Chapter 8: The Realization
When Lunetta first stepped into Bad Town, she was met with inhuman conditions, rats scurried around beneath the elevated shanties, ungodly scents surrounded the area, the dirt creased in between her tiny toes, it felt like bugs beneath her feet. She was met with the sight of deranged natives, some leaning leisurely against dirty cardboard buildings and others sitting on the ground in the muck of the unsanitary earth.
Voices sounded from everywhere, shouting this way and that coming from shanties as she passed. Stepping over the prickly splinters of wood that bridged over the trenches of water that flowed from the river alongside the Town. She received stares as she curiously stepped further into hell, passing a market and a whore house, where rotten fish carcasses and disease ridden women were sold alike.
She felt that unexplained feeling that someone gets when being watched and stopped in her tracks looking around with narrowed eyes, when she saw only the usual pairs on her, she continued walking, much more cautiously this time. At the end of Bad Town was a bar, she assumed that this was where she would find the Americans and quickly made her ways towards it.
She ignored the eyes of men that inhabited the River Town, hoping that none of them were stupid to assume she was a whore. She entered the Bar which surprisingly held more stink that the outside air, walking further in having to step over a drunkard man on the ground she entered into the larger portion of the saloon.
She made note of the few that took stay at the scattered round wooden tables, the dim red lighting giving a calming mood to the overall layout of the bar and the bald bar tender in his button up blue shirt, who stood at the counter pointlessly rubbing his cloth along the rusty counter top. Signs and images littered the aluminum walls, thin enough to still hear the conversations that had arisen outside.
Making a further inspection of the area, she found a man in the corner of the bar, alone. His cowboy boots propped up on the table, chest of tattoos revealed past the unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt he wore. His beard thick and hair slicked back, long jeans rolling down his bulky legs. She personally warned herself away from this man. Another section of the bar caught her eye where she caught sight of another man, completely dressed in a white suit. This man drawled her curiosity as he was American, brown hair ending at the shoulders and expensive glasses hanging from his nose. His refined features proved that he had been taken care of well and she immediately sought him as the man to go to.
She thought up how she was to act around this man, he did not look easy to fool, despite looks being deceiving. She approached him taking a seat beside him, he shot his gaze to her before looking back, holding the beer in his hand, he brought it up to his lips and drunk from the glass bottle.
"I'm not who you are looking for?"
"And how do you know who I am looking for?" He took another sip of his beer, making a quenched sound, he placed it down with an audible thud. She leaned on an elbow and fluttered her eyes at him, hoping that would be an alright move to persuade.
"La Luna de Sangre, in English meaning Blood moon. Birth name, Lunetta Rodrigo, age nineteen, follows under the Pirates, just recently having lost Barsul Rodrigo, sibling male, age nine... Must I continue?" Lunetta was shocked, her jaw dropped at all the information he had on her. How could he know such things, particularly about her? She wasn't sure whether to be pissed or mad, believe that with Lunetta there was difference. Lunetta shook her head, she was not expecting this at all.
"Who are you?"
"That is classified information. All you need to know is that the trio you are looking for..." He pointed to the man alone in the corner. "Were captured by Buck, might wanna hurry, he kills them off quickly from what I know." Lunetta looked over at the man, he sat up pulling a wad of hundreds from his pocket, he placed it on the counter and left.
Lunetta's eyes traced back to Buck, she completely forgot about the man in white and instead all her attention was set on the lone Buck sitting directly across from her. She contemplated whether, or not she should handle this herself or call Benny and tell him the news. She couldn't do that though, that would be weakness, she had a mission. She didn't need help to get those Americans, she just needed herself and the power of persuasion.
She sat there for a few minutes in deep thought thinking out every scenario, every consequence to each failure and every praise to the possibility of success. In her thoughts she did not realize that Buck had stood up and left. When she glanced back to his table, she nearly panicked in recognition of his absence.
Standing up she made a logical deduction that he simply was off and on his way. She rushed out the door, exiting towards the sloppy looks and rude eyes of those that camped out front. She scavenged around, eventually following down the path of the village.
For some reason everything seemed light at that moment, her mind became mush and she had forgotten why she was here, what she was doing... She stopped in her footsteps and spun around to look at the various settings around her. She could hear their voices echo in her ears and dizziness consume her.
"What the..." Before she could finish her words, her eyes shut out of her control and she stumbled to the ground with a thud.
There in that moment in everyone's life where they come to a realization, they have a vision, or a feeling, or an epiphany that brings them to their purpose in life. Lunetta had not found hers, when her brother died, she had thought she had no more purpose... But for some basis when her world came crashing down, it came crashing down for a reason and everything seemed to collide together into one meaning.
Delicate in thought, she felt that rush straight to both her soul and consciousness. She felt the enlightenment that she hadn't sought for that came to her so easily in the darkness of her life. She sat up awake in a puddled mess of sweat and dirt, looking around she found that she was no longer in Badtown. Instead she was in a bamboo cage, several of them were outside the compound, which was exactly her location.
She stood up, brushing herself off, her breath grew heavy and her eyes widened as she thought over recent events. She lifted the bottom of her tank top, which she thought she had given to Vaas, only to realize that there was no sewed wound at her abdomen. She felt and smelt her dry blood which resided just beneath her nose. The sun beamed its rays directly on her sending her into a frenzy of irritation, confusion, frustration, and sorrow. She felt every emotion that she worked so avidly to hide and they were building at the pit of her sanity, if any remained at the moment.
