dumb guard joined in. Inhaling her scent the pirate moaned. “She smells so sweet,” he said and the guard pirate drooled even more.
Gwen shook with fear, and heard Andrews voice. Gwen. Gwen! What’s happening? Hands secured, she couldn’t answer him.
“Let’s go.” He pulled her up and reached down to unlock her chain and pushed her out the door.
“Where are we going?” Gwen bravely asked as she walked barefoot down the dim hallway passing cell upon cell.
“You belong to the Captain now, princess. You need to work. Hope you don’t have a fresh manicure,” he laughed. They opened a door and entered into another block of cells. Gwen was met with high pitched screaming. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as they got closer and closer to the noise. A guard was sitting on an old wooden chair outside a cell on the right, antagonizing his prisoner.
“I’ll skin you if you won’t talk,” the guard said.
“Well, well what do we have here?” Gwen’s escort asked stopping to observe the scene. She was pushed against the bars, forced to witness the horrific scene before her. The creature was beautiful. A mermaid. She was suspended from the cell ceiling above a tank of dirty water. Her slender arms were outstretched, constricted by metal cuffs, similar to the one that was around Gwen’s ankle. Golden ringlets stretched down her bare tan back. Her skin sparkled like spun gold sprinkled with multicolored diamonds. Her breasts were covered by a type of seaweed swimsuit top. Gwen looked at her mark. It almost matched the mermaid’s stunning skin. Her tail was an iridescent violet that matched her almond shaped eyes soaked with blue shimmering tears. A dark-skinned pirate with a tattooed head sat at her tail holding a sharp knife.
“Oh, just another sea creature refusing to tell us where the pearl is. Shame though, this one sure is a beauty.” He ran his knife along her scales, caressing her with the blade.”
“Well I’ll let you get to it,” Gwen’s escort stated nonchalantly.
“One more time love, are you going to tell me where the pearl is?” He looked at her with excitement in his beady black eyes.
She spoke smooth and sultry. “I wouldn’t tell you if I knew.”
“Alright then let’s get to it.” The pirate moved his hand to her hip and positioned it where her skin met her scales. He sliced down hard with his knife, skinning the mermaid’s hip. Blood trickled down her tail and dripped in the dirty water as she screamed.
“My, my. They are such stubborn creatures,” the guard with the red feather sarcastically sighed. “Let’s continue.” He pushed her ahead down the dark, damp hallway. “You know princess; we have a whole group of you immortals here. The ones of you with gifts we keep and suppress your abilities with these collars here. You see, the needles inject a chemical. Great thing about these are they only need refilled every one hundred years. Very convenient.” He opened another steel door. That led out into a dirt courtyard. Immortals were everywhere, men and women alike. They were dressed in dirty tattered clothing, probably the same ones they were apprehended in.
It reminded her of something from the Holocaust. The people were thin and pale. They all seemed to have different jobs. Most of the men were building some sort of huge rocked pedestal in the middle. One particularly tall red headed boy was standing in front of a guard pirate. The pirate had some sort of remote control hooked up to the boy’s green collar. Sweating and shaking, the redhead would lift his arm, and summon some of the massive rocks through the air and across the yard. A telekinetic, like Pete. Gwen felt dizzy.
“Hear ye, hear ye!” the pirate mocked. “All gather round! I have a surprise for you fine men and women!” He pushed Gwen to the middle of the dirt yard. The people turned and stared, knowing better than to actually leave their posts. “I want to introduce to you, Miss Gwendolyn Darling. Your princess.” He let go of her hands and pushed her ahead. The pirate kicked Gwen in the back, knocking her to the ground. “Only, you’re no one’s princess here. Here you’re just another meal on backorder.” He licked his lips. “I do hope you enjoy your stay darling.” He turned to leave. “Take good care of her all!”
Gwen touched her mark, attempting to finally answer Andrew. Andrew? I couldn’t answer before. I’m in some sort of a court yard. Are you ok? Nothing. Andrew?
“He can’t hear you,” a girl said. Gwen looked up. The girl was beautiful despite her tattered clothing and dirty face. She was scraping a glimmering pink rock with a blade and tucking the resulting powder into a gray sack. Her long black hair flowed down her thin back. She was wearing a dirty brown skirt with a ripped white form fitting tank top. Her toes were covered with sores from days of walking in no shoes on rough ground. Gwen met her big brown slanted eyes.
