Chapter Two
Prison for Two
I've hardly had any time to write this week. I was working so many hours this week, and I've been quite busy with other things, as well. I hope this chapter is good enough, but I feel it's a little sub-par.
I start school this week, as well, so updates may take a bit longer than usual.
Thank you so much for the reviews, and enjoy!
I wasn't sure how long it took me to get to Fort Charles. I didn't care. I was in a daze. It still seemed like I had imagined it – me, arrested for treason. I didn't want to believe it, but, the closer we got to Fort Charles, the more real it seemed.
I could barely manage to think of how I ended up in this situation. As I put one foot in front of the other, my wrists shackled, and a man gripping each of my upper arms, I couldn't think of how I was just given a death sentence. Had I done something awful when I had time traveled and not known it? I liked to think that I would remember doing something awful – only in this instance. It was better than being completely clueless as to why I was being arrested.
Things seemed more awful yet as I entered Fort Charles. It was a nightmare come to life.
Prison.
The walls of the prison were made gray stone. They were absolutely unbreakable. It kept you from escaping and, immediately, I felt as if I were going to go insane. It truly was a prison.
My heart pounded inside my chest, and I tried to ignore the prisoners in the cells, but I could feel their stare on me. They were talking about me. I was the newbie in the prison, and, worst yet, I was a female.
"'Ere's the new 'ne, lads!" one in a cell behind me bellowed in a thick Cockney accent. "Ain't she a pre'y li'l thing? What could a gi'l like he' do to end up 'e'e?"
I could feel my knees going weak and my heart pumping even faster. For once, I was grateful that there were soldiers holding onto me. I was sure that I would have fallen over, otherwise.
Fear was overwhelming me. I didn't belong with these people. The look in their eyes were ones that only criminals could posses – someone who stole or killed without emotions. True, I had made some mistakes (some illegal), but they hardly qualified for being put in jail, much less being killed over!
Cell after cell seemed to empty, but the soldiers escorted me further yet down the row of cells. I supposed they wanted the traitor separated from the rest. I peaked inside all of the cells – they were so dirty. There was no bed, and the flooring was the same gray stone as the walls.
The sun hadn't even risen yet, and torches lit the hallway of the prison. It was eerie, almost ghostly. Shadows danced against the walls. It fit the mood perfectly. The torches served as almost a foreshadowing to my inevitable death. Those would be the death of me in a day.
At the fifth cell from the back, away from all the other prisoners, the soldiers stopped. One – the one who gave me the warrant for my arrest – stepped away from the group behind me and came forward. I heard keys jingling in the silence, and, soon enough, I put an object to the sound. He slid the key into the lock. His eyes never drifted towards me, and kept them intently on the unlocking my cell.
He turned the key and opened the cell. I was all but thrown into it by the soldiers who held my arms. I heard the slamming of the cell door. I turned around quickly to face the entrance. The door to the cell was closed, and bars surrounded me, caging me in. I was, in every sense of the word, in a prison.
My chest became tight, and the only thing I could focus on was that I was locked in the cell until tomorrow – my final day.
As I watched the soldiers walk away. I tried to think not like Will, but like myself, were I not engulfed in a thick fog of fright and confusion.
I walked to the cell door and gripped the metal bars tightly. My jaw clenched, and all I could bring myself to do was look at them for a moment.
"You have the wrong person!" I screamed. "Come back!"
They didn't turn back around. A sob constricted my throat.
"If I were really a traitor, what the hell would I be doing in Port Royal?!"
The soldiers continued to walk away from me. They were closer to the prisoners that I had seen while coming in.
There was nothing I could say to them to make them turn around, unlock my door, and let me go back to Mrs. Ashford's Bakery. There was nothing that would let me go back to normalcy. There was nothing that would let me see Will one last time.
Fear ran over me, as cold as ice. I was completely frozen in fear, numb from the realization that my life was nearly over. I felt completely sick.
My grip loosened onto the bars, and I sank down to my knees, trying to believe that I would be granted some sort of forgiveness and be freed.
I wasn't sure how much time had passed since my arrest and the time I arrived in Fort Charles to the time that I had heard footsteps in the hallway behind me.
I had moved myself to one of the walls of my cells and sat on the floor, staring distantly to the cells of the other prisoners. I could not be here. I found myself repeating the same sentence in my head: I don't belong here.
It gave me some sort of comfort. It made me believe that when I would be brought in for questioning, like the guard promised I would, that I would somehow convince whomever that I was innocent, and I would go free.
It seemed so true, so feasible. I would be let go in just a few hours, and I could pretend like this had never happened.
But, where would Will and I go from there?
I decided that was something we would decide after I got out of prison alive.
Eventually, sun was what lit the prison, instead of fire. I couldn't bring myself to look at the fire. It would be the death of me in a day.
I heard footsteps behind me, but I didn't bother looking behind me to see who it was. I knew that it was just soldiers. I didn't even care to see them. I just wanted to get out of here.
A tiny part of me wondered if these were the soldiers that would come and let me go.
The soldiers stopped at the cell next to mine, and I saw a head full of brown, curly hair, in the middle of three soldiers. It was Will Turner – my Will that I planned to run away with tomorrow. The bastards had arrested him, too! Why?! He had done nothing!
I instantly reacted, realizing that he was in prison with me – and prison was not the place to see him.
"Will!" I said, quickly standing up.
Will's brown eyes, dull today, turned dark when he saw me. At that moment, I knew that his fate was no better at mine, but I refused to let myself think about it.
"They have you, too," he said, looking at me.
"Will, what's going on? What are we doing here?" I asked.
One soldier unlocked the door to his cell, and he walked in without protest. He went to me. I placed my hands on the bars, and he put his over mine.
"I'm arrested for piracy," he said frankly.
My stomach sank. Piracy. It was what we were leaving Port Royal for.
I quickly made myself realize that he was arrested. Only I knew of this, and I had kept the secret to myself.
"Will, I didn't tell anyone, I swear --"
"I know," he interrupted.
There were a few moments of silence where I wondered if he questioned my honesty.
"I trust you," he said. "I just don't know how it got out."
I wondered if he really did trust me. After all, I was here, and it would have been mindless to tell Lord Beckett that there was a criminal hiding in Port Royal. He had to trust me!
"I just don't know why you're here," he said hopelessly.
"An accessory to your crime and treason," I answered.
As Will remained speechless, I heard keys jingling in the lock to my cell. This was no time for him to say nothing. I had to get answers while I could.
"Were you just arrested?" I asked.
After a few moments, he blinked and tried to bring himself to answer the question.
"N-No," he stuttered. "Questioning -- I think you're next."
All hope in proving my innocence was useless now. Will was in for piracy, and I was in for treason. I guessed that questioning was nothing short of hell.
My cell door creaked open.
"Treason?" he asked me. "Christine... what --"
"I don't know," I said, going towards the door. The three soldiers that escorted Will were now waiting for me. "Like I said: What are we doing here?"
