Being Punched In The Gut Two Consecutive Times [Maybe Three]

(A/N): finally, i present ya'll with a decently sized chapter (brace yourselves)

Eyes open. Eyes closed.

It almost didn't matter.

The room I'd awoken in was barely lit, the only light from the setting moon out the window above me.

I was sitting cross legged on the cement floor, my hands cuffed around a pole behind me. There was a course rag tied around my mouth, making me gag from the bitter taste. All the while, the back of my head was still screaming in pain, sharp throbs echoing in and out.

I heard Eli before I saw him, little hiccups and gasps as he cried. Craning my aching neck, I made out Eli's figure in the moonlight, sitting with his back towards mine and his hands chained to the same pole. There was a cut below his ear.

I tried to say his name, but it sounded like a grunt through the gag. At least it was enough for him to look back at me. He was gagged too.

I stretched out my fingers, wanting to speak to his mind. Wanting to comfort him. But he jerked his hands away, a loud rattle from the cuffs going through the quiet room. I could almost feel how angry he was, like it was radiating off of him in hot waves. But the glare he sent me over his shoulder turned everything to ice again.

Speaking of ice, we were feeling it full force with our coats removed. Our shoes were gone. My serrator. Eli's jacket. My hat -

A wash of nauseating fear fell over me at the realization. They'd seen my brand. They would know who I was. Who we both were.

Oh God.

Golden light came seeping through the crack under the door, almost blinding against the darkness my eyes had adjusted to. Footsteps crossed the hallway before our room, voices fading in and out.

"- familiar faces, no?"

"Oh come on! Everyone knows that Wizard chick killed the Creepslayerz! It can't be him."

My throat closed. Tears pricked at my eyes.

Steve.

All the League knew of the second Trollmarket was that a large struggle had commenced. A battle on a small scale. A chase. But we never knew the outcome. We had no clue how it had ended for the Trollhunters. For Steve.

A muffled sob from Eli burst behind me, making me tremble to my core. I forced myself to shake the thought from my head anyway. Steve had to be out there. He had to survive.

He had to.

"And what about the Tarron girl?"

I swallowed.

"You kiddin'? Do you have any idea what trolls will pay for that flesh-bag? I say we hand her over."

Flesh-bag? Is that what they were calling us now? Figures. It's easy to traffic a person back and forth if you only see them as a lump of flesh for sale.

"What 'bout the shrimp?"

"Just throw him in the ring with the other Greens. He might give a good show against that Blue we got, yeah?"

Behind me, Eli choked on a gasp. I felt my eyes narrow at the dark. Over my dead body were these psychos taking Eli anywhere.

"I'm tellin' ya, he's one of 'em! I know a Creepslayer when I see one!"

"For the last time! The Creepslayerz are dead! Besides, these fellas had a League Chatter on 'em. You really think a Creepslayer would join the League?"

A jolt of cold went over my finger as Eli curled his pink around it. I fell into his mind like I'd tripped, stumbling through several memories before I could fight my way to the image he was trying to show me.

The tools he'd used to hot-wire the ambulance - they were still in the waistband of his pants. Somehow, the gnomes had missed them.

If I could reach them - if I could get them into Eli's hands - then maybe he could use them to get us free.

Stretching out my fingers, I pushed the cuffs as far as they would go and then some, feeling the icy metal cut into my wrists. Eli pushed his back flat against the pole, getting as close to me as he could. But my fingers were still only brushing his belt loops.

I gritted my teeth from behind the gag, straining my fingers as Eli shifted. Finally, I felt my middle finger hook onto a belt loop, using it to tug out the waistband. The fingertips on my second hand barely brushed along the inner lining of his pants, feeling along the denim.

The skin beneath my knuckles burned from the stretch, an ache going all the way into my forearm from the strain. But I kept at it. They had to be here somewhere -

There!

I had to toss my torso forward, dragging Eli back even more to get my fingers wrapped around the bundle of tools enough to lift them. They were halfway out his pants when the door flew open.

The golden light seared behind my eyelids, forcing me to jerk away and drop the tools. They fell right back into Eli's waistband, far from my fingers yet again.

Damn it.

There was a woman standing the doorway - but not the one we'd seen on the train. She was taller. Slimmer. And far cleaner. Her hair was cropped short and her eyes clear. Her posture was rod-straight and her gaze on us was perfectly even. I was sure I'd never seen her before in my life.

Then why did she look so familiar?

She approached wordlessly, rounding her slow steps to come to my front. Her eyes didn't look away from mine once, peering at me like a caged animal at the zoo. Because that's exactly what I was to her.

