In the Midst

by Beth Martin

  After sitting still for what felt like hours, he started to panic. He had been tied up and left unattended. Clearly, whoever had done it intended for Roemell to die here. No one would be coming back for him.

  He trembled as he tried to control his emotions. Freaking out wouldn’t help—he needed to focus his energy on getting untied and finding a way out of this place. He tried to twist and turn his arms, but the rope around his wrists was so tight it only rubbed his skin raw without loosening at all. Taking a deep breath, he tried again, this time using his legs, but got the same result.

  With a guttural yell, he writhed in his seat, pulling against all of his restraints, including the loops around his chest. His skin burned, and his ribs ached. He twisted again, but it was no use. He sat limply, panting to catch his breath. The lack of food and water, along with the injury which hadn’t been given a chance to heal, had taken a toll on his body.

  His heavy breathing and pounding heartbeat drowned out the sound of approaching footsteps. A flash of light danced on the rocky floor, catching his attention. He sat up straighter and squinted in the bright beam of a flashlight as the sound of rubber soles slapping on wet stone came closer. There was no way to see the person behind the flashlight. Then the bright beam aimed squarely at Roemell’s face, effectively blinding him. He turned to the side and squinted his eyes.

  “I’m not going to kill you,” said the person behind the flashlight in a soft, almost timid, feminine voice. “You just need to sit still for a while. Then you’re free to go.”

  “Where am I? Who are you?” Roemell snarled.

  “You can call me Python. The where should be obvious.” The light darted around the cavern, illuminating the stone surfaces surrounding them. “Rocks, dripping water, the lovely ammonia scent of bat shit.”

  He hadn’t been able to smell anything, but now that his captor mentioned it, the stinging smell became undeniable. “You’ve tied me up in a cave? Why?”

  He could here her feet shuffling against the rock floor, making him wonder if she was actually afraid of him. “Tina told me you weren’t too bright.”

  Roemell’s eyes widened. Was this woman working with the terrorist who had burned down Leona’s estate, the one they were supposed to testify against? But if they just needed Roemell out of the way so he couldn’t recount what had happened, why was he still alive? There had to be some information they needed from him. Perhaps Leona had gotten away, and they needed Roemell’s help finding her.

  “I guess not,” Roemell responded. “I don’t remember her ever mentioning you.”

  Python chuckled. “Why would she?” His captor directed her flashlight back at his face, making him recoil and squeeze his eyes shut. “You were going to ruin all of our plans! And then you got her arrested!” She paused, breathing heavily as if her emotions had gotten the best of her. “I’m doing all I can to get her released.”

  Roemell got the feeling Python admired Tina in more ways than just a partner in crime. “I was doing the same!”

  The light beam dropped from his face and pointed straight down. “What?” she asked.

  “Didn’t Tina tell you? I sought her out to try and join your operation. Rich misers need to be put in their place! But the woman I’ve been traveling with wants Tina locked up for a long time. I’ve been trying to stop her.” By the long pause, he could tell that Python was actually considering his lie.

  “Perhaps I have miscalculated.” Her feet shuffled against the wet rock floor. “I had assumed the female was not a threat. But if what you say is true… then I need to shut that other woman down.” The light beam flashed around the cavern again once more, this time settling it’s illumination down a narrow path. “I need to take care of a few things to make sure your friend is taken care of.”

  The sound of rubber soles slapping rock followed.

  Roemell’s heart dropped when he realized his lie to save himself had just doomed Leona. “Wait!” he yelled. “I—”

  “I’ll get you some water when I’m done.” Before long, Python was so far away Roemell no longer heard her footfalls. Instead, the cave returned to pitch blackness, punctuated only be the metronome of splashing water drops.

  16

  THE WATER FROM the stream was cool and refreshing. Although Leona was still hungry, sipping the fresh water took the edge off of the sharp pangs coming from her stomach. She wasn’t particularly interested in survival. Without Roemell, and knowing Tina would be on the loose, there was nothing left for her. She figured she could try to stay alive like any animal would, but beyond that, her hopelessness robbed her of all purpose.

