Redaura: Sorry about that. Didn't mean to get you hopes up and I'm sorry it took so long to get this chapter out, but the uni work just keeps stacking up. I don't know where it keeps coming from. Still two essays down, only four more to go…then the exams…then……….Think I can wish it away? Or me? You could come with if ya like! (^_~)
Disclaimer: I don't own Jareth, but hey if you want to give him to me………(^_^)
The first thing Kara was aware of was the pounding ache in her head. Then, as if the rest of her body was waiting for that cue, she became aware of every other ache and pain. The worst was her arms, she thought felling oddly detached. They were stiff and cold and wrenched painfully above her head. She wished she could fall back into oblivion and forget about it but too many of the pains where sharp, insistent ones, not easily ignored. She tried an experimental movement and cursed as pain jolted from her arms to her shoulders and down her back. The sound of metal hitting metal as soothing to her head as having a nail hammered into it. She tried to open her eyes and it took her a moment to realise they were opened. There was absolutely no light where she was.
"Well apparently I've woken up in hell," she muttered. The echo of her own voice against stone walls was the only answer she got. Tentatively uncurling her fingers she felt rough, damp stone. She moved her head a little. It hurt, sending a small wave of fresh pain down her neck a small whimper escaping her lips. Determinedly pushing the aches to one side she continued to feel around as best she could, trying to get her bearings. She managed to work out that she was lying down and by wriggling slowly, she was able to bring herself upright, inch by burning inch. Finally sitting with her back against the cold wall, she panted for air. Sitting up had never taken so much effort in her entire life. She swallowed, her throat feeling almost raw with thirst and her tongue felt like it was twice its normal size. She began to worry about just how long she'd been lying here, chained and unconscious.
Sitting as she was now she was marginally more comfortable. Her taut and aching muscles were able to relax a fraction. Though her arms were still secured above her head they were no longer wrenched at such a painful angle. She could think better this way.
She closed her eyes and took deep steadying breaths, forcing all her will on concentrating on Hunter. On trying to find his mind with her own. The result was a feeling a lot like rushing head first into a brick wall. There was something blocking her. Something she couldn't get past. She sighed and fought the tears that suddenly threatened to spill over. She'd taken being able to feel Hunter's mind with her own for granted and now that she couldn't it was like something crucial was missing.
Her fingers curled around some of the chain and she tugged. They were fixed very securely into the wall. The shackles surrounding her wrists dug painfully into her skin. She pulled again but gasped and ceased trying when she felt pain and the tell tale wet trickle of blood slide down her arm.
Where they just going to leave her here to die? Slowly of starvation and thirst? She wanted to start screaming. It wasn't fair that she should die this way! A tear slid down her cheek, followed quickly by another. She sniffled as a feeling of abject desolation took her at being left this way with no chance to fight, to try and change what was going to happen to her.
That thought triggered something in her and she began to pull at the chains again, this time ignoring the pain and the blood. She would not give up! She was not going to die this way she screamed at herself. She leaned forward slightly bringing her knees up against herself and resting her head against them. If only she could think of something.
***
Hunter stormed into Jareth's throne room. The Goblin King was lounging across his throne, one leg dangling over the arm. He was spinning a crystal lightly and almost idly on one finger. Looking up he simply raised an eyebrow in question at Hunter. The crystal continued to spin.
"Where's Ulrich!" Hunter roared.
"I've been asking myself the same question for the past two days, what can I say, he's just that damn good at hide and seek!" Jareth responded.
Hunter stopped and seemed to deflate on the spot. "I think he has Kara," he whispered. The sound of crystal shattering on the floor went unheeded by both men. Jareth stalked across the floor of the throne room and clasped Hunter's shoulder tightly.
"I-I can't feel her anymore," Hunter said shakily. "Its like she just isn't in this world anymore." Hunter swallowed.
"What happened?" Jareth asked softly.
Hunter turned away sharply, giving Jareth his back. He ran a hand through his dark hair, his body tense. "It's my fault," he said in a broken whisper. "I left her in the forest, I…" he bit his lip.
"You couldn't have known," Jareth reassured softly. "I'll form the goblins into a search party and any resources I have are at your disposal, of course!" he declared. "We will find her."
Hunter turned to face his friend, a grim look in his eyes. "Thank you."
Jareth went to the doors of the throne room and called for two of the guards who came rushing promptly in, snapping to attention. He began issuing orders, telling them to form groups, which areas to search and so forth while Hunter paced restlessly behind him, his fear for Kara growing with every passing second.
