Unicorn Riders - Pinch (English)

Chapter 9: Imprisoned

It didn't take long for Vera to loose any sense of time. It felt to her like an eternity anyway.

Well, she apparently had found a place to sleep, but this was far from anything she had imagined or wished for. On the contrary, all her nightmares about sleeping outside her home seemed to come true at this moment. Sitting on the filthy ground beneath an old tree, with her hands and feet bound, in sight of three very suspicious and unfriendly  persons. One of them being not quite sane, one of them in dire need of a bath, and the leader with a voice giving the impression he could make the threats his companions uttered become reality. The fact that he hadn't done anything to Vera yet and had kept the other two from harming one hair on her head didn't mean that he didn't have something worse for her in store. Although she could hardly imagine that. What could be worse than being thrown off the cliff or being slashed up by a knife?

The answer came to her immediately: Having to sit here forever. Her hands tingled and hurt, she slowly lost all sentience in her fingers. She had tried anything she could think of - she had tried to pull her hands out of the ropes with dexterity; she even had used raw force, but it had just resulted in hurting her more. Not even her little survival knife could be of use to her since it was placed in one of the pockets of her jacket, completely out of her reach. She had even tried to reach the knot that tied her hands together with her fingers, but even if that had worked, it wouldn't have accomplished anything - she knew jack about knots.

Vera became steadily angrier and angrier. Not only peeved like once towards her father, but outright furious. Other girls in her place might have been scared, crying and moaning, but that didn't go for Vera. Her escape attempts were accompanied by groans and grunts getting wilder by the minute, and more than once she threw caution to the wind and ripped at her bonds with full force until the pain brought her back down to earth. She despised this whole situation, being rendered helpless at the mercy of these three villains, for nothing else could describe Johnson and his two psychopaths.

Again and again she looked at the campfire that was so remote it couldn't warm her and watched the trio chatting. She could even observe how the giant examined the contents of her backpack, showing them to Johnson who took a quick peek and then mumbled something unintelligable. The giant, apparently named Whitmore by the other two, rummaged through Vera's things and pulled out the box with sugar bars. But a sharp call from Johnson and an unmistakable gesture made him put it back.

The longer she kept watching them, the more she managed to recognize a pattern. Again she was reminded of the diverse bands of mercenaries who had been at the academy. The Dawn Serpents, the Dark Wolves and other groups coming in hordes and trying to solve every problem with a hail of laser blasts didn't count in there. It was more about the smaller teams, not bigger than a handful of mercenaries with their abilities complimenting each other in a way that they could handle anything. That was the kind of team Vera was reminded of by the trio.

Whitmore was obviously brought for his brawn. At least seven feet tall, almost as broad, his worn-out battle armor straining over a huge mass of muscle. Besides, she knew his tight grip first-hand. He seemed to obey any command his leader gave him, but although Vera didn't see him as vastly intelligent, he did show some vigilance. The woman Sykes on the other hand was quick, dextrous and left a nervous, randown impression. In addition to that she couldn't stand children, as Vera was completely sure of. At every opportunity available she played around with her big knives, and more than once she threw baleful glances in the direction of her tied-up prisoner. But there had to be more to it than that - as restless as Sykes appeared she seemed to be impaired on a psychological basis.

And Johnson... Vera couldn't figure him out properly. He possessed authority and charisma she had rarely seen in a mercenary leader. There was not a single moment where he appeared to loose control or didn't know what he did. When his companions got out of control, it took him but one hard wordless shout to get them back in line. Though she was reluctant to admit it: Vera was afraid of him. He did seem like someone using his problems with words rather than weapons, but wouldn't shy away from using both. Whenever he uttered a thread, then Vera knew we was ready to have it followed by deeds.