Claimed

by Clarissa Cartharn

  “Get out of there now!” he ordered.

  “What?”

  “The march is about to start. I want you and Ellie out of there!”

  “Okay, okay,” she mumbled hastily into the phone.

  She turned it off and glanced up at Ellie.

  “Is everything alright?” Ellie looked up at her, shielding her eyes from the sun.

  “Yeah… um… do you mind if we leave early today?” Tara asked, biting her lips. “I wanted to spend some time with Fern and Mae. They had this school project and they really wanted me to help them with it.”

  Ellie smiled. “Say no more.” She jumped off from the boxes. “I’ll just quickly say thanks to Kelly and we’ll shoot off.”

  “No, Ellie!” Tara almost shouted and then eased down just as fast when she saw her frown. “Just don’t take too long, okay?”

  “I won’t,” she assured and then skipped towards the cluster of little houses in the distance.

  Tara leant against Ellie’s car, praying she’d be back before the protests would begin. In her mind, she was already plotting a route for their escape should Ellie not make it in time.

  She laid a small kiss on the baby’s plump cheek and then straightened up to look at the woman carrying the baby gingerly in her arms.

  “I’ll see you next week, then, Kelly,” she smiled.

  “Of course,” the woman nodded. “And thank you so much for the milk. Paul and I are extremely thankful for what you’re doing for us.”

  “It’s nothing,” Ellie dismissed.

  “It maybe but it’s more than what anyone would do for us.”

  Loud chanting interrupted them and Ellie immediately turned towards the intrusive sounds filling the air.

  “What is that?” she said, almost to herself.

  “I think that’s the Central Monologues on another protest march,” Kelly replied, a little nervy about the entire disruption taking place in her once peaceful village. “Why can’t that Julian Henley just leave things be? We may be surviving on minimal wages but at least we are alive. With the way he’s doing things, he’s gonna get all of us killed.”

  Ellie stood staring into the distance, her mind too pre-occupied with the march than her safety. “I will go check what it is all about.”

  “No, Miss Ellie,” Kelly panicked. “Please don’t go. The sentinels are not gonna hold back on the protestors anymore. There will definitely be some bloodbath today, I tell ya.”

  “What’s the fastest route to the main street from here, Kelly?” Ellie insisted, ignoring the woman’s ominous tone.

  “Umm… between those houses over there…,” she pointed hesitantly. “But Miss Ellie…,”

  “I’ll be fine,” Ellie assured. She licked her lips and glanced back at Tara waiting for her by her car. “Don’t tell Tara, will you? She’d be worried for no reason. I’m going to just get a peek and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Yes, Miss Ellie,” Kelly mumbled doubtfully, watching the young woman disappear off into the direction she had pointed out to her.

  Ellie sprinted off, darting over logs and under laundry as she weaved her way between the little cottages. The chants began to grow a deafening louder and threatening.

  “Pay up, pay up! Fair work, fair pay!”

  She managed to catch sight of the large cluster of people pass by her with placards and banners, expressing their rage on their poor wages. She ran along the pathway of the main street and ahead of the protestors, wondering if the sentinels were really on guard to attack the protestors should they decide to march up to the government offices like they did previously.

  She gasped on seeing the law enforcers fully garbed in their tactical uniforms and armed with batons and riot shields. Edmund hadn’t been kidding when he said he was going to ensure that these rioters and rebels, as he called them, were going to be silenced for good.

  She made a dash for the guards. She needed to get to Edmund and convince him to stand the guards down from actively attacking the protestors. Surely, they could resolve this turmoil without the unnecessary, impending bloodshed. She discovered though, she was a tad too late when the marchers decided to sprint instead of walk the last lag to the public offices.

  “Please disperse. This is an illegal gathering. Anyone who refuses will be arrested,” she heard one of the sentinels warn through his speaker cone.

  The protestors pressed on. “Raise our wages! We’re humans too! We deserve a livable wage! We’re standing for our right to live!”

  “This is your last warning! Please disband this protest and clear the street! Or you will be arrested!” the officer threatened again.

