Chapter Thirteen:

Two Prisoners

2012

"I need to go after him!" I exclaimed, gathering my weapons from off the ground. "Goddammit, why the hell does he choose then to want to talk?!"

Walter laughed and retrieved his belt—pathetically, the only thing I'd managed to get off of his being. "It's not like Shaun's going to tell anyone what we were about to do. Gentleman's code."

"Just because you two are English doesn't mean you have a code!" I snapped. Once my weapons were secured, I groaned. "Oh God! What the hell were we doing?! In the Grand Temple?! Juno was probably floating around—old hag!—looking for—!"

"Calm down," Walter said, removing my hood from my head. "What's the worst that the old man could do, anyway?"

I rolled my eyes. "Please, just let me go stop him!"

He frowned, but shrugged his shoulders. "Very well. If you feel that badly about it."

"I-It's not that I feel bad about it! I just—!"

"I know, Sara. I know." Walter spun me around and gave me a gentle push towards where Shaun had been. "Go."

I nodded and bolted out of the room. I carefully made my way through the Grand Temple and saw Shaun, and Bill was about to intercept his path. I swore a few hundred times as I realized that Shaun couldn't get away from Bill. I couldn't get to Shaun in time!

"So?" Bill asked. "What was Sam and her idiot boyfriend doing?"

Idiot... boyfriend...? I made a mental note to kick Bill where it'd hurt the next time I got the chance.

Shaun adjusted his glasses after taking a sip of his coffee-cup-tea. "They were exploring," he answered vaguely.

I turned red as I realized that his words were explaining a lot, but Bill (being the old man that he was) frowned. "The Temple is too dangerous to be exploring yet. Next time you see them, tell them to be more careful."

Yeah, you have no idea how dangerous exploring that "Temple" was... I immediately shook my head and cleared the thought from it. Dammit! This generation's dirty minds...!

1748

"No, wait!"

The man grabbed my arm again. I frowned at him, and he took his sweet time examining me. We're going to be soaked at this rate... I thought glumly.

"It's me!" he exclaimed. "It's James! Don't you remember me?! James Hugh!"

I shook my head as a familiarity assaulted it. "No. I don't know you."

Ziio grabbed us both by our hoods and forcefully dragged us into the stables with John Smith watching us as if we were all completely mental. Once we had a roof over our heads, James decided to grab both of my arms.

"Come on, Sara! It's me! James Hugh!" he insisted. "My brother—!"

I kicked his shin and hurried to the back of the stables. "Leave me be!"

"WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?!" James screamed.

I stopped dead in my tracks and turned to narrow my eyes at the young man. "Lower your voice, sir. What is it you want with me?! I've nothing to offer, so you can stop pretending that you know me!"

Frowning, Ziio sighed. "Kanaka, what if he does know you? You said yourself that your memory is lost to you."

"Most of it," I corrected her. "I can still remember certain things."

"You...?" James straightened. "How?! I got reports in England that you were dead! I can't even tell my brother about them!"

"Well, I'm certain your brother would forgive you. Now please, we're going to wait out the storm in order to get back to the village. Get inside before you catch—!"

"Walter is still in love with you, goddammit!" I stared at the man in front of me. Chocolate eyes, black hair, tan skin... But he had an unruly stubble that he never took care of. "My brother is torn apart because of you! And you just left?! You hid in America?!"

"I-I..." I couldn't tear my eyes away from James. "Who...?"

And then it hit me with about as much force as a battering ram. I pressed my back against the wall of the stables and slid down, staring at my feet the entire way. I could remember Walter. Vague things, but... My heart hurt—no, ached—when I pictured him. His smile, the way his eyes lit up...

"Kanaka?" Ziio crouched in front of me and wiped a tear away that had somehow escaped me. "Kanaka?" she repeated.

I almost jumped when I heard a tap against the wood of the stables. Achilles stood there, a somehow-gentle frown on his face. "Perhaps it would be best if this conversation was brought inside before you catch hypothermia?"

Ziio grabbed my arm and hefted me to my feet. We stumbled and slipped through the pouring rain, but we eventually made it back into the house. I felt chilled to the bone, and regretted not wearing something warmer. Achilles handed his cloak to John (with James following suite) and led Ziio, James and I into the dining room, where a fire was roaring in the fireplace. The dark-skinned man gestured to some chairs, and Ziio and I sat beside each other, James taking a seat beside Achilles.

"Now, James, what was so important that you had to follow a young woman outside?" Achilles asked. I wondered briefly where Connor was, but I could hear movement upstairs. His wife was probably home.

James gestured to me with his chin. "She is my brother's lover. An Assassin, like us."

"I do not deny her obvious Assassin affiliations," Achilles replied as Ziio and I shared "looks". I was like them? Then again, once I studied Achilles more, I could see the beak on his hood, and the blades strapped to his wrists... "What I wonder is why you would confront her so. Is it not between your brother and she?"

"My brother believes that she is dead!" James insisted. "I did too!"

"Did you not think that, perhaps, she is not this person?"

