7 Reviews

I do really love writing this story but its hard when I don't know what you guys want, or even if you're enjoying what I'm writing! So come on guys, I know you can do better than this. Plus it would make me smile a whole lot.

So here's Chapter ten (can't believe its chapter ten already!) with a little awkwardness and a lot of glares.

Chapter Ten

Awkward. It was not a feeling I'd become accustomed to whilst living with the Souls but it was an atmosphere that I had encountered every day since I entered the caves. Not one of those first tentative days, however, could compare to the stifling tension that seemed to follow me around now.

James, on the other hand, was noticeably absent from my side and since my confession three weeks ago I had barely so much as heard of him, never mind spoken to him. I had expected something like this. Perhaps he would yell at me and tell me that I had put them all in danger, which I already knew. Maybe it was the other 'event.' Maybe he'd changed his mind. This I could understand.

Any one of those things would be preferable however to the crippling loneliness that resulted from the silence. I missed his constant babbling and his soft push on my back when I began to turn the wrong way. Not that I needed that anymore. I had learnt my way around fairly quickly seeing as they didn't really trust me to be alone at first and it was easy to learn by example.

I was now stuck in a strange sort of grey area; accepted but yet rejected in equal measure.

I shifted the basket of dirty laundry into one hand and brushed my hair away from my face. It felt dirty and slick with grease. I'd forgotten to shower in my haste to eat breakfast before everybody else.

The sulphuric odour burned my nose as I grew nearer to the bathing room. I coughed and blinked away the tears that welled up to repel the mists steaming around the corner from the hot springs.

One more corner and they would see me. All of the early bathers, Sharon, Lacey, and Katie, would be waiting just beyond the curve.

I was surprised however to find that they were not alone and did not lower my eyes as I usually did to avoid their malevolent glares. Ian and Jamie stood behind the three women and on seeing my approach, quickly changed their stance to create a barrier between their bodies and mine.

"Good morning," Ian greeted me, "didn't see you at breakfast."

I balanced the basket on my hip whilst giving him a rueful smile. Finally I decided the basket was too heavy and set it down, stretching my tired arms.

"I got up early."

I shrugged. Ian and Jamie looked at each other.

"You've been doing that a lot, Lily," Jamie noted.

I blew out a puff of air and ragged my hand through my hair again.

"It's just easier this way," I said.

Ian eyed me closely and I remembered that look. His eyes were alight with the same blind curiosity that I had seen in them the day they had taken me. For this reason I was wary when he extended his arm out to me.

"I want you to come somewhere with me," he said, stepping forwards and flexing his outstretched hand to catch me attention.

I frowned. My eyes flickered down to my basket and back up to him. I raised an eyebrow sceptically.

"My basket..." I began but Jamie cut me off.

"I've got it." He smiled and bent down, grasping the basket firmly and bouncing it once in his arms. "Not a problem."

"See?" Ian laughed. "All sorted, now come on."

As I didn't move he clasped my hand in his and dragged me through the bathing room, much to the distress of the three women still following me with cold eyes. Before Ian guided me through the exit, Sunny and Kyle emerged from the first dark cave and Sunny smiled warmly.

I wasn't sure where Ian was taking me and he didn't say a word, even when I begged him for clues. The dark scowls followed us as he pulled me through the large open cavern, which had greeted me only a month before, and into another tunnel.

It was darker here. Ian glanced back at me and smiled. I knew that smile meant, 'watch your step.'

I stretched out a hand and grabbed the wall to steady myself as the trail began to incline steeply. Ian slowed, no doubt to steady his own footing, and moved his hand from mine to between my shoulder blades, urging me forwards. It reminded me of James, but this hand was too high and the tingling warmth it usual spread through me did not materialise.

"I'm trusting you with this. No blindfolds," he said adamantly.

I wondered what he could mean but my unspoken question was soon answered.

I could see light ahead and Ian's faint outline beside me became visible in the narrow tunnel. I could see the ceiling sloping downwards. I lowered my head. As we drew closer to the bright opening ahead of us my legs tensed as the ground rose up further. I hunched as the space became smaller and noticed that Ian was now behind me. He was crouched low, holding a hand over his head to protect himself from the gently falling ceiling.

A few more steps and I was there. The opening was no larger than a dustbin lid. I crawled to the edge and I stuck my head out into the one thing I had dreamt about since Ian had heaved me into the Jeep.

Air. Air and sky and sand. Perhaps I hadn't dreamt about sand but now it looked like a vast, stretching blanket of heavenly tan. I backed up into Ian in my haste to stretch out my legs before me and push myself through the small hole.

