least give some sort of indication that she was alive. None came.

"He just wants us to be safe and you know that means he is going to make us stay here. He practically had a fit at the sight of a real fence." She smiled at me but I could tell the day had affected her just as much as the rest of us.

"I'm guessing someone wasn't as impressed by the walls." My wry smile fell short of her serious expression. Her eyes dropped from mine as her words came out deep and full of torment. "Torrents had fencing Alec."

I let out the air in my lungs. "Kimba you can't compare a place that would help save a stranger to Torrents." I had said the words but even I wasn't so sure that I believed them.

"Until I know every inch of this place, I can't trust that it's not just like it. Come on Al you heard Joe, we are the only Curst people here and yet they still know what one is."

"We aren't exactly subtle K, stories can travel." She sighed and looked me dead in the eyes. "All I am saying is that from this point forward it is the four of us, we have each other but that is all we have. That's not necessarily a bad thing but we do need to appreciate Joe a bit more."

I knew that everything that was going on was just due to the stress that everyone was under, but knowing the cause didn't always help the situation. "K we are a family and families don't always see eye to eye but that doesn't mean we are going to stop trying."

For a second Fe's breathing changed, causing the both of us to look down. "It's weird. I really hated her, and I mean like tempted to kill her in her sleep kind of hate." She said this with a smile, so I chose not to question it. "But now, seeing her back today. It took everything in me to not run back to Torrents and set the whole place on fire for hurting her. At this point she's basically like my younger sister. But don't tell her I said that, she can't think I like her too much." She finished her story with a wink which made me laugh slightly.

"Your right. As long as we stick together, this place can throw anything it wants at us, we will just throw something heavier back." Now it was her turn to laugh and after sitting in a comfortable silence she moved over to the bags, finally allowing herself to sleep.

Returning back to Fe I was disappointed to see no change. I was realistic, I didn't expect her to be dancing around the room laughing but it would have been nice to see her awake and conscious. I sat back in my seat allowing the heaviness that had started filling me, to ebb, breath by breath.

Eventually, Kimba came storming in ranting about some guy she had bumped into on the way. I tried to care as much as I could but after the play by play was repeated twice, I found myself laughing at her more then with her. "Calm down kid it really wasn't as life changing as you say."

"Not life changing? We have now volunteered to spend our life in the presence of this idiot, and I swear to god."

Seeing that this might lead back into her story, I cut her off. "K just because we are staying here doesn't mean you are going to see him every day." She smiled up at me mischievously. "Oh, he is going to see me every day. I am going to track him down and make his life a living hell." This caused both Joe and I to start laughing. "Come on then K, what are you going to do?" It probably wasn't a good idea to encourage her but, you couldn't say it wasn't interesting.