  After getting her hands wet in the stream, she carefully combed her fingers through her hair. It had been a while since she’d last detangled it, and her dark curls had become a matted mess. Since there wasn’t really anything else for her to do, she took her time pulling apart every strand and twisting each curl into place.

  She was so lost in the process of grooming her hair that when a woman approached her, she didn’t notice the stranger was there until she spoke. “Hey, are you all right?” Leona jumped at the sound of a voice. The speaker was a tall slender woman with short brown hair that was graying in the front. Her clothes were simple but clean. She held up her hands and said, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Encountering another person who seemed so concerned and sincere broke something inside Leona. She dropped her hands from her hair and used them to cover her face. Tears poured once again from her eyes. She didn’t even try to explain what she felt, what she needed, or the loss that gripped her heart. Instead, she sobbed into her hands as the other woman watched.

  The woman with short hair came closer, but not so close that she could reach out and touch Leona, and squatted down so they were eye-to-eye. She remained silent until Leona’s cries died down a bit. When Leona finally uncovered her face, the stranger asked, “When was the last time you ate?”

  “It’s been a while,” Leona confessed.

  The woman stood up. “I can go get you something—”

  “Wait!” Leona looked at this new person, desperate for some sort of human connection. “Don’t go. I don’t want to be alone.”

  The woman immediately stopped. “Can I come closer?”

  “Not too close.” Leona wasn’t sure why she wanted this unkown person to stay, but she couldn’t bear the thought of being alone again.

  The stranger took a seat on the gravel a few feet away from her. “What now?”

  “I don’t know.” Leona looked down at her legs. She was glad she was still wearing a long pair of pants which covered all of her skin grafts. “I don’t know where I am or how I got here.”

  “What do you remember?”

  Fond memories flooded Leona’s head as new tears pricked at the corners of her eyes: a soft bed covered in pink pillows, tight hugs from her father, how he always smelled like mint and pipe smoke, and going to the carnival with Ava. “I was at the Shenandoah reserve with…” She wanted to say “with my friend, Roemell,” but couldn’t come to say the words.

  “With a companion?” the woman asked. “You must be worried about them.”

  Leona nodded weakly, unable to look up and make eye contact.

  The woman extended a hand. “I have a hideout nearby where you can get a bite to eat and some rest to regain your strength.” Leona gripped the woman’s hand, and the woman helped pull her up to standing. Even though Leona had no idea who this person was, and knew very well that it was possible the stranger just wanted to abduct and torture her, she didn’t really have anything left to lose.

  “My name’s Leona.”

  “I’m Python,” the woman said before releasing her grip on Leona’s hand.

  • • •

  Leona had expected a cabin similar to those in the Shenandoah reserve, but Python’s dwelling was unique. Although the exterior blended in with the surrounding trees, the inside was a different experience entirely. Every surface had a smooth, glossy-white finish, simi
lar to the exterior of Bellabot. She missed her old companion robot almost as much as she missed her father.

  There weren’t any robots, but each part of the house seemed to anticipate Python’s every move. As she walked into the kitchen, the lamps brightened and the shades adjusted to fill the room with light. The refrigerator let out a short hiss before opening a small door to reveal a bottle of water. Python grabbed it and twisted the cap open. “One more,” she said, and a second bottle appeared to replace the first. “Here,” she said, handing the icy-cold bottle to Leona.

  She cautiously opened it, waiting until Python had chugged the entirety of her beverage and tossed aside the packaging in a bin before taking a sip. The crisp liquid flooded Leona’s senses, and before long she had finished hers as well.

  “What would you like to eat?” Python asked.