She lowered herself to one knee before me, tilted her head as her eyes darted across my face. God, she looked so familiar. To the point that the crown of my head ached from trying to remember. Had I seen her in someone's head before?

Why did it look like she was trying to recognize me, too?

For a moment, something soft appeared in her eyes. Not sympathy - or even pity. Something else. An emotion that made her eyes rim red.

I had seen those eyes somewhere before, I was sure of it. The way she was looking at me only confirmed. We must have met before.

But . . . where?

Her hand was almost trembling as she reached up, timidly leaning closer. I leaned away from her, my back pressing against the hard pole. But that only made her creep closer, the light reflecting tears in her eyes as her fingers stretched toward my cheek.

I fought the urge to flinch away. If she touched me I could get into her head. I could get us out of here.

But at the last second, she pulled away.

"Oi!" A shout came from the hallway. "You've got 'em, Miss Fancy Pants?"

The woman leaned back, regaining her composure as she looked out the open door. "Yes," She said. "I have them."

Behind me, Eli stiffened.

"Keep a good eye on those flesh-bags," The voice spat. "They're slippery."

"Yes," She turned back to me, a calm, knowing look in her eyes. Then her eyes were over my shoulder and on Eli's back.

She reached past me before I could even try to stop her, prodding into Eli's waistband with her fingers. The motion was smooth and low, hidden from the hallway view. But it was enough to make Eli jolt.

I caught a flash of silver as the tools were brought into the light. But then I felt the warm metal brush my knuckles as she pressed them against Eli's palm, long enough for him to close his hesitant fingers on them.

She leaned back, reaching over to run her fingers down a strand of my hair. The same emotion was back in her eyes. Her voice was thick with salt when she spoke.

"I will keep a good eye on them."

I stared at her for a solid thirty seconds, wondering if I had just imagined the transaction. But the clicking behind me was all the confirmation I needed. I questioned her with my eyes, trying to see if she really knew what she had just done.

All I got in return was a small smile, halfway between gentle and smug.

A glint of blue and my eyes were lowered to her left hand, resting easily on her knee before me. Wrapped around the two first fingers sat a ring, a polished, cobalt metal that gleamed brilliantly in the moonlight. The two bands were only connected by a plain, smooth bar over top her fingers.

But the way she held it is what caught my attention. How she held it just so, for me to have the perfect view of it. Eli was having a hell of a time trying to crane around, to catch a glimpse of what I was seeing.

She rose to her feet with certainty, her shoes scraping on the concrete as she walked across the room to the sink. Now that there was more light in the room, I could see that it looked like a kitchen. Not the kind you would find in a house. The kind you would find on a campground. With nothing but a sink, some cupboards, and an oven that was never meant to cook anything.

Was that where we were now? A campground?

Click.

I felt Eli's handcuffs come loose, his hands wasting no time in grabbing at mine to restart his work. All the while, my eyes stayed trained on the woman's back, watching her pull a dusty cup from the cupboard and fill it with whatever was coming out of the sink faucet.

Click.

The cuffs came loose.

When the woman turned, she had a kind of grace as she approached. More gentle smugness, more strange emotion locked behind her eyes. Coming to kneel before me again, she raised the cup, carefully leaning it towards my face. Despite throwing my head back as far as I could, the frigid liquid still spilled over my lips. I nearly choked on it, it tasted so bitter.

She set the cup at my side, her eyes not leaving mine for a moment. "Be ready," She whispered. Then rose and walked out into the hallway.

I stared at the empty doorway in her wake, questioning my sanity on a whole new level.

What. Just. Happened?

It took me until the moment we heard footsteps approaching for me to realize that neither of us had moved. When the shadow of the figures fell over us, I dropped my chin to my chest, flicking Eli's fingers to tell him to do the same. Pretending to be asleep was a skill I'd learned at Thurmond. Along with the fact that it almost always brought you an advantage.

"Here they are," A voice came - the man that had cornered us on the train. "The little flesh-bags that are gonna pay for next week's dinner."

"C'mon," The second voice - the woman from the train. "Let's get 'em in the van before they start playin' dirty."

We played dirty?

I heard feet shuffling around me. The breeze of bodies moving past us. I could sense the presence when one of them knelt before me.

"You ever wonder why her bounty is so high? I mean, even for a traitor."

"She's a slippery little bitch, that's why."

You have no idea.

"Who cares, anyway? We gotta load up our treasure before sunrise. Throw me the key."

Now or never, Aja.