“How do you know?” Gwen asked.
“I know,” she said.
Gwen noticed she wasn’t wearing a collar. “Why don’t you have a collar?” she asked.
“Don’t need one. I don’t have an ability,” she bluntly stated as she continued scraping. “Here,” she tossed Gwen a glittering blue rock and blade. “You’d better find work. Bad things happen to those who don’t.” Gwen sat awkwardly in her blood-stained cocktail dress on the verge of tears. “Wouldn’t waste my time crying. It only results in whippings,” she recommended harshly.
“Who are you?” Gwen asked as she attempted to scrape the rock. Her teeth hurt. It was like nails on a chalkboard not to mention difficult.
“Lily.” The girl answered looking over her shoulder. Gwen followed her gaze and saw two children, no more than six, scrubbing clothes over a wash bucket. One, a girl, shared Lilly’s long black hair and tanned skin. The other was also a girl, with bouncing dirty blond ringlets. They splashed and giggled as they worked. Gwen felt sick. She couldn’t imagine the life of a child in this hell.
“How do you know all of this? Why are you here if you’re not immortal? From what I understand, they have no use for mortal humans.”
“Oh, they have use for me.” Before Gwen could ask any more, she fired back with questions of her own. “Was it Andrew?” Gwen met Lilly’s look of excitement with her own look of confusion. Lilly breathed an annoyed sigh. “Are you and Andrew bonded?”
“Yes…You know Andrew?” Gwen questioned.
Laughing Lilly answered, “Much better than you think. He is my brother. Twin actually.”
“Your twin brother? Andrew never told me he had a twin.” Gwen couldn’t believe her ears. Though she guessed she hadn’t known him long.
“He wouldn’t have. He thinks I’m dead. I was taken around six years ago now. He thinks they killed me but as you can see, they weren’t so kind.”
“Why did they take you?”
“Ma-ma!” the little girl shrieked.
Lilly muttered angry words in a language Gwen didn’t recognize. She got up and began walking toward her daughter.
“What’s wrong?” Gwen asked.
“Stay here.” Lilly demanded as she made her way to the girl. The water had tipped over and the clothes spilled onto the dirt now turned mud. A guard was making his way to the raven-haired girl as well.
“You dumb girl,” he growled as he caught the dark skinned girl by the back of her neck. “You need to be punished. Come on. I’m sick of you.”
He began dragging the girl to the steel door, but just before he got there Lilly threw herself at the pirate’s feet. “She’s a girl Morge. I’ll take her place.” The pirate shrugged her off. Refusing to let her daughter be beaten, she took the pirates repulsing face in her hands and looked into his beady eyes, “I’ll take her place.” The pirate stared into Lily’s eyes, contemplating her proposal.
“Come on then,” he said throwing the girl to the ground as he led Lilly inside the steel doors. Lilly watched her daughter as she made her way to Gwen, then finally she disappeared through the doors.
“My mama said I should come to you. You have to keep working. The girl picked up the rock her mother was working on and began to work on it herself. Her tiny hands moved swiftly,
much more swiftly than Gwen’s clumsy ones. Tears ran silently from the child’s big green eyes.
“What’s your name?” Gwen asked, working slowly.
“Tiger,” the girl answered softly. “Are you really the princess?” she asked, wiping her running nose with her bare arm. Tiger was wearing a very faded sleeveless yellow dress with a tattered blue ribbon around the waist.
Gwen wondered that herself. “I guess. That’s what they tell me.”
“Pete and Uncle Andrew?” she asked, eyes full of yearning.
“Yah. Pete and Andrew.” Gwen forced a smile.
“My mama tells me stories about them and Tina. They’re not like the people here. They look pretty like you and they can go outside and they’re going to save us someday,” she said now smiling. “Did they send you here? To help us?”
Gwen’s heart sank. “Um…Yes. They did. We’re going to get out of here,” she lied.
“Mama will be so excited. I have to tell Marriam,” the girl beamed as she spoke.
