Escape

It felt like hours were passing in which I just sat there and stared silently into the darkness. Connor didn´t move an inch, apart from the constant tremble of his body. Neither when I stood up shortly to feel for my broken parasol, which was still lying at the cell´s door. I ripped some long strips of fabric off the wooden frame, returned to Connor, bedded his head on my lap again and pressed the stripe carefully against the wound on his head, which was still bleeding slightly. I couldn´t help him but I had the feeling that this was the least I could do for him. I didn´t dare to leave him out of my sight anyway and from time to time I looked into his face, which was an image of pain, even in his unconscious condition. He was suffering and I suffered with him.

Consistently I gently stroke with my fingertips over his heating forehead and listened intensively for every breath he took. But it didn´t happen only once that Connor suddenly breathed so shallowly, that I had to hold my ear near his lips to make sure that he was still alive. Every second of fear, in which I thought that he was dead, felt like an eternity and my only wish was to find a way out of here. But this was a naive hope. We were locked in here, deep under the Newgate prison, surrounded by enemies. Connor wasn´t able to move and I even wasn´t able to defend myself in case of need, much less us both.

A sigh escaped my lips and I leaned my head against the cold wall behind me. I didn´t know what I had thought when I came here on my own. Had I actually thought that I just could leave this place with Connor? Even if he wouldn´t be in this condition, this would have been quite improbable.
A sensible girl.
I snorted scornfully. This sense had get me nowhere in my life so far but nothing good came out of stupidity either. I should have insisted that the assassins accompanied me. I should have talked at them more and not accepted their rejection. I understood their concern but how could they live with the fact, that they had turned their backs on one of their own? I bent my head and looked down to Connor.
How could I have lived with it?

The sound of heavy steps on the corridor made me startle and I directed my look stiffly to the cell´s door while my heart was rushing with fear. Did they come back?
A man appeared in front of our cell and I pinched my lips as I actually recognized him as one of Gardner´s men. His face remained in the shadows but he had put a hand on the door and turned his head towards us.
"Oh, how cute." His voice oozed with sneer. "Someone seems to have a heart for wild animals. The local ones have become boring, haven´t they?"
I winced as I heard a key clicking in the lock and watched how the man slowly entered the cell and stopped in front of us with his head cocked. As if I wanted to make sure that he couldn´t pull him away from me, I put an arm over Connor´s shoulder and looked at the man, whose face was half illuminated by the torches in the corridor. He bore a grubby smile and examined me unashamedly. His look made me shiver with fear but I forced myself into looking at him anyway. I didn´t want him to see how afraid I was. His grin became wider.
"I´m sorry, if I interrupted your dear togetherness but since the boss isn´t here at the moment, I thought that the two of us could spend some time together."
My core being tightened with these words and my instinct cried for escape. But I kept sitting like I was frozen and pulled Connor closer to me unknowingly.
"I´m not interested", I hissed but the man´s grin just became even more evil with that. Like a predator before the attack, he stood in front of me and before I could react, he had leaned forward, grabbed my arm and torn me up. I just heard how Connor´s torso hit the ground with a muffled noise but when I wanted to turn around, the strong hand of the man set under my chin and forced me violently into looking at him.
"It´s not that I had asked you, sweetheart."
His of alcohol reeking breath met me and I had to suppress the urge to gag. Desperate I tried to push him away, to kick him, to beat him, but he grabbed my wrist and turned my arm behind my back. I gasped and tears rushed into my eyes while he roughly pushed me with my back against the opposite wall.

With his free hand he stroked over my cheek, down to my neck and to my décolleté, where his fingertips followed the hem of my neckline.
"This dress suits you perfectly, sweetheart. It looks great. Did you make yourself look pretty for the savage only or can I benefit from it, too?"
Now his fingertips traced the contours of my breast and I had to bit my lower lip to suppress a whimper while he twisted my arm behind my back even more. Shortly my tormentor glanced over his shoulder, where Connor laid on the ground motionlessly.
"Well, doesn´t seem to be one of the intent kind, isn´t he? He could certainly learn something, though." He laughed hollowly and turned to me again. His breath met my face again and his reddened eyes noticed the fear on my face with satisfaction.
"Don´t look like that, sweetheart. I will be gentle, promised."
He grinned widely and pushed me with his torso a bit closer to the wall while he buried his nose in my neck. I turned my head away from him as far as I could and closed my eyes, my lips pinched, while I felt how his hand moved along my hip. His breath against my skin, his hand on my body, all of that caused one single feeling of nausea and panic. But I wasn´t able move. I stood like I was frozen, with the bitter hope that it would be over quickly.