"No," I murmured, cutting off James' reply. "I... I think I am."

Achilles locked eyes with me. "And what makes you think that?"

"I..." I stared at the floor. "I... remember... very little."

"I brought Kanaka to my village months ago," Ziio explained for the men. "She should have died from her wounds, but she survived. As a result, she suffered some memory loss. The Clan Mother attempted a ritual to regain her memories, but it proved futile. She has remained with us since."

"A wound through the head," I explained. "But I... I remember a bit." I concentrated, despite the fact that my head and heart were throbbing with the memories. "Walter... He was very kind to me. Sweet. Endearing. And a complete and utter moron."

Ziio giggled. "Sounds like the kind of man you would attract."

James frowned, but I continued, ignoring the two. "I think... I think I remember why I left England behind..." Without thinking about my actions, I flicked my wrist, unleashing my hidden blade, and drew it across my palm before anyone could stop me. I clenched my fist and kept my hand from Achilles, who attempted to staunch the bleeding. I was glad that I hadn't forgotten about my ability to heal.

Ziio grabbed my hand and the cloth that Achilles was about to use and covered my hand with it forcefully. She wiped the blood away to take a good look at the wound—or, where there should have been one.

"The shot through the head I received would easily explain my memory loss," I muttered. "But I am glad that I did not forget about this."

Achilles sat back in his chair and crossed his arms across his chest. The man was grinning. "Well, I didn't think that such legends were true before, but it seems that your Assassin roots are not the only thing I cannot deny... Shadow-Step."

1225

My eyes fluttered open at the sound of a loud squeaking noise, but they closed again. When I once more opened my eyes, I was staring at the dank floor of the dungeon, my head lolling onto my chest. My shoulders were aching for some reason.

"Are you finally awake, Suna?" Malik? I looked in the direction of the iron door, but saw no one. "No, over here."

I saw Malik grasping the bars in-between our cells. Except for a few make-shift rags, the older man was basically naked. A scraggly beard had begun to take shape on his face, and his hair had grown longer than he'd have liked, I was sure.

"... Malik...?" I muttered. "What...?"

"Thank God, Suna!" Malik grinned. "You're all right! I was worried there for a moment!"

"It will take far more than that to defeat me." I raised my head and saw that my hands were in cuffs connected to the wall. So these are why my shoulders hurt...

"Where is Altair?" Malik asked. "I pray that Abbas did not get him, as well!"

I shook my head. "No. Altair sent me ahead to tell you to prepare for his arrival. He said that he might get side-tracked along the way..." I suddenly glared at Malik. "What happened?! What 'news' did Abbas speak of?!"

"Calm yourself, Suna," Malik chided gently. "Be calm, and I shall tell you."

My shoulders slumped, but I took a deep breath and then fixed my eyes back on Malik. "What happened?" I repeated.

Malik looked crestfallen. He took his time in compiling an explanation. "A coup d'état. Abbas, Swami... many more supporters. I was thrown in here, and Abbas has assumed the title of 'Grandmaster'. It... It was my own fault. I am not the leader that Altair is. They were conspiring against me for the longest time, and I didn't realize it until it was far too late." Malik shook his head. "Abbas has been lording over the village and the Assassins for weeks. Months, probably. I have lost track of the time. But I know that I can no longer hear the villagers from here. They have fallen silent, or they whisper, but no one dares go against Abbas."

"And you have been a prisoner in here since then," I concluded. "This is why you couldn't tell Altair. This is the reason why your letters stopped." Malik nodded. I felt a tightening in my gut as I asked the question, "What about Sef?"

Malik hung his head in shame. "Suna... In order to get me into prison... T-They planted the dagger in my room, and Sef..."

Tears brimmed at my eyes. I started screaming, but it was as if the world around me had gone silent. I couldn't hear, could barely recognize what I was seeing... I could remember men coming in and hitting me, ordering me to be silent. But everything already felt silent. So I kicked at them with my legs, bit at them with my teeth; I did everything to try and escape to find my brother. Sef just couldn't be dead. My little brother couldn't. Be. Dead!

And then the guards used a spear to knock me out, and my dreams were flooded with the face of my brother...

Dead.

2012

"Samantha!" Bill called.

It had been a few days after Walter's and my misadventure. I groaned and stomped over to the old man. Desmond had rarely left the Animus, and I really missed talking to the guy, but he had become almost as focused as Bill on finding the key to the gigantic bridge that they'd been working on.

"What?" I asked, crossing my arms at Desmond's father.

Bill frowned at me. "I have an e-mail for you. It's on my account, so please delete it once you're done."

I accessed his e-mail (something he wasn't particularly happy about) and checked the message. It was cryptic, but the only thing that was clear was to meet this person in a train yard near New York.

"I'm going," I announced. "Keep Walter here. I'll need to check this out..."

I started out of the temple. "Be careful, kiddo!" Rebecca called after me.

I waved back at her. "I will!" I promised. "Just don't let Walter worry, all right?"

"You got it!"