Unwilling (Book One of the Compelled Trilogy 1) (26 page)

She could make out the hand that held the lantern first, it was small and pale, so unlike the hand of her abductor that Rowan was taken aback.
There are more people down here? How many, and do they all know I’m here? Could I persuade one of them to let me go?
If she could speak, she would use her “gift” and force them to let her go, but her tongue was too large in her mouth and when she tried to speak the words that came out were an intelligible mess.

When Rowans eye had adjusted, she let her hand fall lifelessly into the dirt. It took to much energy to hold it up. Energy she didn’t currently have. The person holding the lantern placed it down on a table outside her cage, illuminating the area around her.

Rowan squinted; sure her eye was playing a trick on her. The girl couldn’t have been more than 13. She had soft-looking red hair that fell like fire in thick waves to her flat chest. She was small, delicate. Her skin was pale, but she was clean and when she stepped closer Rowan thought she smelt like spices, sage and rosemary, perhaps.

The girl wore simple brown clothes that were baggy on her slight frame. Her pants were held up with a thin rope that dangled down to her knee. She was beautiful, or rather would be, once she came into herself.

“I’m not supposed to be down here.” She stated with a slight smile. Her voice was soft and she sounded certain of herself, as if she knew the rules and did not care that she was breaking them. She sat on the floor, her legs crossed. Rowan noticed she didn’t wear shoes and her feet were almost black, caked with dirt. “Are you hurt terribly?” She asked. She scooted a little closer, but stayed out of reach of the bars as though she thought Rowan were a crazed criminal, bound to strangle her at any moment. Rowan shook her head; she wouldn’t reveal her weaknesses to the people that held her prisoner, even if this one did seem innocent. “Are you hungry?” She tried again.

Rowan thought a minute, and nodded.

“You don’t talk much do you?” She asked. Rowan didn’t say anything, obviously, only stared at her. “Alright hold on a minute, I’ll be right back.” The girl sprang up in that way youthful people did and Rowan never felt as old as she did right then. Rowan was shocked to find that her birthday had come and gone a few weeks ago, unnoticed, and unremarkable. She was 18 now.

The girl had taken the lantern with her, the light swaying off the walls as she left and Rowan found she wanted the girl to come back, and immediately rejected the thought. Even if she was a small child, she was as still as much Rowan’s jailor as Kastor was.

Rowan breathed in the silence. Her body ached and she felt stupid for her previous actions. She should be trying to regain her strength, not do everything she could to deplete it further. Rowan was exhausted. Everything in her wanted to curl up and go to sleep but she resisted, knowing that the child would likely be coming back soon.

So Rowan sat there, in the darkness, listening to water drip somewhere in the room. She wondered if perhaps there was an opening in the walls around her she could use to make an escape, even if that meant digging through rock with her bare hands.

The girl bounded back into the room. She was out of breath as if she had ran a great distance and carried in her hands a crude tin cup, and a plate piled high with food.

It smelt delicious and Rowan’s mouth watered, betraying her starvation. Her traitorous stomach chose that time to gurgle and Rowan mentally cursed her wretched body.

“I brought you some food!” The girl said cheerfully. She slid the plate along the dirt floor; it was just short enough to pass under the bars without touching them. “I’m Cecily, by the way, my father named me for my grandmother who passed before I was born. Not that you asked my name, I just thought you should know.” She shook her head, a frown crossing her face, but then her smile returned, her white teeth glaringly bright in the dim space. “Uncle says I’m always telling people things I shouldn’t and I should learn to keep my trap shut.” She leaned close to the bars and whispered, “But you can keep a secret can’t you?” She asked seriously, her eyes growing large and round, as though her telling Rowan her name was a prized possession that she did not share with just anyone. Rowan nodded, not sure what else to do.

“CECILIY!” A voice boomed somewhere in the distance. Rowan recoiled, knowing that voice to be Kastor’s, hoping he didn’t come here to find Cecily.