His hand slit to the laces of my bodice but he didn´t open them. I felt how he suddenly desisted from me and as I heard a rasping breath, I appalled opened my eyes. Behind the disgusting man stood Connor, his face distorted with rage and he had twined the chain, which still had hung from the ceiling, around the man´s neck. He tightened it with all his strength while his victim breathed stertorously and tried to free himself from this grip.
"You will not touch her again", growled Connor and I saw how the veins on his forehead pulsed. He was beside himself with anger. "Not as long as I can prevent it."
The man´s colouring slowly changed from bright red to bluish purple while I was still paralysed and watched everything with wide eyes. Connor´s victim wriggled under his grip but Connor´s exertion was also visible. Again and again I saw how he screwed up his unscathed eye, as if he had to concentrate on staying conscious. But one of these weak moments finally became his undoing.

Just as the creep collapsed a bit under the grip and Connor loosened it, his opponent shoved his elbow into his ribs. Connor writhed, let the chain loose and coughing heavily, the man attacked him. He wrestled Connor to the ground, enclosed his neck with his hands and pressed it shut.
"How does that feel, you rat?", he growled while Connor tried to beat him. Only when the half native turned his head towards me and looked at me, life came back to my body. With a yell of rage I attacked the guy from behind, clung to his neck with my arms and tried to pull him away from Connor. He reacted by reaching with his hand behind him, grabbing my hair and tearing me off his back.

I cried out as the scorching ran through my scalp and fell ruggedly on the ground. I just wanted to stand up and attack him again, as I suddenly was grabbed at my shoulder and pulled back from the other side. A hand shot past me and the hidden blade on it sank into the surprised man´s side. With wide eyes he stared at the person who had attacked him before he collapsed and lay motionless. I was paralysed with shock and it took a while until I noticed that someone had grabbed me by my shoulders and shook me slightly.
"Missy, move! We have to get away from here."
I raised my eyes and looked into the face of Pierce, the female assassin. Fresh blood stuck on her bracer and behind her I saw Lester appearing, too.
"Get her out of here. I´m going to take care of Connor."
Connor!

My gaze slit to the half native who laid on the ground, struggling for breath. I wanted to crawl towards him but Pierce held me back and helped me on my feet.
"We need to hurry. Come on", she growled and dragged me to the cell´s door and into the corridor. I stumbled after her, nearly dazed, while she determined led me upstairs, out of the pit and through the prison´s corridors.
"Where are the guards?", I asked.
"We´ve killed the ones who crossed our path. The others hopefully have noticed nothing and won´t anyway."
Pierce opened a door which was obviously a back entrance to the prison. She dragged me over a plastered courtyard and after the darkness of the pit, I didn´t notice in an instant that it was night already. The assassin led me to a horse, helped me to mount it and got on the saddle in front of me. Tensed she looked back to the door and sighed with relief as Lester and another assassin came out with Connor. His head had sunken back to his chest again and his bare feet nearly slit over the ground while he was supported by the two men. I only saw how Lester gave a sign to Pierce, before the young woman spurred the horse and we left this terrible place at full gallop.


Our way led us directly out of the town, into the hinterland and finally to the field, where the assassin´s hideout was located. As Pierce led me to the room with the round table, I could just see with a look over my shoulder how the assassin, who had carried Connor out of the prison together with Lester, disappeared with Connor in one of the other corridors.
"Don´t worry. A doctor is going to take care of him now", said Pierce, who seemed to have noticed my gaze. She didn´t wear her hood anymore and her face was one single grim expression. Like during our first meeting, I hadn´t the feeling that the young woman liked me at all. But I didn´t care at the moment.

