“You saw that?”
“They televised it live. We were all forced to watch. A testament of Arel’s greatness.”
I know that any who are put through the trial of fears will be filmed, but that footage is for training purposes, or so I have always been told; though, I don’t remember them ever televising one live.
“We should get back,” says Chase.
“Please,” I say to him, not wanting to face Commandant Gant’s arbiters, or Trevors, “just a moment longer, before I have to face the wild dogs that run this mine.”
Chase smiles and holds me close as we sit on the hill, bathed in faded star light as even the moon decides to conceal itself and give us some privacy. How long we stay here is a mystery, but I don’t care. Chase’s presence is comforting, and for the first time, I feel… safe. A soft breeze caresses us as it floats past us, and as the moon peaks around a cloud, our fingers entwine. A few shouts from below jerk us out of our peaceful pose, and we jump to our feet, knowing what will happen if we are both caught out here. The shouts draw closer. I start to head toward them, ready to meet them, when Chase pulls me back behind a thicket.
“What are you…”
Chase places a finger over his lips, telling me to be silent.
Going against my arbiter pride, I listen to him, trusting his instincts over mine in this place as the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, warning me that something is not right. Before the two men appear over the crest of the hill, Chase motions for me to move behind another thicket, one that is bushier and certain to conceal my presence.
“Whatever happens,” he whispers to me, “don’t come out.”
I nod in agreement and crawl into the thick brush, disappearing into its thorny branches just as the two men appear.
“They said she came this way,” one of them says in an irate tone.
She? Are they looking for me? I bury myself further into the brush, allowing its overlapping branches to hide me from the world, glad that my uniform allows me to blend in with the darkness, but when I spot Chase crouched behind the other thicket, my heart quickens, fearing that he will be discovered. There is no telling what these two arbiters will do to him, but every frightening scenario I can think of runs through my mind. I watch as the two men search the area where Chase and I had been sitting moments before; their arbiter uniforms look silver in the moonlight, giving an eerie glow, making them seem more like ghosts instead of flesh and blood. Three more show up. I back further into the brush when the back heel of my right foot presses onto a stick, snapping it, it’s crisp sound radiating around me, filling the still air and alerting them to my presence.
Dammit! I curse in my mind, scolding myself as my eyes remain on the five arbiters, wondering what they will do, though deep down, I know what their reaction will be. One motions for the others to go to the left side of the bush I am hiding in, and I know that they are aware of where I am. I shrink back even further, but my mind tells me that such a desperate act is useless.
Chase springs from behind the thicket he had crouched behind, startling the two men, but forcing them to stop before they discovered me. I start to get up, not wanting him to take my punishment, but he glances in my direction as though he knows what I am about to do, and his pleading eyes force me to stay put, safe in obscurity and anonymity, with the branches of a bush as my shield.
“What are you doing here?” demands one of the men.
“Hunting rats,” Chase replies in a tone that tells me that on any other night this would be the truth, as though he has spent his spare time hunting vermin.
“Our food wasn’t good enough for you?” scoffs one of the others, but Chase remains quiet.
One of the men turns, pretending to be leaving when he whirls around and backhands Chase, knocking him to the ground. Chase gets to his knees, but another steps behind him and kicks him in the back, forcing him to his stomach. Angered, I press my heels into the ground and stand up just a little, before dropping back into the bush’s heart when I see Chase’s pleading eyes staring at me, and once again, I wonder how it is he knows what I am about to do, but I remain still, clenching my fists in an effort to do as he wishes. All five men take turns kicking or punching Chase, until he lies in a crumpled heap in the black dirt with bits of metallic dust covering his cheeks and tousled hair. When they tire of their fun, they each spit on him before trudging back down the hill, where they join up with a handful of arbiters waiting for them, laughing to one another as they relive their torment of him, mocking his refusal to fight back.