  The crowd retaliated with a deafening boo.

  “Look!” one pointed towards the roof of a store. “It’s The Archer and his Woodsmen!”

  The crowd gradually quietened as each one slowly grabbed the attention of another, all turning to stare at the hooded men observing them in silence from the roof above them.

  Ellie followed also with just as much intrigue of the masked rebels.

  The sentinel officer immediately issued an urgent command and some of his officers broke away from their unit, their heavy boots rhythmically clobbering the pavement as they raced up to the roof to arrest the hooded vigilantes.

  “Hey, it’s Governor Callum’s daughter!” one of the men shouted out from the crowd, shifting their attention to Ellie’s cowering body behind a large chalkboard A-frame. The crowd began booing at her, spilling out threats for her intrusive presence in Central.

  Ellie retreated with fear. One of the men picked up a stone and threw it at her. She crouched quickly, trying to duck the stone. She heard it whizz threw the air and she closed her eyes, hoping it would miss her. Someone fell before her in a flash, whirling her around and taking the full brunt of the stone against his back.

  She opened her eyes and she was staring straight into the face of The Archer now busily engaged in defending himself against the sentinels filing up to attack him. His left hand tightly clasped her right while he deflected blow after blow with his right. He twirled her about him, protecting her from getting hurt.

  The crowd had by now disbanded chaotically. Some engaged to support the other Woodsmen in fending off the sentinels, while the others fled for their lives.

  Suddenly, The Archer’s arms wound around her waist and she found herself being lifted into the air and away from the rabid mob. She held tightly onto his nape, his wings fluttering heavily in the air.

  “He had wings? He had wings! Who is this man?! What is this man?!” panicked thoughts poured into her rapidly.

  Undoubtedly, the winged archer had just as much captivated the fanatical horde below them, allowing a small window of escape for the ordinary Woodsmen who were not as empowered as this one.

  She tucked her face into his torso, closing her eyes, afraid to know what he was going to do with her. The height to which he soared to into the sky also made her queasy. What if his hands slipped and he dropped her? Her arms wound even tighter to his nape, her body drawn inevitably closer into his. All she wanted was to once again feel the ground beneath her feet. And as if an answer to her silent prayer, she found him descending.

  She peeked to her side, recognizing the playground in which Tara had been waiting for her.

  Tara stood staring up at them, her hands wringing anxiously. The archer lowered down, landing neatly without as much as a bump onto the ground and then released her clutches from his neck.

  “Ellie!” Tara sprinted up to her. “What happened?!”

  “I… I…,” she stammered, floundering between her friend and The Archer.

  The Archer gave Tara a hard threatening glare and then rose back into the air and towards the woods.

  “We had better leave,” Tara said firmly.

  “Who do you think he was?” Ellie trembled. “Was he even human?”

  Tara shook Ellie out of her panicked state. “Ellie, we’re leaving! Now!” She guided her into the passenger
seat of the car and strapped her in. She slammed the door behind her and made her way toward the driver seat. She glanced back at the woods but Jared had already disappeared into its thickness. She knew though, he would be storming for her back home, demanding to know why she hadn’t left Central when he had told her to.

  *****

  The men were already waiting for him at Platform 2. Unlike two weeks ago, when they had raided the Sector Dinner, there was loud bickering and accusations flying between them.

  Jared marched in and threw his ear piece onto the table, ignoring their fiery debate.

  “The girl shouldn’t have been there!” one screamed.

  “It shouldn’t have turned out like that at all!” shouted another.

  “We weren’t supposed to be involved!”

  “We were only there to give encouragement and support to the Central Monologues! Just in case there would be an attack by the sentinels! Not spark one!!”

  “And what were we to do?!” retaliated another angry Woodsmen. “Leave Ryder in the lurch to manage the entire mob of sentinels on his own?!”

  “Yeah, he did right! Imagine if the Callum girl had been hurt, the Governor would have skinned the entire village! He’d have every dog hunting the forest for us!”