“No!” Gwen said much louder than she wanted. “No we can’t tell anyone, ok tiger? This has to be a secret. Can you do that?”
The girl nodded. Just then a loud horn sounded and Tiger scrambled to her feet. “Hurry, get up,” she whispered. “We have to line up. Follow me and don’t get lost.”
Gwen obeyed the girl and followed her through the crowd to the side of the arena like circle. She took her place in one of the huge lines of people and Gwen followed. All the captives began lining up. Gwen counted five rows with at least fifty per row she figured. She looked to her right, a boy, though she knew he could be hundreds of years old, stood beside her. He had long brown hair, freckles, and wore only too large of pants held up with a piece of rope. He was so thin; she thought his ribs were going to pop out of his paper like skin. The boy kept his eyes straight ahead with hands to his sides. Gwen did the same. Soon, a large set of double doors opened to her left. Gwen could feel the tension as prisoners all around her shifted and stiffened. It made the hairs on her dirty arms stand on end. Her toes gripped the dusty dirt beneath her. She heard the growling before she saw them. Manticans, only…different. There were four, two brown, one gray, and one midnight black. They were massive and something was wrong with their eyes. So…red. Nothing like Andrew’s in Mantican form. They foamed at the mouth as they circled the group. Soon they were followed by a group of pirates who opened up, making way for their leader.
Captain Jamison Hookner made his way through disgusting members of his monstrosity of a crew. He looked surprisingly…clean, Gwen thought. Like someone out of one of her mother’s decorative magazines positioned perfectly on the end table in the sitting room of her…home. His hair was black and slicked back like some sort of count, and he wore a matching handlebar mustache. He had on a perfectly tailored black suit with a deep plum undershirt. If Gwen had seen him on the street, she thought she’d have mistaken him for some sort of Italian mobster.
He walked with a small limp as he made his way to the front of the lineup. The captain took his position in front of the group. He twisted a side of his mustache as he surveyed his prisoners. “My, my. We all look so sad today,” he said with what Gwen knew was false concern. “You’d think I’m not providing my guests with a pleasant stay,” he added. This set his goons off, shrieking and laughing their disgusting laughs.
“Laugh you stupid worms,” he commanded in such an eerie soothing voice it made Gwen shiver. Just like that, everyone around her mustered up their best fake laughs. “That’s better,” he smiled. “My Manticans are very hungry this evening,” he petted the midnight black one as it brushed by him, still circling the group.
All of the sudden, the steel door Lily disappeared out of reopened and she limped out, followed by the pirate Gwen heard her call Morge. All eyes were fixed on Lily. Gwen peeked at Tiger out of the corner of her eye. At that moment she wished they were in the back row, not front and center. She could see Tiger lock her knobby knees and her hands turned to fists. The girl seemed ready to run to her mother at any moment. Lily spotted her daughter and shook her head in disapproval. Sensing something was wrong, Gwen reached over and took the girls hand. Out of nowhere Gwen felt the energy. She found it. Just a small spark, but it was there. The frail girl shook her hand free from Gwen’s and wobbled over to where she stood.
“Lily, how nice of you to join us. Bring her here Morge, I almost forgot we still had her,” the captain smiled. The ugly pirate ushered Lily across the circle to his captain. Captain Hookner studied Lily. He brushed her dark hair out of her stunning brown eyes. “Shame he hasn’t come for you my dear, isn’t it? Either one of you. After all this time.” The captain looked thoughtfully at Lilly as he pet her silky hair. Lily stood strong as she put up with the charade. An idea had struck the captain. “Oo Ooo! Have you met Gwen yet?” Gwen’s stomach dropped at the mention of her name from his slimy slips. “Come Gwendylon. Come you must meet Lily.”