An arm brushed mine, reaching behind me. Sour breath hit my ear. Then a small gasp.

"Wait a minute -"

My foot was up before my eyes were, slamming into the man's stomach and sending him flying backwards. I ripped the gag off as I listened to the woman shriek, diving at me until Eli leapt to his feet and crashed his shoulder into her midsection.

"You little shit!" The woman reared her head as she hit the wall, winding back her arm and cracking her elbow against Eli's head. He went spiraling to the ground.

"Eli!" I screamed.

Suddenly, the woman was a blur coming towards me, clawing her fingers into my sides and slamming me back until I hit the lip of the sink. Her fist bashed across my face before I could stop it, hot blood spurting from my nose.

I put my knee up her ribs as a response, blocking another blow before thrusting my free hand down her collar and grabbing her bare, soily throat.

SLEEP, I screamed into her mind. And she dropped.

The man was suddenly revealed behind her, standing in her place with the gun in his hands. "I told you I had no problem blowing your insides out, darlin'," He cocked the gun, giving me a wild grin. "Good thing them trolls want you dead or alive -"

Thunk.

His eyes rolled back in his head, his body lurching towards me. I kicked him away, watching him go slack against the concrete.

The woman from before was standing there, my serrator in her hands. The tip of it was now stained with red.

"I believe," She wiped the color off on her sleeve, "this is yours." And tossed it to me.

I caught it out of the air, examining the clip to see that it was still fully loaded. I peered back up at her, and she smiled.

"Who are you?"

"Izita?" Eli was using the wall to pry himself up, one hand pulling the gag off his mouth. "Is that really you?"

The woman turned, a look of pride in her eyes. "It is good to see you've fared well, Creepslayer."

"You two know each other?" I glanced between them. "How?"

Eli was beaming at her, despite how raw his face was. When his eyes darted to me, a bit of softness was added. "Aja," He said. "Izita works with your parents."

The shock would've made me stumble back if I weren't already against the counter. I could barely even feel my legs for a moment. When I looked back at the woman, her eyes were shining.

"You . . ." It was suddenly very difficult to talk. "You know my mama and papa?"

She gave a single nod.

"What . . ." I had to swallow. "What are you doing here?"

"This ring of gnomes has gotten near out of control with trafficking," She said. "So we have come to finish what the Creepslayerz started."

"We?"

"Your parents have more people on their side than you think," Eli stepped forward. "It's like their own little resistance, remember? When I was with them, I gave them some instruction on how to get kids out of gnome rings. Looks like they put it to good use."

"And how lucky you are that we did," She beckoned us towards the door. "Or else you would be halfway to Morando by now."

I held back a shudder. "Don't remind me."

We followed her down the hallway, which led off into one other storage room and then opened to a snowy pavillion. The darkened woods gave it away. Definitely a campground.

Izita herded us into the storage room, ripping open dusty crates to reveal both glow coats, along with our shoes and my Chatter. I didn't even realize how cold I was until I wrapped my coat around me.

"Is anyone else here?" I asked, one foot propped up on a bin as I tied the laces on my boots.

"Yes," She replied. "They are camped just outside the pavilion. You will have to evade them long enough to reach the highway past the tree line. There are more campgrounds or even a few houses you could use for the time being. It will only be a few days before I can retrieve you -"

"Wait," I pulled my foot off the bin. "Retrieve us? What are you talking about?"

She blinked at me. "Is that not why you're here?"

"Is what not why we're here?" Eli asked.

Her eyes didn't stray from mine. "Did you not come to this area looking for your parents?"

I couldn't breathe for a moment, my eyes set so wide it hurt. "My mama and papa," I choked, "are here?"

"No," Izita said. "But they are close. You will have to wait a few days, but I can escort you back to them."

Every other noise drowned out after those words. But my brain wasn't full of static, it was full of sludge. Slow and murky as it processed the information making my heart beat in my throat.

Mama and Papa were close. I could go back to them, hold them in my arms again. I could make them know me again. I could give back the memories I'd stolen all those years ago.

After all this time, they were so close -

My Chatter was suddenly too heavy to hold.

- but so was Krel.

I lowered myself down to sit on the bin, not trusting my legs to hold me up. The dread tore through me from head to toe. It made my body too heavy to lift. My ears too numb to hear. I couldn't see anything past the smear of colors through stinging tears.

I knew my heart could ache, but I never knew it could burn. Like someone had set fire to my chest.

"Aja?"

Eli's voice brought me back to reality, his hand resting softly on my shoulder. Tears fell as I looked up at him, my cheeks stinging from the cold.