  Leona glanced around. In the twenty minutes of walking it had taken to get to this house, she hadn’t seen a single other dwelling. Yet somehow, Python lived in a sophisticated structure with no signs of the resources needed to support it. “I don’t know,” Leona said. “What do you have?”

  Python shrugged, then placed a hand on the counter. “Anything. Everything. Raw nuts. Flax seeds. Avocado toast. Acaii bowl. Pick your poison.”

  “Umm, whatever is fine.”

  Python frowned slightly and tapped her fingers against the counter. “I’ll get you a smoothie. Lots of protein. You look like you could use a pick-me-up.” Whirling and grinding noises came up from under the counter, and a minute later, a square of the countertop slid back, allowing a tall glass of pink frothy liquid with a red-and-white-striped straw to rise up. Python took the glass and handed it to Leona. The hole in the counter closed, the seams completely invisible.

  “Come, take a seat,” Python said, leading the way farther into the pristine white house. They sat on comfy white armchairs in a room with square windows lining one of the walls and the ceiling. The glass panels were flush with the surface of the walls, giving the illusion that the whole room was made from a few enormous pieces of glass. Leona could see and hear the forest just outside, but was glad to be inside in the climate-controlled air, free from bugs.

  Python sprawled out in her chair, leaning back to gaze at the sky through the ceiling windows. Leona kept an eye on her while sipping on the smoothie. It tasted kind of chalky with a mix of fake vanilla and freeze-dried strawberries. It wasn’t bad, and she guessed it was fairly nutritious.

  Since she was here, and her mind couldn’t let the detail go, she finally asked, “How do you live here?”

  Python turned her head slightly to face Leona. “Pardon?”

  Leona twisted the straw with her fingers, looking at the half-filled glass. “How did your house get here? Do you have an estate elsewhere, or do you trade or something?” She knew there were large companies on the East Coast, and wished she knew at least something about them—like how they worked.

  “How does any house get somewhere?” Python looked back up to the ceiling. “I built it.”

  “But, there aren’t any resources here.”

  She chuckled. “No, not the ones needed for constructing anything sophisticated. I have ways of getting a hold of the things I need, though.”

  Something about her answer was unsettling. Leona decided to let it go, at least for the time being.

  “There are a few things I need to take care of,” Python announced as she got up from her seat. “Put the glass back on the counter when you’re done. I won’t be long, so you’re welcome to wait here for me to return.”

  “All right.”

  The woman strode away before Leona could think of anything else to say or ask, and within a moment, she heard the soft click of the front door closing. Python made it sound like she expected Leona to wait for her, which struck Leona as odd. Being courteous to a stranded person seemed like a reasonable thing to do, but she suspected that Python had a motive other than just being considerate.

  After finishing the smoothie, Leona placed the glass where Python had instructed and returned to sit in the same armchair. She tried to stay in place, but could only manage to sit for a few minutes before her curiosity took over. She looked tentatively around the room. There were probably recording devices everywhere, so she wanted to be careful and not appear to do anything that might upset her host.

  A hallway extended past the sun-room she currently sat in. She decided not to go down the hall, not yet. The main living spaces were arranged in a circle. The entrance room connected to the kitchen, which led to the sunroom, then a study of sorts which was adjacent to the entrance. The study was by far the most interesting space. There were pristine white shelves lined with paper volumes. Pocket-sized books, all the exact same size, were arranged in neat rows. Each shelf contained books with similar printing on the spines, only differentiated by a single number at the top. Each sequence of books started at one end and continued across the shelf.

  One of the books with a black spine, strange cartoonish face, and black letters outlined in white caught her eye. She pulled it out and opened it to a random page. The book was full of black-and-white illustrations punctuated with snippets of text. The art wasn’t the same style Leona drew, but it had clearly been created by a skilled hand. Since there was such a huge collection of similar books, she guessed that Python had only collected them and not created each one.

  “I might borrow this,” she said aloud to the empty room. She tucked the black volume emblazoned with a 1 into the waistband of her pants and continued looking around.

