Into the Wrong Hands

Chapter three

A/N: okay, I would like to thank all of those who reviewed!! THANX!! And here is the chapter! If you read this and do not review it, I will have to… to… to… well, I'll just do something mean!!! ( please please please please review!!! That is all I ask, thank you and happy reading!

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters except Theo and Justin, and come on folks, we all know who the others belong to! Tamora Pierce, DUH!!! But with that said, lets get in with the story!



Last time: Just as the two touched lips, a sudden sound came from the door. The teens looked at the door with apprehension, waiting to see if their death was upon them, opening the cage door.



The door slowly creaked open, and two men stepped in. Theo impulsively scooted back some, pressing her back against Justin. He held her hand, and together they looked at their captors. They looked the same as Theo had remembered them. With deeply tanned skin, and dark brown eyes. This time, though, they had no paintings around their eyes, and they were defiantly different people than those that Theo and Justin had first encountered. To Theo's amaisment, both men were both carrying…

Swords!? Theo thought wildly. Why would anyone carry a sword? This is the twenty-first century, not medieval times! Theo wasn't so certain though. She had seen a lot of weird stuff in the last few hours, and she was willing to bet her life savings that it was about to get weirder. After looking at the two teens for a few moments, one of the two men stepped forward. He came very close to the two, very scared at the moment, teenagers, and looked down at them. He said something very slowly then, in a language that neither Theo nor Justin could even begin to decipher. They stared blankly back at the man, identical looks of confusion on their faces.

The man continued to stare at them, as if expecting an answer. He looked to be growing more annoyed as the time lapsed on, Theo could tell from his facial expressions. He finally shouted in their faces, very angry, still in that extremely foreign language. Theo and Justin simultaneously backed up a couple of inches, still holding hands. They were very frightened now, and didn't know how to let these captors know that they couldn't understand anything.

After about a minuet of the man yelling, Justin suddenly stood up, letting go of Theo's hand and yelled in the man's face, "WE CANT TELL WHAT YOUR SAYING!!!!!!!!!" Justin didn't know how this would affect the man, and he wasn't sure if it had been the right thing to do, but he couldn't sit around and say nothing when someone was yelling at him.

The man stared at Justin for a moment, openly seething with apparent anger, and then said something rapidly in that language to his man behind him. Abruptly, four more of the men, these ones with very large muscles, Theo noticed, came inside the door and went to the two teens. Theo knew what they were going to do, and stood quickly to grab Justin's hand again. Of all things, the least thing she wanted to happen was to be separated from Justin. The new men didn't even pause; they proceeded into the room, where two men grabbed Justin's arms, and two grabbed Theo's. Justin fought to get loose from their grip, cursing the men with everything he could think of, but to no avail. Theodora knew it was useless to resist, the men would easily over-power her, so she went along with them, trying not to cry out from the fear and the pain of the men grabbing her arms with iron grips. The men took them out of the white room, into a darkened hallway. They proceeded down it, with the man who had spoken to them in to front, then Justin and his captors, Theo and hers, and finally, the man who had said nothing this entire time.

As they were going down the hallway, Theo's mind was racing with random thoughts about her friends and family at home, and wondering where on earth they were, and how they had gotten here, and where these men were taking them. She was terribly afraid, but also felt strong in spite of her present situation. She couldn't have explained the feeling if she tried, but it was their all the same. Ahead of her she could hear Justin still cursing and fighting the men who held him, and she rolled her eyes. Just like a guy to fight the impossible. She wasn't annoyed at him, just with him because he was wasting energy on a useless task.

"Stop fighting you meathead!" she called up to Justin. Her captors made now move to stop her from speaking, so she continued. "You are only wasting energy when you might need it later." He said nothing back, but she could hear him stop fighting the men, and stop cursing. She smiled slightly in spite of herself. She was in no way pleased to be in this situation, but she couldn't help feeling better when Justin took her advice. Normally she would have added an 'I told you so,' but that hardly seemed appropriate here.