I spring from the bush and rush toward Chase, afraid that the men might have killed him, and drop to my knees beside his limp body. My hand shaking just a little, I reach out and press my fingers against his neck, feeling for a pulse, when his hand grasps my wrist. Relieved, I hug him, but stop when he winces and jump back a little, not wanting to cause him pain. “I need to get you to the medical center,” I say to him.
“No,” he replies, trying to sit up, but the effort proves too much and he flops back down on the ground as blood drips from his nose.
“But you’re…”
“They won’t treat me.”
Confused, my mind tries in vain to grapple with what he says. I have been sent to oversee this mine, and Renal has made it no secret that my authority is not to be challenged; so, if I tell the doctors here to treat Chase, they will. “But…” I begin got argue, but Chase cuts me off again.
“Those men were not here for me. They were here for you!”
What? Why would they want to jump me unless… I’ve made another enemy. As I reflect on the last several minutes, I remember that one of them mentioned something about “she came this way”, meaning that Chase’s assessment is correct: they had been looking for me, and I am willing to bet that they didn’t do it on their own.
“I need to get you out of here,” I tell him, knowing that neither of us can remain here in the open.
He nods in agreement and I help him up as I wrap his arm around my shoulder and allow him to lean on me, using me to support his weight as he stands on his feet. “Something tells me we’ve done this before,” he jokes, and I chuckle with him, remembering the time we had been alone in the wildlands and he had carried me, much the same way I carry him now.
“We’ll take it slow,” I say.
“I don’t remember you being so patient the last time.”
I give him a gentle slap on the shoulder, amazed that Chase can find humor in a terrible situation and he feigns feeling pain, causing me to feel guilty, but it fades the moment I see the grin on his face. Taking it one step at a time, we trudge down the hill—he hops a little as his ankle is sore from having it kicked—and I lean backward a bit, with his weight upon me, in an effort to keep from sliding downward on the loose soil. Pebbles shift from their position and clack against one another as they bounce down the hill, disturbed by our feet sliding across the surface of the earth. My grip on Chase remains firm as I guide him back to the mine, unconcerned about the blood coating the shoulder of my jacket as I listen to his heavy breathing, worried that he might have a broken rib, but tell myself that it could just be the exertion of the walk that is the reason. His foot slips on a loose rock and his balance falters, but I catch him, placing myself between him and the ragged ground, unwilling to allow him to experience anymore injuries than he already has, and lift him back to his feet. He smiles at me in reassurance, but even the darkness fails to hide the concern on my face.
Once we reach the bottom of the hill, Chase directs me to turn left and we head for what appears to be a hole in the side of the mountain. At first, I refuse, still wanting to take him to the medical center, but his stubbornness wins as I realize that he knows more about this place than me. He leans more into me and my leg wobbles underneath his weight, but I force it to support us both, reminding myself that I am an arbiter and physical weakness is not allowed; I must be strong for him. We stick to the shadows, staying clear of the lamps placed throughout t
he camp, avoiding their amber light for fear of being discovered. Movement catches my attention and I pull us further into the darkness, hoping that it is enough to conceal us as an arbiter strolls by, his stride bored and stiff, as though he is daydreaming about being anywhere but here. Once he had disappeared, I released the air stuck within my lungs as I watch him, and drag Chase away from here, making our way to the tunnel entrance.
His feet plop on the ground, unable to support him much longer and refusing to work, causing him to lean even more on me, and my shoulder aches underneath his weight, but I ignore it, wanting nothing more than to get him to safety. A black hole looms before us as we approach the opening and step through it; the sounds of chatter in the distance and crickets cease as we delve inside the tunnel, going around a bend, until we are in a cavern the size of the training facility. I stop. Small fires dace around us, lighting us up with their soft glows that mingle with a string of lamps hanging from the cavern walls, strung together in a haphazard fashion and looking as though they might fall to the ground at any moment as they dangle at odd angles. Glancing around, goosebumps appear on my skin as untrusting eyes glare at me, accusing me of having harmed one of their own.
