Ch. 8: Please hold me now
Elliot tried to blink away the darkness, before remembering that there was no real light in the cell. He and Gilbert were being held hostage in the torture dungeons of some noble family. It was the middle of the night and it seemed that he had finally managed to fall asleep, instead of freezing in momentary panic whenever he heard footsteps or screams.
The day had been strenuous. Already the abduction was bad. The questioning session made the whole experience hellish and when the men returned to cut a lock of Gilbert's hair and take away the bloodied cravat, they have made sure to scare them much more than the situation called for. He shivered at the memories of fear and helplessness, when he had thought that the men returned to cause some serious damage. Gilbert's screaming still echoed in his ears when he thought about it, so he forced those memories out of his mind.
The night birds were singing somewhere near and there was nobody walking in the corridor or screaming as they were being tortured. Elliot wondered what was it that woke him up, until he heard a muffled cry and Gilbert trashed next to him, hitting him in the stomach. Even though the blow was not strong, it fell exactly on the bruise left by the man earlier and Elliot gasped in pain.
'Gilbert?' he asked, but the boy just continued trashing, whimpering. Blindly, he reached out until his hand rested on Gilbert's trembling shoulder. 'Wake up, Gil,' he called louder and the boy sat up with a gasp, their foreheads colliding.
'Ouch,' Elliot moaned as stars danced in front of his eyes. 'I'll never do that again, Gil,' he added, laughing when the other boy started apologising, sounding close to tears. 'I'm joking, Gil, it's alright. At least I think it is. Are you alright? Were you having a nightmare?' he asked, sitting up against the cold wall and massaging his forehead.
His eyes got marginally used to the darkness and, in the meagre light coming through the pathetic excuse for a window, Elliot could vaguely see Gilbert's silhouette. The younger boy was also sitting up, massaging his forehead. Elliot could hear him trying to breathe deep, shaky breaths, probably to calm down.
'We're really in a cell,' Gilbert muttered eventually, sounding disappointed. Elliot could see his hand falling from his forehead to his knee. 'We really got kidnapped,' he added, his voice only slightly wavering.
'Yeah, we really got kidnapped,' Elliot confirmed, wishing that he had better news to deliver. 'Is that what you were dreaming about?' he asked, hoping that it was a safe question to ask. He thought he could see Gilbert shake his head.
'Not really,' the boy mumbled. 'I was dreaming about before.'
'Before you came to live at the manor?' Elliot asked, although he was pretty sure of the answer he would get. Gilbert nodded. 'Do you want to talk about it?'
'Won't you hate me if you know the truth?' Gilbert asked back, surprising Elliot with the question. Out of all the worries he could imagine Gilbert having, this was not one of them.
'Hate you?' he repeated, letting his surprise ring clear in his tone. 'I don't think you could ever do anything that would make me hate you Gil,' he assured the boy.
A while of silence followed his statement and then Gilbert clumsily, probably because he could also barely see anything, moved to sit next to Elliot and snuggled close. Automatically, Elliot wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
'I only ever told it all to the Duke,' he mumbled unclearly, because his face was hidden in Elliot's clothes. Elliot assured him that it was alright if he didn't want to talk about it, that he just wanted to help if talking would dispel the nightmare. 'It's this place that brings the nightmare,' Gilbert replied, pulling away slightly so that he could speak properly.
'I still can't understand why you would have been in a prison of any kind,' Elliot told him. After all, Gilbert had been five years old when he came to live in the manor. What could he have possibly done to have been put in prison?
'I got caught stealing food,' the younger boy said and cowered when Elliot gasped in surprise. 'Vince and I were hungry and there was no other way to get anything,' he added quickly, as though excusing himself.
'Where were your parents?' Elliot asked. He could guess that he wasn't going to like the answer, but he couldn't help asking.
'I don't know. I don't remember them at all, because they sold us shortly after Vince was born,' Gilbert replied. Elliot couldn't help asking why, even though he didn't expect the boy to know. 'The person who owned us said that it was because of Vince's eye. Everything always happened because of that eye.'
'But,' Elliot couldn't find words to say. He felt like there was something he should say, but he couldn't figure out what it could be. Gilbert sniffed and he hugged the boy closer, to let him know that he didn't hate him.
'We ran away, because I felt like I had to be somewhere else,' Gilbert continued after a while of silence. 'And because the people were not treating us well, but it might have been a mistake, because it was even harder to live in the streets. That is why I tried to steal food, but I got caught by the lady whose bread I was taking. She called an officer and insisted that I get punished,' Gilbert paused and swallowed. 'Maybe the officer would have let me go, but then Vince butted in and they saw his eye and the woman panicked. She said that it was the devil's eye.'
'And you got sent to prison?' Elliot asked incredulously. Gilbert nodded against his chest, but didn't say anything. A four-year-old and a five-year-old sent to prison for trying to steal bread? Something didn't add up in that story, but Elliot didn't doubt the truthfulness of Gilbert's words. 'How did you meet the Duke then?'