"Tell her why we're really here," He said. "It's okay."

I could see the understanding in his eyes along with the moisture. It made the dread weigh all the more thinking of it. How many times he had been so desperate to see his own family, just to have them ripped away over and over again.

I don't know where the strength to speak came from, but when my voice came out, I didn't recognize it.

"We are looking for my brother," I turned my tear-filled eyes to Izita. "He found my parent's cure for Psi."

The composure fell from Iztia's face once more, a mixture of shock and horror showing through. ". . . It still exists?"

Eli tilted his head. "Faikolv and Coranda don't know it does?"

She managed to shake her head.

My eyes lowered, staring into nothing. "Krel found it by accident then."

No one spoke.

And I wished I could've screamed.

"We need to find him," I finally choked out, my knuckles white around the Chatter. "He's carrying that intel on him - it's not safe - I can't -"

"I understand," She said, resting her warm hand on my cold shoulder. There it was again, the emotion erupting in her eyes as she knelt beside the bin. Like she was searching for something across my features.

I squinted, now eye-level with her. "Have we met before?"

Her smile was sad and pained as she lowered her eyes. "No," She whispered. "But my daughter . . ."

That's when it clicked.

Her hair. Her eyes. Even the slope of her nose.

"Davaros," I breathed. "You're . . . you're her mother, aren't you?"

She looked just like her. From her cheek bones to her chin. All of it was Davaros. My hand reached up without my permission, brushing against her face just to make sure it was real. That she was real.

"That's how you know my parents," I said. "You worked with them on the base."

She nodded, slowly and gently. A motion that I'd seen Davaros mimic a thousand times. It made me tear into pieces all over again.

"I'm so - so sorry," I buried my face in my hands, a sob ripping up my throat. "I - I couldn't save her - I couldn't protect her - she needed me and I wasn't there and now she's - she's gone."

"No, no," Her hands delicately pulled at mine, gently brushing away my tears. "You have nothing to be sorry for. I was not always a part of your parent's resistance, I only joined when this one," She put her hand on Eli's knee where he sat beside me, "told me your story."

I looked at him with shock and disbelief, only getting a shy smile in return.

Izita squeezed my hands. "You cared for my daughter when I could not. You protected her with everything you had."

I lowered my head, another sob bubbling up. "It wasn't enough."

"It is a debt I can never repay," She lifted my chin, wiping her thumb under my eyes. "To you, or your family name."

I was trembling under her gaze and her hands. Everything inside me was too full. Too much. I was bursting at the seams. Drowning in the air.

Izita took both of my hands again, squeezing them close to her chest. I could feel her tethering me down. Keeping me grounded in reality before I could slip away again.

"Thank you," She said, tears falling freely from her eyes. "Thank you, for my daughter."

It was a noise outside, a shuffling of feet, that made us look up. That reminded us just what kind of situation we were in.

"You need to go now," Izita pulled me up on unsteady feet. "Keep as low as you can, especially with how . . . bright your coats are. If they catch you, I will do what I can, but you will need to defend yourselves."

I nodded, swallowing to keep myself together.

"Get to the highway and it should lead you back to the train station. Will you be able to find your way from there?"

"Yes," Eli replied. "We'll be fine from there."

"Then go," She lead us towards a back door, popping it open to let in a cold burst of air.

"Wait," I grabbed her arm before she could push me through, my fingers digging in. "Davaros, she - she wanted me to tell you something."

Her eyes widened, filling with fresh tears. "She did?"

"She's sorry for not staying in the car," I croaked. "She thought of you everyday - she loved you so much and - and -"

Izita pulled me into her arms before the sobs could start, letting me bury my face in her collar.

"- and I loved her so much."

"So did I," She whispered, smoothing my hair over with her hand. "So did I."

Then she kissed the top of my head, the way a mother does, and she pushed me back towards the door. "Now go."

I felt Eli's hand close around mine, pulling me out into the cold.

"Tell my mama and papa I'll find them," I blurted, stepping backwards into the snow. "Tell them I'll find Krel and I'll - I'll bring us back together."

Izita gave me a single nod. "I will. Now go."

And I did.

It's hard to explain how I felt, feeling everything and nothing at the same time. The cold and wind and snow barely held any of my attention. But inside, it was like fireworks were going off in my chest. I felt on fire and frozen at once. Bursting and crushed. Broken and put back together.

All I could do was cry while I ran, tears streaming and freezing to my face in the cold. Eli gave me a sideways glance as we ran, along with a small smile. His eyes were just as wet. And I had a feeling he knew just what this felt like.