Gwen commanded her feet to move, but move they wouldn’t. She stood still as a picture. Stuck to the dirt. An old pirate hobbled over and grabbed Gwen by the slender arm. He drug her to his commander. “Gwendylon meet Lily.” They stared blankly at one another, not sure what to do next. “Oh come on, surely you’ve heard of one another?” He looked into Lily’s eyes. “Oh Lily of course you know about Gwen. The long lost princess. Destined to marry your sweet Petren.” He studied the tanned woman’s beautiful face. “Yes you knew that didn’t you,” he mocked. Her sweet Petren? Gwen thought. Then he moved to Gwen. He stared deep into her eyes, gauging her reaction. She attempted to stay as expressionless as she could but after what seemed like an eternity, he burst out laughing. “Petren, that sly dog. He never told you about her did he? Ha! Well meet Lily, the mother of Pete’s child.” Gwen was confused. Tiger? It finally began to make sense. “Where is my little princess anyways? Tiger?” His dark eyes darted through the crowd. “Come Tiger. Come to Jamison.” Pete’s daughter? Gwen felt her stomach tighten further.
The small girl walked slowly up to the captain. He leaned down and pinched her cheek hard enough to make her flinch. “There you are my dear. My, have you grown. Pretty little thing, aren’t you? Awe, too bad your daddy’s never come to rescue his little girl. Shame on him.” With a sigh he patted her head and ordered the group back to their places in line. “Well now. Let’s get back to business. We have a problem I am hoping you fine folks can help us with. It’s come time we need to harness your energy once again to power our world. There will be a draining in two days’ time. As some of you remember from the last draining…sadly not all of you will make it. I wish you luck! In honor of our newest guest, Princess Gwendolyn, we will be adding…meat to your rations tonight. Enjoy my friends!”
He turned and walked slowly out the doors as his Manticans reluctantly followed. Gwen breathed a sigh of relief, but noticed she was the only one relieved. Everyone else stayed perfectly still, barely breathing. The black beast whined a gravely whine at his master. The captain stopped and hollered back in afterthought. “Oh alright. Just one.”
The beast walked slowly up to Gwen licking his lips and baring his large teeth. She shivered in terror and braced herself for the attack. Just before the beast swiped her away with his massive paw, the captain yelled once more, “Not that one!” The dark mantican settled on the boy next to
her instead. He swiped him from beside her with one swift almost graceful movement. The boy barely had time to let out a scream before the beast snapped his neck. He carried off his prize like a dog with a biscuit.
As soon as the monsters disappeared through steel doors the group scurried back to their positions. Gwen still couldn’t move. The boy. His freckled face. His long brown hair. He was gone in an instant. She almost didn’t hear Lily’s worried voice as she knelt down to her daughter, scooping her up off the dirt. She carried her swiftly to the only water pump in the work arena. Gwen followed.
“Tiger, baby, what happened? She poured water over the girls face.
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“I, I don’t know mama. She did it. She took my power.”
Lily looked cautiously around. “Shhh. Tiger, you know we don’t talk about that when we’re not alone.”
Gwen began to make sense of it all. The girl had gotten some sort of ability from Pete. When she took the girls hand, she subconsciously took her energy…through her collars walls.
“It’s not possible baby, she has on a collar, see?” Lily motioned to Gwen’s lime green collar.
Gwen interrupted in a hushed tone, “No, I think she’s right. I felt it. It was faint but I felt it.”
Lily’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a borrower? Or a taker?” she asked quickly.
“I…I don’t know. Tina, a fairy, thinks a borrower. I don’t know much about my ability. I just know it’s…dangerous.” Gwen pushed thoughts of her incident in the gazebo out of her mind.
“Yes. I know Tina. Takers are the most worrisome.” Lily added. “Come on baby, we have to get up. Lily picked her daughter up and winced as the girl wrapped her hands around Lily’s neck. Gwen looked at Lily’s back and was horrified at what she saw. Blood stained the beauty’s thin shirt.
“Are you alright?” Gwen asked.
“Fine. Come on. We have to get busy. I don’t want to draw attention from the guards again.” They made their way back to the rocks.
“Does Pete know?” Gwen asked quietly.
Lily sighed. “Yes. I told him before we were taken.” She clenched her tan jaw as she worked the rock.
He knew. He knew and he never spoke a word to Gwen. Were his feelings for her real? Was anything about Pete real? She couldn’t decide.
“Does he know you’re here?” Gwen hoped for a no answer.
Lily nodded.
“Is it true, he hasn’t ever come for you?” Gwen could feel her blood begin to boil. What kind of man leaves his child in this sheer hell? She hoped there was more to this story than met the eye.
Darlings Page 14