'Well, we got out of prison after some time and we were back on the streets, so eventually I had to try and steal some food again, no?' Gilbert asked back. 'So I tried and I got caught again, this time by a severe looking man with violet eyes. They are so scary, Duke's eyes,' he added and Elliot had to laugh.
'This must have been the worst introduction ever,' he noted and Gilbert giggled quietly. 'So what did the Duke do?'
'It was kind of freaky, but he just looked at me. He looked and looked and I was so scared that I couldn't move, even though I should have ran. I thought he would call an officer and we would be back in prison and, although there was food there, it wouldn't be nice. Then the Duke looked at Vince, who was always close by me, and said that he was taking us with him, which was possibly even scarier than the prison.'
This time, Elliot didn't laugh, well aware of the horrors that could have awaited the two brothers, should they have been picked up by somebody else. Instead he asked if they haven't tried running then, but Gilbert told him that they never had the time. Fang, whose name Gilbert found out later, grabbed him before he could even think about running and Vince wouldn't have run alone.
'In the end, Vince's red eye was good for something,' Gilbert concluded the story. Elliot wondered if it was pure luck or fate that had guided Gilbert to try and steal from that particular person. From talking with his father, he was under the impression that the Duke Baskerville didn't just choose a random person to be his successor, so what if Gilbert hadn't been there in that particular moment? Or what if he had succeeded in stealing the food and ran away?
'Well, I learned a new thing about you after all,' he said lightly, feeling how Gilbert moved to look at him. He looked down at the black-haired silhouette. 'That you are not so good at stealing,' he clarified, laughing when Gilbert punched him lightly after a moment of surprise.
'I was five,' he protested. 'Besides, being good at stealing is nothing to be proud of,' he added indignantly.
'Of course it's not,' Elliot agreed. 'But later remind me to teach you how to hide Leo's books so that he doesn't notice and spends half a day looking for them,' he added with a mischievous smile. When the boy didn't reply, he wished he could see his expression. 'If you want that is.'
'Do you think that we will get out of here?' Gilbert asked after a while. So that was what was bothering him, Elliot thought.
'I cannot imagine the Duke stopping before you are safely back in the manor,' he replied truthfully. 'I cannot imagine my father giving up on me either, since he kind of needs the heir,' he added with a smile. 'Try to sleep a bit more now. We need all the strength we can get, because we have to wait for them to come and get us.'
'Thanks Elliot,' Gilbert mumbled, snuggling closer and resting his head against Elliot's chest.
'Any time, Gil, any time,' he muttered back, resting his head against the wall and closing his eyes. Find us soon, he thought. Find us before those guys decide to hurt us seriously, he added, because he knew that, for all the fright they have been given so far, it was nothing compared to what those men could do to them.
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Morning brought bad news. Lottie, the pink-haired slip of a woman that was, according to Jack, a vicious beast, came to pick Kevin up from his bedroom. The bedroom was situated next to those of the kids and the Baron, but they weren't with Lottie and the woman didn't stop to pick them up either.
'Is there a problem?' he asked finally, having noticed how tense she was and how rigid were her steps, when the previous night she has been the personification of grace. She glared at him briefly and he thought she would ignore his question, but then she huffed and spoke.
'Glen has received a message saying: "You have something I want, I have something you want". It was accompanied by a lock of black, wavy hair and a ripped piece of a bloodied, white, silk cravat,' she said. Kevin winced, because it was such a cliché and yet efficient as a way of saying that the sender had hostages. The cravat might have or might have not belonged to Elliot Nightray who might have or might have not been seriously hurt, but the threat was obvious.
'No signature,' he guessed.
'Of course,' she replied. 'I don't think anybody is stupid enough to focus the fury of Duke Baskerville on themselves, however, that is a serious clue that whoever has kidnapped Gilbert and the young master Elliot is after the item your master have found,' she added.
'But it provides no clue as to who it might have been,' he pointed out and he could literally hear her grit her teeth.
'You don't need to remind me of the helpless situation we are in,' she ground out. 'The only thing we have is the nightmare that Vincent had, because Lacie believes he might have dreamt about what has really happened to Gilbert,' she added after a deep breath.
Vincent's dream ended up worrying everybody even more, because he had dreamt about being hurt, while two people, cloaked in red with hoods hiding their faces, held Elliot, who was screaming something about knowing nothing. Having told them that much, the boy turned into a complete emotional mess. Lacie left with him, so that they could talk.
Duke Baskerville was furious that the kidnappers dared to mock him by wearing red, although Kevin supposed it was just a distraction from worry. Earl Nightray seemed both relieved that his son was alive and guilty for feeling relieved when Gilbert might have been seriously hurt. It suddenly didn't seem unlikely that the blood on the silk cravat hasn't been Elliot's but Gilbert's. The last occupant of the room, Jack looked stricken and pale, standing in the corner of the room as though he didn't wish to be seen.
The persistent thought that Jack had a red cloak didn't leave Kevin's mind and he wondered if that was his supposed intuition and he should tell that to the Duke, or should he disregard it. After all, Jack had explained the cloak the previous day.