I felt tired, spent and couldn´t think of something different than Connors condition anyway. I completely ignored, that a man had almost raped me. My mind refused to be reminded of that and that was good at the moment. As we reached the room, I unsolicited took a seat at the table, propped my arms on the tabletop and buried my face into my hands. Pierce´s steps echoed through the vault as she crossed it. Then was a quiet rattle to be heard for a time, until Pierce approached me and put something on the table in front of me. When I took my hands from my face, I saw that it was a tray and the assassin filled a wine-coloured liquid into a glass for me.
"Drink", she said shortly and slipped the glass into my hand while she sat down next to me. The liquid was actually wine and as I put the glass to my lips, a sweet smell rose into my nose. I had a few sips while Pierce took some rags and clear alcohol from the tray.
"Let me have a look at this." She pointed to the wound under my eye which I had almost forgotten already, although it had made itself felt with a constant throb. But at least it wasn´t bleeding anymore. I put the glass of wine aside and turned my face towards the assassin who pressed an in alcohol drenched rag against the wound. I gasped sharply as a burning pain flared up with the touch but I stayed motionless and clenched my teeth while Pierce cleaned the wound.
"I don´t think that it has to be stitched", she said as she was finished and put the utensils aside again. She accepted my gratitude with a silent nod before she gave herself a glass of wine and sat down next to me again.
"Did this guy beat you?"
I shook my head. "Gardner."
Pierce uttered a scornful snort and took a deep sip of the wine. "That´s just like these bastards to beat defenceless women."
"Obviously you´re the defensive kind of woman."
"Because I don´t want to put up with everything." She looked at me sneeringly from the side. "I didn´t feel like being shoved around by some snobs who think that they know what´s the right thing for me."
With pinched lips I looked down at the glass in my hand and swivelled the fluid inside of it. I already knew from our last meeting that Pierce didn´t think highly of me and I guessed that this wasn´t only because of me but of the society I had grown up in. She was dark skinned. She could have been a slave like Anya, before she had come to the brotherhood. I wouldn´t ask her about it but I wouldn´t comment on her sideswipe either. I wasn´t up for justifying myself and luckily the assassin didn´t seem like she wanted to amplify this topic, too.

I emptied my wine, put the glass on the table and glanced anxiously to the door.
"Where is Lester? He didn´t come back with us."
Pierce simply stared down at the glass in her hand and her expression became hardened as she answered. "He had to wait for the others."
"The others?"
"We have brought not only Connor and you out of there. Some of us got to another part of the prison to free Connor´s friends."
My eyes widened with surprise. Connor´s friends? That meant that they were still alive and had been in town the whole time?
"But how did you know that they had been there? That we had been there?"
Pierce´s corners of the mouth rose with sneer and she looked at me, her head cocked.
"Maybe we are barely represented in town but that doesn´t mean that we don´t have our own sources."
"Hannah Lokshire?"
"Among others."
So the assassins weren´t as powerless as they pretended to be. But why hadn´t they helped Connor then? If they had known the whereabouts of Connor´s friends, they could have told him already.

I bit my lower lip to stop me from asking. Certainly Pierce wouldn´t answer me anyway and maybe I should be glad that they had helped now. Without them we would be still sitting in the pit.
When the door to the assembly room opened, Pierces leaped up to her feet and looked tensed to Lester and Holden, who were entering. "Has everything gone well?"
Lester nodded slowly and gave me a faint smile.
"We were almost busted as we wanted to leave but we could prevent the worst."
"So, everyone is alright?" Pierce gave a sigh of relief when Lester nodded and I closed my eyes, too. It would have been a disaster if something had happened to one of the assassin during our rescue because their fears would have come true then.
"What about Connor´s friends?"
"They are alright and are brought to their rooms at this moment, where they can recover from their strains." He approached me and looked me over. "Maybe you should take rest, too. We have enough rooms down here and Janet will lead you to one of them."
He put a hand to my shoulder as he saw, how I frowned with the thought to go to sleep now. My body was crying for relaxation but my mind was still working at full stretch, to put all these happenings in order and furthermore I was still worrying about Connor.
"It´s the middle of the night. You can still think about everything tomorrow morning."
I looked into Lester´s smiling face and nodded slowly. He was right but suddenly something else came to my mind and my eyes widened with fright.
"Theresa! My mentor, Theresa Bonham. If the templar learn about our escape, she might be the first one they go to visit."
Lester frowned and glanced to the other assassins before he said: "We will take care of her. Don´t worry. Janet, would you bring her to a room?"
Pierce nodded grimly and I thanked the two men in the room before I followed her.