“Well, I’ve got to go! Uncle will be furious if he finds me here, but I’ll try to come back soon.” She smiled and took a few steps away, but turned back to Rowan. “I can just tell were going to be great friends.” Cecily pranced away, taking the light with her.

TWENTY-TWO

Rowan slept next to the sheep again. She did not have any blankets and the straw was rough against her skin, but once she fell asleep, it wasn’t so bad. It was the getting to sleep that made her lose her mind. She just could not seem to shut down, stop the thoughts that consumed her, plagued her; Cecily, and her unexpected arrival into her life, Kastor and his name marring her flesh, Elias and if he was safe, if he was hurting someone, if he had gone mad like mother, if she would even be able to help him find himself again, whenever she found him – if she managed to escape this prison first- and she thought of Jace, Jace and his green green eyes, Jace and his warm embrace, Jace and his comforting words, his stories. Jace and his beautiful heart, asking her not to go, pleading her with his eyes to stay with him, and leaving him anyway. She knew Jace was out there somewhere, looking for her, she knew he would never find her, not down here in this cold pit, she knew she didn’t want him to waste his life searching for her. All these thoughts, these torturous, useless thoughts not allowing her body drift off into unconsciousness.

Sometime in the night, or was it day now? Rowan had drifted into an uneasy sleep, tossing and turning in the itchy straw, nightmares tormenting her, her unconscious mind was as restless, as cruel in her sleep as it was when she was awake. Her back was sore when she woke up. Just the thin shirt she was wearing felt like all the weight of the world pressed on her tender back. Her tongue felt better though, not as swollen inside her mouth. Rowan lay there a while after she woke, shivering in the damp air. The sheep had moved away from her sometime in the night-day? Rowan wished she could see the sun, the blue sky, a bird, trees- and it eyed her cautiously now. Rowan reached her hand out slowly toward it and it bah’d at her, but didn’t move.

The sheep’s coat was a dirty white, thick and curly. She could feel its warmth circling around it and felt envious that she could not be a sheep, with a portable fur downed coat. “You need a name.” Rowan told it, then shook her head.
Speaking to sheep now are we?

Rowan moved away from the sheep, her body crying out in pain. If she could see her body, she was sure she would be covered in bruises; blue and purple, some yellow and green, covering her body and intertwining like a map of pain, each one telling a different story she didn’t want to hear, didn’t want to remember. Rowan probably looked a mess. Her hair matted and caked in dirt, her bloody stainedclothes filthy over her filthy body.
If Jace did happen to find me right now, would he even be able to recognize me?

Her shoulders felt knotted and she rolled them, wincing in pain. Her left arm itched horribly where her burn was, the skin agitated as it tried to heal. Bitter anger rose like bile in her throat as she looked down at the brutal disfigurement. Full of pity for herself Rowan slowly made her way toward the cell door. Her hand pushed along the ground searching for the plate of food and the water she had left there the previous night.

Rowan had only managed a few measly bites before she had felt full, her stomach shrinking drastically in the time it had taken to travel here. She wondered again how long it had been since she had been abducted. Rowan knew the longer she was here, the less likely it was that anyone would ever come for her.

Her hand struck something cold and she felt around it, groping in the near darkness for the bread and meat saved from last night. She ate slowly, relishing the food. Even though it was hard and cold, it had good flavor, and Rowan wondered if Cecily had made it. She drank the chilled water slowly, washing her breakfast down. She felt full after just six bites.

Rowan lay on the ground, stretching her hands above her head and gasping at a sharp pain in her ribs. She felt around the damaged area; a right lower rib stuck out slightly more than the others did and she thought it was probably broken and would take a while to heal. Rowan groaned as she touched the area surrounding it. It felt swollen to her but she was not a doctor, and that could just be how ribs felt.