  “And what makes you think he won’t do that now?! He’s delaying the hunt for a reason!”

  “The Callum woman has grown on you softies! She’s fed you with her pathetic baskets of food!”

  “Yeah, she has! But why must she be punished for the sins of her father?! At least, she’s trying to make amends!”

  “It’s a plot by the Governor, I tell ya! She’s a spy!”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you knew her! Besides, it wasn’t us or her who sparked the attack! It was that bloody Monologue protestor who threw that rock at her!”

  James threw a glass against the wall, smashing it to pieces. The noise stunned the arguing men, silencing them immediately.

  “There was slight deviation from what we had expected to do at the march,” he started calmly. “But the possibility of a riot was always there. I had warned you prior to that and that was what you all should have foreseen.”

  “We could have been killed!” cried one.

  “Then you shouldn’t have stood with us,” he glared at the man. “Being killed is one of those things you will have to expect if you want to seek justice from an oppressive government. If you think you can’t handle that, then you should go back to your families where you can be assured you will be safe.”

  Silence showered over the men as they shifted uneasily, trying to avoid looking directly into James’ angry eyes.

  “If you’ve finished squabbling, we could perhaps move onto other pressing matters,” he said, watching them critically. Their reticence hinted that he could safely leave the issue of the riot in Central behind them. “How were the ear pieces responding?” he glanced over at Jared.

  “Perfect,” Jared replied. “Conjointly with our camera contact lenses, they worked excellently. We reacted much quicker, thanks to Dr Langford’s extra eyes from his lab.”

  “Such as spotting the protestor picking up the stone to whizz at Miss Callum,” Eric said. “We would not have caught that otherwise.”

  “Good,” James nodded. “This was just a test on a small scale. As we gradually move on to more serious matters, hopefully we’ll also get more adept at handling our weapons and our technology to prevent us from getting us killed. In the meanwhile, I have my blacksmiths working on better weapons. I know you have been preparing yourselves for a very long time; meeting me here faithfully to learn and acquire the martial skills necessary to make this revolution a success. And I am thankful. But now is the time to put those skills to the test and make our long dreamt freedom a reality.”

  *****

  He sat on the top most branch of a redwood tree, watching her walk to and fro from her bathroom to her room. He was at ease sitting on the sturdy branch, listening to the crickets sing below him on the shrubbery floor of the forest. A colony of bats clouded the moon above him and then drove down into the trees, screeching as they rustled the tree tops, nestling upside down from its branches.

  In the starry serene night, there were only the familiar nocturnal calls of the animals, subduing all his tensions. He felt remarkably comfortable sitting all on his own on that tree branch, leaning against its trunk as he listened to the sounds of the night creatures. It was always the woods that would give him peace when he was stressed. The woods- and now, Ellie.

  He noticed she had switched her lights out and he supposed she must have turned into bed. He sat there, biting his lower lip, deliberating on whether he should visit her. She had certainly worried him when that protestor picked up that stone to hurl it at her. He was angry at first when he had seen her racing towards the sentinels. “What in the heck is she doing?!” he had thought. But then he had seen the protestor with the stone long before Dr Langford notified them on their earpieces. He had dove down onto the ground without a flinch and sprinted over to her before he had known it, acting solely on instinct. He was resolute on protecting her at all costs. For that brief moment, the riot or the revolution suddenly didn’t matter to him. He loved her and he knew nothing would ever shake him off that, no matter how desperately he pretended that he didn’t care for her any longer.

  He had stormed back home after his meeting with the Woodsmen, demanding to know why Tara hadn’t followed strict instructions. But when she mentioned Ellie’s intent on breaking her engagement with Edmund, he had fallen into another of his melancholic phases of slow, intensive deliberations. Could there be a possibility for him to be with her after all?