This night I didn´t manage to rest. Though I fell asleep quickly, my dreams were dark and characterized by fear. Over and over again I saw Gardner in front of me, felt his grip around my throat. I sat next to Connor on the cell´s ground and worried about every breath he took and several times I woke up because I believed to feel greedy hands on my body. I didn´t know how late it was or how long I had slept when I stood up and got dressed. I squinched up my face as I wore the red dress again for which I had shown so many conflicting feelings. I had found it beautiful but felt like a prostitute at the same time I had put it on to wrap the guard at the prison´s gate around my finger. The last time a man had paid compliments on this piece of fabric, which I hadn´t wanted to hear in this particular situation. I didn´t want to wear it again but at the moment I had no other choice. I wasn´t at home where I easily could have taken another dress out of my cupboard. I was in the hideout of the assassins, several metres underground and also several miles away from my home, where I couldn´t go back to in the near future. As soon as Gardner learned about our escape he would search for us and he would be everything else than merciful, when he found us.
As if he ever is.

As I left the room, which had been left to me, I looked around in the corridor in front of me with confusion at first. I hadn´t paid attention to the way here yesterday and given to the reigning silence, nobody I could ask was around. Should I just walk on and get lost or should I go back into my room and wait for someone to pick me up?
With a determined expression I decided to do the first. I couldn´t stand this silent and small room any longer and I just hoped that I would met someone sooner or later. But that didn´t happen for a while. Secretly I wondered where all the assassins were, who were living down here. All in all I had only seen five of them but I doubted that they were the only ones.
Or it´s still in the middle of the night and everybody is sleeping.

I passed several doors but there was no sound behind them. Gradually I started to feel like I was totally alone down here. Alone underground and that was no pleasant thought. Also that there were no windows anywhere, which could have granted a view outside, was unusual and frightened me a bit. There was nothing I could be geared to. But the fear that I could get lost in these vaults abated as I finally heard voices and they were familiar. Especially the angered voice of a woman was standing out and I knew in an instant, who she was. I quickened my steps, followed the voices and stopped relieved as I walked into a corridor and saw four persons standing there. Lester, Pierce and...
"Theresa! Maria!" Beaming with joy I approached my mentor and the maid, who turned towards me with the sound of my voice. Maria seemed to be relieved to see me while Theresa put her hands on her hips as I stopped in front of her and touched her at her shoulder.
"Child, I´m glad that you´re alright but I´m shocked that you send hood-bearers into my house who drag me out of there."
"We dragged nobody out of nowhere."
I ignored Pierce´s growl and just gave her and the grandmaster a grateful smile before I turned my attention to the old lady again. "I was just worried that Gardner could harm you or the others when he learns about our escape. Where are Flora and the others anyway?"
Theresa only snorted scornfully. "Ran for it as they heard that it´s going to be precarious. Only Maria stayed."
I looked at the girl whose eyes were directed to the floor, her cheeks blushed. Since I knew her she had always been a faithful soul and I gave her a smile when she looked up shortly. Theresa´s hand laid down on my arm now and the gaze of my mentor became more leniently as I put my hand over hers.
"I´m really glad that you´re alright. Even though I can´t approve that you were so stupid. It could have happened who knows what."
I gave a crooked smile, knowing that she couldn´t see it anyway. I knew that I had acted stupidly but I regretted nothing. There had been no other option for me to help Connor.