“Please,” I say, my voice echoing off the walls, making me sound wraithlike, “he’s needs help.”
Someone summons me over to him, pointing at a thin mattress, soiled and coated in grime with the stuffing poking through areas where the once distinguishable plaid fabric had worn so thin that only threads remain. I carry Chase over to it—his feet drags on the ground, forming parallel lines as we go—and lay him on the mattress, being careful not to drop him, my heart aching as he moans from the pain, his eyes half-open and glazed over. A purple welt forms on his face and anger roils within me as I think back to the men who did this. I need medicine, something, and I jump up, but Chase’s hand grips my wrist again, pulling me back down.
“You need something to treat you wounds,” I say.
“The medical center will be locked up and won’t be open up until morning. Please, Noni, if you go there now, you’ll get caught and Commandant Gant won’t care that President Tapiwa sent you here.”
It seems that he doesn’t care anyway. “Don’t any of you have any sort of first aid around here?” I demand of the people surrounding me.
A woman appears a few minutes later with a bowl full of strips of material torn from old shirts and blankets and a bottle of oil. It seems that the workers have their own supplies for treating injuries just like the recruits at the training facility did, reminding me of the days when I would tend the sores of other recruits, which they received during our arduous exercises. I take the tin bowl from her, thanking her, and unscrew the lid to the bottle of oil, releasing a pungent scent of pine and eucalyptus that saturates my nostrils and causes me to cough a little. A bowl of brown water appears beside me. Repulsed by the foul odor of the water, I hesitate to use it, but soon realize that there is nothing else, and as the woman instructs me on what to do, I take a strip of cloth, its frayed ends dropping miniscule threads, and douse it in the repugnant bowl of liquid before sprinkling drops of the oil on it and placing it against Chase’s cheek. He squirms from its sting, but I hold him still and place his hand over the cloth, forcing him to hold it to his own cheek, while I lift his shirt and press the tips of my fingers against his ribs, using the lightest of pressure.
“Does this hurt?” I ask.
“Yes!” he snaps, and I scowl at him.
“You know what I mean. Are you having any trouble breathing?”
“No.”
Just to be certain, I lean over him and place my ear against his chest, listening to him as he inhales and exhales, looking for any sign that he might be struggling to breathe, but it sounds normal. Either way, the morning will let me know if there is fluid building in his chest cavity or not because he will either be dead or still alive. I notice bruises along his stomach and follow them with my eyes, until I see a gash on Chase’s left arm. I take the bottle of oil and coat the gash with it, assuming that it must be some sort of antiseptic, and it’s all I have for the moment, before wrapping another strip of cloth around the cut, but my mind keeps dwelling on the fact that he needs medicine, and there is only one way to get it.
“You’re good at this,” murmurs Chase.
“They taught us how to do a field dressing,” I say.
“Of course, they did.”
I rest his arm by his side and start to stand up when he grabs my wrist and hangs on with a grip that I didn’t think he could make in his current state, but that is not what stops me; his panicked eyes do. “Chase…”
“You can’t go,” he says through a cough.
“You need something for that cut on your arm.”
“They won’t give it to you,” he says, and repeats, “and if you’re caught, they won’t care that you were sent here by Tapiwa.”
He’s right. If I am caught stealing medicine from their hospital wing, it will be met with swift and severe punishment, and Renal will not be able to stop it, but the idea of doing nothing to help him troubles me, eating away at me, tearing away at the miniscule essences of humanity I have left.
“Please,” he whispers, and his pleading look forces me to sit back down by his side, forgetting about the multitude of plebeian eyes that watch our exchange and the fact that any one of them could report this
“Just rest,” I tell him, dabbing the blood around the corner of his mouth and nose.