  But the thoughts of her rejecting him as a mutant still stabbed severely into his heart. The thought of her being overcome with the horror of being made love to by a chimera, terrified him. Like any man who occupied himself with thinking things through several times over before acting on them, he couldn’t help but be afraid of a rejection. Sometimes, he wished he could simply be one of those crazy fools who would dive into a pool of water without bothering to calculate its depth. It would kill him, yes it might. But there was always the possibility that she would love him back- chimera, mutant and all.

  He straightened up with defiance filling his veins. He was going to see her tonight. He had to make sure she was okay. But first he’d give her a little more time to fall deeply into sleep and then he’d simply have a peek. She was never even going to know he was there.

  He landed gently onto her balcony. The room was pitch-dark. But he didn’t need any light to see her sleeping form on her bed. He walked in softly through her balcony doors, treading up to her as quietly as he could. But as he drew closer, the sheets rustled. He could see her shape sliding to the other side of the bed beneath the sheets. He stopped, wondering if she was awake. The sheets were drawn to her face and he couldn’t tell if she was asleep or if she were simply rolling in her sleep.

  He leaned forward to slither the sheet down her to get a better peek of her face. But she leapt out of bed, her back against the wall. She stared at him, clearly startled by his green eyes. He tugged his hood down lower so she wouldn’t have to see them. In the dark though, there was very little he could do from controlling the glow in his eyes.

  She raced towards the door and he bounded after her, catching her and twirling her back in his arms.

  “I’m not gonna hurt you,” he growled, hoping she wouldn’t recognize his voice.

  “What do you want from me?!” she screamed and he immediately covered her mouth with his palm, muffling her shrieks.

  He let her writhe and hit his torso until she slowly began to realize she wasn’t winning. She quieted and he spoke again with a low raspy drawl; in his utmost best to disguise his voice.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” he said.

  “Then why are you here?!” she threw back, anger replacing her fear.

  He didn’t answer for a long time, unsure of what he was sup
posed to say to her. That he had come to check on whether she was okay? She looked fine. But who was he to worry about her? As far as the woman knew, he was some winged hooded mutant on a mission to revolt against the government and their laws, and presently, on the run from the sentinels. Now, he was also a perverted stranger creeping into a young woman’s bedroom and most possibly being suspected for stalking her.

  As Jared however…- he stopped. The last time as Jared, he had brushed her aside like another woman playing hard to get and leapt onto her easier-to-please sister. He remembered how she had shifted away from him in the car when he had leant into her window to speak to Edmund. Her despise for him was evident that day and it scorched him every time he remembered it. He was almost sure now she would care much less for the Jared who had hurt her.

  He let his arms drop to his side, releasing her from him. She stumbled backwards in surprise, her eyes darting towards the door as if she was assessing her chances of making a successful escape from him.

  He took a step back and turned away, heading back towards the balcony.

  “Who are you?” she said.

  He stopped with his back still facing her. If he couldn’t allow her to see him, perhaps he could be content with her voice.

  “What are you?” she asked again. “You have wings and you can fly. And you have cat’s eyes that actually see in the dark. What are you supposed to be?”

  He didn’t respond, his heart racing with an eagerness to shout out the answers to her.

  “Are you human?” she asked, but then laughed out awkwardly at her question, her voice carrying undertones of frustration in trying to resolve her curiosity about the man standing in her room. “How stupid of me? Of course, you are. You must be, because there are no aliens, right? You can’t be from another planet.”

  He could tell she was moving closer to him and he instantly started walking towards the doors.

  “Wait! Wait!” she cried out.

  He stopped again.

  “Thank you for helping me at the riot today. I’m glad that you came tonight because I was wondering all this while how I was ever to thank you. When you came in, you just caught me by surprise and I forgot… I shouldn’t have but I did…” She paused. “I’ve just never seen anyone like you so there was that fear. And then there is the fact that you are a stranger and you just crept into a woman’s bedroom.” She took in a deep breath, trying to align her thoughts. “I know I’m not making any sense. What I’m desperately trying to say is I’m sorry I reacted like a fool earlier. I should have known you never meant to harm me. If you wanted to, you could have done it then, during the riots. If it hadn’t been for you, I mightn’t be here- alive at all.”