With the thought of him, my expression darkened a bit and I looked to Lester, who had attended our reunion silently. The assassin had crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned against the wall while Pierces was standing next to him and pattered impatiently with her foot on the ground.
"How are Connor and the others?"
Lester raised his eyes and cocked his head slightly while he pointed down the corridor. "Connor´s friends are in the assembly room. They wished to discuss their homeward journey alone. They want to wait until Connor is better and then they want to set sail as soon as possible. At the moment, one of our doctors is with Connor. He is still unconscious but there is nothing more I could tell you." He smiled apologetically and I nodded. Connor was badly wounded. I hadn´t expected anything else as that he is still not better even though I was almost choked with worry. But I also thought of his friends. So they were planning their journey home. Of course. They were free, it was over. They could go home finally and so could Connor, who had kept his promise and could bring them home as soon as he was better. Maybe it hadn´t gone off like he had expected it but they were free and only that was important.
And as soon as they are gone, nobody can start trouble again. They are safe in America.
A hand was laid on mine and I looked into Theresa´s face, on which a faint smile had appeared.
"I suggest you go asking after the boy´s condition. Maria and I get along with the hood-bearers on our own."
A saucy "Pah!" from Pierce, which received no further attention again.
I gave a questioning look to Lester who simply nodded before I squeezed Theresa´s hand and let Lester describe me the way to Connor´s room. It wasn´t far, down the corridor. I just had to turn twice before I stood in front of a dark, wooden door which looked like every other door here.

I knocked timidly and entered as an unfamiliar voice of a man allowed it. The small room was filled with the heavy smell of different herbs and I blinked because my eyes started to water with all these smells. Hesitantly I entered, closed the door behind me and faced an assassin with a white bushy beard who stood next to the bed and looked at me with friendly eyes.
"You must be Miss Lillian", he detected with a deep, friendly voice and I nodded while my gaze slit to the bed in which Connor was lying. His eyes closed, the mouth slightly opened, he squinched up his face from time to time as if he was still in pain. His torso was almost completely wrapped in white bandages and rose and fell with every irregular breath. He obviously wasn´t better but at least he was treated now.
Of course the old assassin had noticed my gaze and as I looked at him, he made me feel less worried with his relaxed expression. "I´ve treated his wounds and as long as he remains lying, they will heal completely. His fever is high but he´s a strong young man. I´m sure that he will recover quickly if he gets the rest he needs."
I nodded slightly and looked to Connor again, who had begun to move restlessly. "Is he asleep?", I asked quietly and the doctor followed my gaze.
"I gave him a brew of herbs which should ease the pain and help him to sleep. But the fever is taking its toll, too." He looked me over shortly, took a step back then and pointed to an armchair, which was standing next to the bed. "You know, I´ve done everything I can and have to take care of some of my brothers. Would you mind to stay here and watch over him a bit?"
He smiled at me and I wrung my hands a bit undetermined. "I thought he needed to rest?"
"Well I hope that you´re not planning to keep him off sleeping." The old man chuckled and pointed to a jug and a bowl on the bedside table. "I cooked him a chamomile tea he should drink at the next opportunity. Furthermore, here are some rags and water with peppermint. It has a cooling effect on the skin and if you put it on his forehead, it´s going to make the fever a bit more bearable maybe. I would feel uncomfortable with the thought that he´s alone."
He cocked his head and smiled at me, what made me sigh quietly. I was nobody who could handle illness. I was always feeling uncomfortable and helpless if someone in my environment was sick and bound to bed. Connor´s sight stabbed me in the heart but after I had felt so helpless in the cell, I now had the chance to help him a bit. So I nodded, what the doctor noticed with satisfaction, patted my shoulder in passing and then he had left the room.
Slowly I approached the bed and sank down on the armchair. I grabbed one of the rags, dipped it in the peppermint water, wrung it out and put it carefully on Connor´s forehead. Taking care that it didn´t touch his stitched wounds on his temple. His skin was still heating and carefully I stroke back some sweaty strands of hair, which had fallen into his face. He moved slightly, writhed his head a few times before I gently stroke with the cooling rag over his forehead and cheeks and he calmed down a little.