***
The light that flooded Kara's cell was enough to momentarily blind her. She blinked hard, her eyes watering. She turned her face to one side, away from the source of the light, determined to adjust as quickly as possible. It didn't take long though the light still stung a little, giving further rise to her concerns over just how long she'd been locked away in the dark. She tuned back to the figure totally silhouetted in the doorway. Her jailer stalked into the room and she didn't need to see his face. She could tell by his swaggering walk that it was Cortez. He left the door open, allowing light from outside to spill in and Kara could see why it hadn't before. The door was made of solid oak, with no window, bars or, she would have to assume, no chink of any kind.
Silently he knelt in front of her, studying her intently. Kara ignored him and focused instead on her surroundings. Bare stone walls and a cold, bare stone floor on which she sat. Seeing that there was nothing that was going to help her she focused her attention on Cortez, who had mistakenly interpreted the quick way her eyes had darted around her cell as fear.
"Good evening Princess," he said softly, his voice mocking.
Kara regarded him coldly, staying stubbornly silent. She wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of any kind of a response.
Annoyed by her silence he leaned forward and captured her chin painfully in one hand with enough force to bruise and smiled at her. She flinched involuntarily and his smile actually grew at the sign of her discomfort.
"Not quite so regal now, are you?" he sneered at her.
She spat at him and the crack of his hand meeting her face in a cruel backhand seemed to echo in the silence for a long time. Kara pressed her cheek against cold stone, the force of his blow having snapped her head to one side and out of his grasp, as the other cheek stung where he'd struck her and she fought against the grey spots dancing in front of her eyes. Her eyes watered and she blinked it back, determined not to cry in front of Cortez. He sure as hell wasn't worth it.
He grabbed her chin again and wrenched her painfully back, the sudden movement of her head causing the world to spin and lurch and Kara squeezed her eyes shut and prayed she wouldn't pass out. She opened her eyes again slowly.
"Now, is that anyway to behave?" he hissed at her. "It's about damn time someone taught you a lesson." He leaned in closer and his lips ground against hers in a punishing kiss. His teeth nicked her lips and she gave a small cry of alarm and struggled to pull back from him. He could not be allowed to take her blood. She did not want him crawling around inside her head.
He laughed and drew back, looking at her with a mixture of contempt and amusement. Her lips felt bruised and she could fell the sting of the cut. The excess saliva made her skin crawl and she suppressed a shudder, giving him a cold hard smile instead.
"Hunter will kill you," she whispered putting every ounce of certainty she possessed, shifting her position slightly on the floor. "Even if you kill me, do you really think you'll live long enough for my blood to get cold?" It was her turn to sneer.
He lifted a hand to strike her again, but this time she was expecting it and she kicked out with both feet, striking him in the stomach. He fell backwards, sprawling without dignity on the floor, not because she was stronger than he but because she had caught him off guard. However, now she could make it hard for him to get a hold of her again.
Another shadow temporarily dimmed the light spilling in from the open door.
"Really you can even handle a little human female? I am disappointed." Neither Kara nor Cortez missed the laughter in the voice.
"You!" Kara hissed, recognising Ulrich's form. She had not seen him since that once instance in the forest during her run of the Labyrinth but it was somewhat difficult to forget someone who has wanted to kill you since before you had even come face to face with them. Kara's hands clenched into fists as a sudden bout of fear overwhelmed her. She could still remember what it felt like lying on the forest floor, struggling for air and feeling her life slip away in a trap he had devised, knowing that she would fall into it. Ulrich was someone she feared. Truly feared.
Ulrich sketched a mocking bow to her as Cortez got to his feet, dusting himself off and looking a lot like a child who had been denied a sweet. Kara would normally have taken perverse delight in his childish behaviour, simply because it showed on some level that she was better than he was but right now Ulrich had her undivided attention.
"Get out," he told Cortez, his eyes still on Kara. His voice was low but it would have been difficult, as well as suicidal not to see it for the order it was. Cortez left, grumbling all the way. Ulrich backed towards the door, turning only after he had crossed the threshold as if he thought that Kara could suddenly turn to mist and escape her bonds. She heard him speak to someone she couldn't see past his large frame which almost completely filled the door way.
"Lock the door and don't open it till I say so," he barked before coming back into the cell carrying a small oil lamp. Behind him the door slammed leaving Kara alone with him and one feeble light.