  Having exhausted the main living areas and still unsure when Python would return, she decided to venture down the hallway. There were three doors, all of which were closed. As she got closer to the first one on her right, it slid open, the door retracting into the wall. She tentatively approached the opening and peeked inside.

  The small bedroom reminded her of the room she had stayed in at the VanStraten Estate. It was small with all white furnishings. A plush white duvet trimmed with lace covered the bed, and gauzy white curtains let in a generous amount of light from the windows. The fluffy bed seemed to call for her, reminding her how weary her body felt. Taking a minute to lay down wouldn’t hurt.

  A nightgown exactly like the kind she’d worn every night in her own bedroom—before her estate burned down—was laid out on the bed. She looked down at her clothes which had gotten filthy and tattered since the plane had crashed. Removing the book from her waistband, she placed it on the bedside table, then undressed, tucking her worn clothes into a basket on the floor next to the bed. She slipped on the gown, then crawled into the bed. Grabbing the book from the table, she tried to start reading it, but immediately found that she had trouble concentrating. She quickly gave up and placed it back on the table before letting sleep overcome her.

  • • •

  “I found your friend.”

  Roemell growled in response to his captor’s voice. Yet again, he couldn’t see the woman, just the beam of her flashlight paired with the sound of her footsteps. His stomach turned knowing that Leona was now also being held by this person. “If you touch a hair on her head…” He jerked against his restraints, and this time the feet of the chair made a screeching noise from rubbing on the stone.

  The light danced around as Python stepped back. “She’s fine. I’m not going to hurt her.”

  Roemell’s mouth was so dry, he had trouble forming words. “Where?”

  “At my place. Well, my house proper. This cave here is more akin to my office.”

  As much as Roemell wanted to tell off his strange captor, his immediate needs were more pressing. “Water…”

  “Right, right. Here.” Roemell still couldn’t see anything Python was doing, but he felt the opening of a bottle come to his lips. He did his best to drink while she poured the water over his mouth. He gulped down as much as he could while some of the water dribbled down the sides of his mouth and onto his pants.

  When the bottle was empty, he could hear
it clatter against the ground as Python tossed it aside. “I need something to eat.”

  “I’ll give you the same thing your friend had.”

  A bit of stiff plastic poked Roemell’s chin, and it took him a moment to realize it was a straw. He slurped up as big of a mouthful as he could and let it slide down his throat. It tasted just like the nutrition shakes he had gotten used to while growing up.

  “I laced it with a little something extra.”

  Roemell immediately spat out the thick liquid from his mouth. He should have known better than to trust anything Python gave him.

  “It’s just a hit of meds to help you sleep. You don’t have anything to worry about—you’re not really my type. But your revenge-driven travel companion,”—she let out a low whistle—“I can think of at least a dozen things I’d like to do to her.” A small rectangle illuminated in Roemell’s field of vision. It was a video feed, and as his eyes adjusted, he was able to make out Leona sleeping peacefully in a white room. As quickly as the image appeared, it faded away. “Thank you, by the way, for letting me know she was the force against Tina and me. To think I was just going to let her go, assuming she wouldn’t survive in the wilderness on her own.”

  Roemell couldn’t help but make another deep growl. Now, they were both firmly under Python’s thumb, and he couldn’t think of any way to save Leona or himself.

  “I should go check on Sleeping Beauty. If she behaves, I might be able to let you go, eventually.” The light beam flicked and pointed away, and Python’s footsteps quickly receded into the distance.

  17

  LEONA AWOKE AFTER what felt like only an hour or two of sleep. The sun was low in the sky, golden beams slicing through the curtains and warming her face. She sat up and stretched, her muscles aching from the abuse her body had taken over the past few days. All of her injuries reminded her of the giant bruise Roemell had on his torso. Her heart ached, she missed him so much. She had no idea if he was still alive, but she wasn’t optimistic.