Rowan scratched her head, dirt sticking under her fingernails. She felt disgusted and if the offer presented itself right now, she might just consider selling her soul if she could only bathe. She imagined a tub with steaming water, soap making bubbles on the surface. Maybe she would perfume the water with some rose petals, or orange peels as she often had as a child, and when she stepped from the bath her skin would be pink and glowing with cleanliness. Rowan smiled but it quickly faded, she was more likely to die first, than take a bath. She kicked her leg sideways at the cage bars, only hitting air, and yelped in rage and agony.

How did I wind up here; locked in a rusty cage with a damned sheep
?
How have I been reduced to this sniveling mess of a girl
? She had withstood brutal beatings from the person who was supposed to love her most. The two people she HAD loved the most had abandoned her, one permanently, the other without a second look back. She had endured months of living on the hard ground in search of her brother. She had fallen in love and then she had been ripped away from him and Gods only knew if she would ever see Jace again.
And this was where it will all end, in a smelly hole in the ground, with people I don’t know and who want to see me dead
.

Rowans eyes darkened. She breathed heavily, fighting the tears that threatened to spill out from behind her lids and dampen the dirt. She did not want to die at the hands of the monsters that held her, probably slowly and with excruciating pain.
I want some choice! I don’t want to die down here in this pit, my future controlled by K…
Rowan trailed off, unable to even think Kastor’s name for the pain it caused her.

Rowan floundered around in the dark for the tin cup Cecily had brought her water in the night before. The metal was soft enough to bend, but still solid enough to pierce through, if she struck hard enough. With a little effort, Rowan was able to fashion the cup into a makeshift dagger, the tip was sharp and she sliced her hand open trying to bend the metal. She could feel her warm blood dripping down her palm but she did not feel the pain of it, so feverish she was in her work.

When she finished she felt the weapon proudly. It was sharp and would do what she wanted it to easily. Rowan felt triumphant, but also sad, so sad, for contemplating what she was. This didn’t make her any better than her father, maybe cowardice ran in the family. Rowan looked down at the knife bitterly, resolve settling over her, she wouldn’t go out of this world like that. If she were to go, it would be kicking and screaming and fighting for every breath she took. She would not be her father.

Just then she heard some shuffling and saw a pinprick of light coming toward her. The person holding it stumbled slightly, the lantern swaying, the flame almost doused in their attempt to right themselves. Rowan quickly scrambled to hide the crude dagger beneath the straw, wincing in pain as she did so. She backed as far away from the cage door as possible, trying to hide herself in a corner lest it was Kastor coming for her.

“Rowan?” A voice called out, trying to keep their voice low and Rowans eyebrows slammed down over eyes in disbelief. She clamored forward, her fore head cramming against the cage as he came into view, the old man hobbling toward her like a vision, an impossible, miraculous, vision. Rowan was sure she was never so happy to see anyone in her entire life, a goofy grin breaking out over her face.

“Jacob!” Rowan exclaimed, never thinking in a hundred lifetimes that the old man would have been the one to rescue her. She heard chattering at her feet and looked down to see Moon Shine, Jacob’s pet ferret skittering about her legs. She smiled, joy rushing through her to see the animals bushy tail and bright eyes.

A million questions ran through Rowans mind.
How is he here? How did he find me? Has he been following me all this time? Did I really see him in that inn?
“Why did you come here?” Was what spilled out of her mouth instead, her smile fading and replaced by a frown.
If he is caught down here, Kastor will kill him.

Jacob gave her a curious expression but didn’t answer. “You shouldn’t have come down here.” Rowan told him. Jacob bent to peer at the lock holding her captive, his face twisted in concentration, his eyes darting back and forth rapidly as he examined the cool metal of her prison. “Why are you following me?” Rowan tried again.

Jacob shot a quick look at her, one filled with pain and mourning. “I… knew, your father.” Jacob responded, his voice strained and Rowan racked her brain for any mention her father might have told her of Jacob; but her father had seen hundreds of patients in his lifetime, and he hardly ever spoke of them with his children. Rowan decided to let the conversation drop so Jacob could concentrate on the lock.