They had been walking down the hallway with none of the walls changing color or shape, and without any doors on either of the walls, making left and right turns with no apparent order to them. Theo had started to try and count and keep track of them, but she soon realized that this was not possible, and that even if they could escape, the last place they would want to go was back to that room. Now, with about ten minuets of walking, in the same position with her hands being held roughly behind her back, the hall appeared to have an end to it. Theo could see that the hall did end very soon, and it ended with a door. Theo, for reasons she could not explain, did not want to go through that door. She didn't know what it was, but she felt colder as she drew nearer to the door. The hallways here had lights in the ceiling, but they were high up, and she couldn't see them. Nevertheless the hallway was much brighter than the others they had been walking through, bright enough for Theo to see Justin ahead of her, not struggling with the men anymore, but she could see that he was tense, and knew that he was as apprehensive about her about that door. As they approached it, Theo could feel the men that held her so tightly tense also, and this reaction from these men who looked like they could pull up sequoia trees single-handedly only made Theo feel very afraid of what laid behind those doors, instead of only slightly afraid. The felling was not pleasant.

They reached the door; the first guy (the one who had yelled at the two teens) opened it to admit the rest of the party. As Theo watched Justin's guards drag him in-he was again struggling, and Theo didn't care if he was, she felt like struggling herself. When they got into the room, Theo caught a brief glance of a man standing on a raised platform of some kind, before she was forced onto her hands and knees by the two guards. When she fought them, not sure what was going on, she was only forced down again, and this time her head was pushed down until her forehead touched the floor. She suddenly thought of the movie she had seen a few years ago, Anna and the King. She remembered in the movie that everyone in the presence of the emperor had knelt like this, on their knees with their foreheads on the floor. She realized with a shock that all of these people had the features of Asians. She wondered for a moment if she had been transported somehow to Thailand or something. She didn't understand how she went from her school's homecoming football game to Thailand, but a lot of what she had seen had not made sense, and Theo was now open to many new suggestions that made no sense.

After a few minuets of keeping her forehead on the ground, someone above her said something; the men once again grabbed her arms and roughly pulled her to her feet again. She looked to her left, where Justin was being dragged up also. She caught his eyes, and they looked at just each other for a moment. Theo saw fear in his eyes, and a glint of determination. She knew that he saw terror in her eyes, and she did not care at the moment. After a second the men holding her arms forced her to look forward. She saw once again the man standing on the raised platform. Her first reaction was complete awe. The man had a aura around him, not of fire, but of dignity. He looked, there's no other word for it, Theo thought, he looked like he was a king of some great nation, with an air of great stature. He was Asian looking, with dark tanned skin. He had his hair braided in what Theo would normally refer to as dreadlocks, but the seemed to shimmer with glitter, and they the braids had gold beads woven into them. They looked good, Theo thought in spite of herself. He also had gold, eye shadow?! Theo thought wildly. He had gold eye shadow on his eyes, lips and she even caught a glitter from his eyelashes. The man had on loose, expensive looking, silky tan pants that went well with his silk silk-blue shirt. That was when she noticed the rings; practically one on each finger, and he had on a few toe rings. Theo also noticed that he had bracelets on his wrists and ankles. Something about this man's appearance reminded her of something. She didn't know what, but she ignored the feeling for now and concentrated on the man in fornt of her. This is really creepy. Theo thought to herself after taking in all of his appearance. Were somewhere in Thailand with a cross dressing guy who we have to bow at?!?!? She didn't know what to make of this.

The man finished staring at them, and looked at the man who seemed to be in charge, the one who had yelled at her and Justin in the beginning. That seemed so long ago, Theo thought suddenly. The man on the platform turned back to the captives, and Theo caught his gaze for a moment. She saw hatred in those eyes, and the sight made her terrified of him before he even started talking. He spoke to them in the same language that the first man had spoke to them in, and Theo was for a moment glad that she couldn't understand what he was saying.

"Great," Justin muttered to Theo under his breath. Theo heard his voice crack just a little, and she knew he was just as scared of this man as she was. Justin continued, "More people who are going to scream at us because we cant understand them!"

The man's face suddenly changed in an instant. He looked at the two teenagers with surprise and amazement, and it then took on a look of contempt.

He began to speak, and Theo and Justin both stared in amazement at him.

"I," he began in English, and a frighteningly superior tone, "I am his royal highness, Orzorn, Emperor of Carthak, the most powerful country in all of the Eastern lands."

Theo stared at him open mouthed for a moment, and then stated loudly, "Oh my F***ing God!! I'm in Carthak!"