Behind me, Ian chuckled and followed suit, jumping down onto the rock beside me. It wasn't a large mass; no larger than the game room before it dropped sharply into a sheer cliff face. To me it was beautiful. High, drifting dunes floated on the horizon and sand was all I could see below.

Ian was silent. Once he was satisfied I had taken in the scene at least three times, he touched my arm and continued walking. He stopped at the edge, looked over and sat down, swinging his legs over.

He didn't turn around, didn't look at me, but I could see he was waiting for me to join him. I forced myself to take a deep breath. Ignoring my sweating palms, I walked over to him quickly. Using his shoulder to steady myself I sat down, vowing to look anywhere but down.

Ian sighed.

"He probably never told you this, but this is the first sky James ever saw. Well, it was the first sky he ever saw from outside and not just through some whole in the cave. I told him this bullshit story about how it was a boring world out there and he wasn't missing much but really I just wanted him to know that outside of that rock-" He threw a thumbs up at the cave entrance. "- there are actually still places like this." He paused, staring wistfully out at the landscape. "Not a Soul or human in sight.

"Wasn't always like that. I was sat up here on this ledge with Kyle the first time I ever saw Wanda. She was out there just wandering, as she does, back and forth across the entrance. Poor thing was exhausted when Jeb found her; not that I thought that when he brought her here."

Ian face slumped into a guilty grimace.

"When we took you I promised that we wouldn't hurt you and I hope we've fulfilled that promise. I... I tried to strangle Wanda when Jeb brought her back. I have to live with the 'what ifs' of that for the rest of my life. Well, Wanda's story is her's to tell but in the end she made us love her, whether we wanted to or not. But even after all that we still tried to kill Sunny. I didn't want it to be like that for you."

Ian's focus broke away from the desert and he fixed me with wide, guilty eyes. Blue, sapphire eyes, so like James' that I had to force my head away from him.

I decided from that expression alone that I would have to find him soon, just to ask him if he hated me, no matter what the answer was, or I would never survive this place. Everything a person could ever feel felt magnified by the tight tunnels of rock that trapped us all inside the caves together.

"I'm fine," I lied, smiling weakly at him. "Everyone has been very welcoming."

It was a pitiful attempt at deceit but it was the only one I had.

"Now I know that's not true!"

He laughed, his melancholy gone. His eyes searched my face for a moment before they widened and he looked shocked.

"You miss him," he said, almost to himself. "Here I am, dragging you out here to get away from that lot and you're upset because..." he trailed off.

My cheeks burned and I turned back to the horizon, ignoring the incredulous expression on his face.

James' father. This was James' father. What had I been thinking coming out here with him at all?

"I'm sorry. I didn't realise you'd want to know where he was."

My head shot back to him.

"You know where he is?" I asked in surprise.

"Of course I do. He's my son, Lily."

I pushed myself back and stood up, brushing my hands on my jeans. Ian followed me and dragged himself to his feet.

"Hey, Lily, calm down. He's raiding," Ian said.

He sounded slightly amused by my reaction. I, however, was not. Raiding? If he was raiding then everybody would know. They had all kept this from me, but then, it wasn't like many people were really talking to me anyway. That's when it occurred to me.

"How can he be raiding? He said the Seekers cut you off," I questioned, trying to catch him out in a lie, if there was one that is.

" Erm, perhaps he should tell you that himself."

Ian seemed a little uneasy now and it irritated me. James was still hiding things from me. He could be in danger, or he could simply be avoiding me. Either way he hadn't said goodbye and now he had his father lying for him too.

Suddenly they looked far too alike. In a daze I gave Ian another sickening glance before I turned around and climbed back into the caves.

I ran. I hurtled through the fields, catching the curious stares of the workers there. The tunnels passed me slowly and I was soon diving beneath the low entrance to my teardrop cave.

I halted when I entered; my feet frozen and my mouth hanging open slightly.

Rainbows of slowly twinkling lights bounced off the walls of my little room. Their source was a rotating mobile of brightly coloured crystals that swayed gently in the sunbeam that cascaded through my natural skylight.

The fleeting specks, like colourful fireflies danced across a lace canopy that spilled over my mattress, separating it from the rest of the room, and finally they illuminated the stark white side table, upon which now sat a small stack of folded clothes.

Lastly my eyes landed on the dirty but bright eyed figure, with white paint splattered across his shirt, that leant casually against the far wall of my cave.

"So, what do you think?" said James, stepping away from the wall and smiling tentatively.

I always wondered why with Wanda and Sunny to go out raiding they never spruced the place up a bit. So I did some renovating.

Remember, I've got my eye on you so I look forward to reading all of your reviews!