She paced back and forth, taking note that she was not alone. Only three others were in the cage beside her, hands bound by rope to the brittle and moldy bamboo. She paused in her revere to stare, to inspect, they were American... She connected them, the three Americans, to the ones referenced in her dream... If it was even a dream. She didn't know what to call it, she honestly couldn't even determine what was going on, what had happened, and how she got here.
The three Americans were young, around the same age as her, or maybe older. Two boys and a girl, all of them appeared to be thick-headed and obviously babied by their rich families. The first man carried pale skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. He was the stereotype of a typical American rich kid from Bellaire with short curly locks and plump lips. However the image was screwed by a bloodied nose and bruised face. The girl alongside him couldn't have been no more the same age than him. She had long flowing blonde hair and pink cheeks, her skin with a tanned base. The second man across from them, had a grey hoodie on and skinny jeans, his shoes were missing aside from his socks, and his spiky brown hair was ruffled slightly. He bore the features of a male model, broken with bruises and inflicted cuts.
She went back to pacing, feeling that she could think much more reasonably when doing so. She came up with a list of things to do in her head, making sure that each task be done properly, which was major in solving what her dreamy apparition had meant: 1)Escape this mess. 2)Speak with Benny. 3)Get to Badtown. 4)Find out who the man in white was. 5)Find Buck.
By the end of her list, her process was interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps approaching in the doubles. When she lifted her head, she could make out that the two were Benny and Vaas. They were walking down that path which led back into the compound, it branched not far from the cages, in which were nearer to the beach.
Vaas stopped beside the cage, his hands on his hips and his eyes scanning Lunetta's for any signs of fear, but instead he saw none of that.
"You've been out for four days. I told Benny that if you weren't up today, we were gonna feed you to the Sharks." Benny shook his head to rebut the idea non-verbally. He stepped up to the cage, placing a hand by the bar and showing a sympathetic expression.
"How are you? Are you hungry? Thirsty maybe?" Vaas tutted Benny with a small smirk, shaking his head.
"No, special treatment for this woman. She couldn't even take a punch. She couldn't even fight."
"Listen Vaas, I don't think you know her like I do. Didn't I tell you-"
"Yeah, Yeah. She did cage fighting." While Vaas spoke, he waltzed gleefully over to the American guests, crouching down beside the bars. He could see how afraid they were, but by now they had already been broken through torture and heavy threats of death. "If she is such a good fighter, why didn't she win last night? It's alright, I am not going to complain, but now she belongs to me. That was our deal."
"No the deal was Vaas, that you would-"
"Enough! I'm right fucking here for Christ's sake I can take care of myself Benny. I don't need you." Lunetta impulsively interrupted, crossing her arms and fuming over his overprotectiveness of her. Benny looked her in the eyes, hoping she didn't mean what she said, when he saw that she did. He said nothing and turned leaving Vaas alone with Lunetta and the others.
Vaas clapped his hands in mock appreciation, standing up and leaning into the bars of the cage juxtapose to the one she was in.
"Damn Chica. You really fucked up this time. He is your only chance at getting the fuck out of that cage." Vaas turned to follow Benny, but with a swiftness to her reaction she snatched the bars.
"Wait." He stopped in his place, feet together, arms hanging at his sides, he looked over his shoulder just so in a manner that his eyes weren't staring at he but his ears could hear her words.
"Yes?"
"What if I made a deal with you? What if I knew something you didn't?" Vaas spun around and trotted enthusiastically over to the cage.
"I don't think you are in any position to negotiate, but for the sake of my amusement, you can try."
"There is a man... He wears white and inhabits Badtown, I am positive he knows something we could use."
"So you are yet again assuming, Chica?" He crossed his arms and bit his bottom lip.
"Look at where that got you, making assumptions is a bad thing to do, you assumed that the Rakyat were set out to kill you and now you are here."
"I know for a fact that they want me dead and there is only one way to end this." She growled between clenched teeth, grip tightening on the bars.
"You will never learn." He tutted softly, but still listened to her banter.
"Learn what?" She retorted. "Learn how to lose that sense of hope that everything will be handed to me on a silver platter. I know how shitty life can be, Vaas. I don't need you to teach me and I certainly don't need help." Vaas glared at her in silent frustration, his fists clenched tighter and he sighed. "You won't ever respect me unless you give me a chance to prove that I can adapt, that I have what it takes."
"And if you don't? If you die? If you are just some weak pussy, what then? How am I supposed to make an example out of you? You made your mistakes, now it's time for you to pay for them." He was about to leave again, just before he did, she snatched her hand between the bars to grab his arm. His eyes flashed to her and he tugged away angrily, hand instinctively placed on his gun.
"I have made my mistakes, but the whole point of being a pirate is to start a new life, forget your past and continue towards the future. I want to do that... I need to do that." She was just trying to convince him now, anything that would prevent him from ignoring her completely until she died of starvatio, or dehydration, mostly the latter in this heat.
"I'll be back tomorrow with your answer." He replied, turning and leaving. She was lying the entire time, she knew that if she became a pirate bad things would follow. So once she had Vaas's trust, she would go straight to Badtown for Buck and that other man. She sat back down in her cage Indian style and took a deep breath, hoping to calm her jumbled nerves.
She looked to the bright blue sky that was Rook Island's ever weighted beauty and for once in a long while... Relaxed.