Unable to keep his eyes open any longer, Chase rolls his head to the side and falls asleep. Silence surrounds me as uneasy eyes observe every movement I make, but I ignore them, more concerned about Chase’s recovery than the strangers around me. I take another look at his arm and know that if I do nothing, it will get infected and he could die, the thought of which rips my heart in two. I know I promised him that I would take care of Gwen, but I owe it to her to see to it that he makes it back to her. My eyes move toward the woman who had given me the bowl of water.
“Stay with him,” I say to her.
She nods without speaking, and she does not need to say a word as her eyes say it all.
Rising to my feet, I take one last glance around the chamber and at the gloomy eyes observing my every move, bewildered by my concern for one of their own, but not questioning it, and head outside into the darkness, broken by the milky light of the moon as it pokes out from behind a cloud. I dash cross the grainy soil for the center of the camp and where the medical center is, keeping my steps light and soft, making as little noise as possible. A sentry appears and stops in front of me, lighting up a smoke—they’re not supposed to as it is forbidden, but that doesn’t stop them from doing it—and I dive behind a cart, hugging my knees close to me, hoping that he never notices my presence. The tip of the smoke lights up, a speck of orange in the night, as he inhales its filth, before releasing it, unconcerned about the possibility of anyone being out of bed past lights out. Why should he be? Everyone knows what will happen if they are caught—a fear that keeps them in line. I watch as he finishes his smoke, before flicking the butt to the ground and grinding it into the dirt with the ball of his foot. As he wanders off, I release the breath that I have been holding in my lungs before sprinting to my feet and dashing across the ground away from him and toward the medical center, which is nothing more than a lone, single-room building with a red cross painted on it.
I pause by the steps when I reach it, looking around to make certain that no one is there. Silence looms. The first step creaks a little under my weight when I place my foot on it, and I lift it off, afraid that someone might have heard it, but as I wait for the alarms and the shouts, only stillness greets me. I continue up the steps and to the door. Locked. I expected nothing less. I take a bobby pin from the bun in my hair and place it in the lock, glad that it is an old-fashioned one and not some coded keypad, twisting it around, until I feel the tumblers within it move and a tiny click sounds. Wasting no time, I push the door open, hurrying in
side, and close it behind me.
I head for the cabinets, opening their glass doors, rifling through the bottles and canisters, looking for any sort of ointment similar to what recruits kept hidden in their rooms at the training facility. A short, round container the width of my palm catches my attention, and I snatch it, unscrewing its metallic lid, revealing a creamy, somewhat clear, and odorless substance. As I smile, to myself, relief washes over me now that I have found something that should help heal his cuts and bruises. I start to put it in my pocket, but stop when I realize that if I take it, it will be discovered missing. Frustrated, I rummage through drawers and shelves, looking for any sort of container that I can fill with the ointment. Just when I am about to give up, my hand knocks something over and a container of vials clatter to the floor, clinking as they scatter in the thin beam of moonlight spilling through the grime coated window. I clean up the vials, placing them back into their box, snatching one and scooping some ointment into it before shoving a cork into it to seal it. Tiptoeing to the door, I pause, listening for any sounds of boots crunching in the black gravel, unsure if a guard is just outside or not. Nothing. Gambling that no one is out there, I pull the door open just enough, locking the latch as I leave, and close it behind me, scuffling off into the darkness before ducking next to a building, crouching in its ominous shadow.
After catching my breath, I jump up and freeze. Grelyn stands there between the buildings with her back to me, no doubt on night sentry. If she turns around and sees me, it is over. I’ll be arrested for insubordination and theft of Arelian property. The best punishment I can hope for is a quick execution; the worst is reeducation. Unlike the reeducation that ordinary citizens go through, and arbiter’s reeducation consists of being starved, flogged until the person has no more blood to spill, and thrown into a vat of boiling tar, until the flesh cooks off the body and the disgraced arbiter dies, suffering a slow and agonizing death. Such measures are saved for the most grievous of offenders and serve as a warning to other arbiters. Mercy is a luxury we are never afforded.
Ensnared (Enchained Trilogy Book 2) Page 17