We darted as deep into the tree line as we dared, only passing through the thickest branches to disguise the glow. The sun had barely risen, the tiniest gleam of light on the starry horizon.

I caught sight of the moon, still hanging in the sky and glinting down at us. I wondered if Davaros could see how beautiful it was.

"Hey!"

The shout made the adrenaline in me spike.

"Donnie, you see that!"

These damn coats -

"Get back here flesh-bags!"

"Come on!" I waved Eli deeper into the woods, snow spraying up to my shins.

Gunshots rang out behind us, making us duck our heads as we sprinted. One shot - two - then -

An ear splitting pop rang through the right side of my head, forcing me to trip over my feet and topple onto the frozen ground. When I finally shook the blurs from my vision, I saw a puddle of red melting the snow beneath me.

And a terrible sting radiated through my ear.

"Get up!" Eli grabbed my elbow, wrenching me to my feet. "We gotta go!"

More shots sounded, figures and shadows appearing through the trees. My hand went instinctively to my serrator, but I knew if I stood my ground it wouldn't be much of a fight. So I stumbled to my feet and fell into pace with Eli.

"The highway's that way!" He shouted, throwing his arm behind us.

"Change of plans!" I replied.

We rounded another thicket of trees, opening up to a clearing with a back road paved down the middle of it. It was tracked enough for the snow to have melted on patches of the asphalt, giving us a path to take that wouldn't leave a trail.

"There!" I threw a finger towards it. "Come on!"

"Don't you flesh-bags take another step!"

The bullets tore through the branches beside us, forcing us to dive down on the snow to avoid them. I looked back over my shoulder, ignoring the feeling of blood clotting in my hair. A man was less than ten yards away, holding a shotgun as he steadily approached.

I leapt to my feet, drawing my serrator and widening my stance. "Eli," I nodded my head towards the road. "Go, I'll hold them off."

"Aja -"

"I said go!"

He didn't stick around to argue.

I turned back to the man, cocking my serrator and firing once over his shoulder. I had to duck against the tree trunk to dodge his counter fire. Whipping back around the bark, I leveled my weapon with his figure and fired into his stomach.

This time, it hit.

He made a hard grunt, freezing over his steps and collapsing in the reddening snow. I barely had time to process the scene before a pair of headlights flashed in my peripherals.

I whirled towards the lights, catching the large truck zooming down the road a split second before Eli did. He didn't even have time to scream.

"No, no, no!"

His body cracked against the front of the vehicle, folding over it in a way that made me sick. The screeching of the breaks ripped through the air, he body bending against the metal as the truck slowed. When it stopped, he went flying back onto the asphalt, a broken heap on the pavement.

"Eli!"

I bolted to his side, my serrator clattering to the ground. Blood was trickling down either corners of his mouth. The left lens of his glasses were cracked, the frames nearly knocked right off his face. His eyes were fluttering open and closed, the green in them threatening to roll back.

Fresh tears burned in my eyes, my hands hovering and trembling over his frame. I didn't - I didn't know what to do -

The sound of a door opening and closing forced my eyes up, seeing a man stand there. No younger than forty, wild brown hair, and an unshaven chin. He was wearing a bathrobe.

"Oh my - oh my God, did I - wait a minute -"

His words were just as frazzled as he looked, his face pale with shock and terror.

"You're - you're -" He raised a finger towards me, his eyes focused on the brand between my brows.

A shout beyond the tree line made me turn, hearing more footsteps crash through the snow. Seeing their shadows edge closer. There was nowhere to run now.

"Come on," Suddenly the man was on the ground across from me, slipping his hands under Eli's arms. "Can you, you know, grab his feet?"

I just stared, mouth open and eyes still leaking.

"Come on!" He cried, looking just as desperate as I was. "They're coming!"

Scrambling to get my serrator, I grabbed Eli's legs and we lifted him off the pavement together. The man opened two doors on the back of his truck, revealing the remnants of some kind of kitchen. It took me until then realize it was a food truck, the words: TACO EL GUIRITO printed in large letters on the side.

It was oddly familiar.

We slid Eli onto the grimy floor, my feet kicking against the asphalt to climb inside with him. What little daylight was beginning to appear vanished as the doors slammed shut. The scent of aged lettuce and dirty laundry took over my nose. Then the truck's engine spurred to life.

We were moving. Slowly climbing in speed as the gunshots faded into the distance.

I didn't realize how tightly I was holding onto Eli until he whimpered. But somehow, I couldn't bring myself to let go.