Chapter Ten: Wild laughter.

Okay thanks Sarah, honestly you really are flattering. Thanks so much for the great praise. But there's really no need for all the virtual bowing. I'm glad you found it funny. This chapter is for all my great reviewers, keep 'em coming!

Warning! Pay attention to the age rating on this one, although personally I don't feel it's a PG 13 I've got that up because it might be. This chapter involves a character getting rather introverted and going slightly nutty. You have been warned…

Simon frantically paced the small room. It was two days now since Jane had been taken by the Dark. They had tried every thing to get her back, to find her wherever she was. So far their search had been fruitless. Will hadn't slept since they had watched Jane disappear in the arms of the White Rider. Simon couldn't even blame him for anything. He was doing all he could, and he was killing himself doing it. Barney was blaming himself, Simon could tell.

Bran and Will then burst into the silent room. Barney was sitting on his bed, arms locked tightly around his knees. In his hand he held a by now very tattered photograph of his sister. Simon was staring out the window at the lashing rain. He didn't seem to notice that the rain was actually coming into the room and soaking his shirt. Silently Bran closed the window, snapping Simon out of his trance.

"We know where she is." He said grimly. The quiet statement made everyone's ears prick up, even Will's who also knew. "Now we must get her out."

"She's in a large barn the next valley over." Will said. His face was weary and haggard. As Bran had explained to them while Will worked, scrying took a lot of concentration and energy from the caster. And Will had scryed the whole of Wales with the quartz Bran had given him from the hills. "They're waiting for the full moon." His voice was quiet and clipped. Strangely he reminded Barney of Merriman, when he had telephoned Barney. He had the same unwilling despair in his voice. 

"That's tomorrow night." Added Bran.

"They needed a place near to all four natural elements." Will rubbed his eyes; they were smarting bitterly, "This barn is next to a river, near an old forge, which'll pass for fire in a pinch, is on farmland and is near the Grey King's stronghold."

Jane was thrown back into her cell again, after having questions fired at her for the last hour. To her everything was fading into a grey blur; the result of not eating she supposed. Any spoken word became a meaningless noise as it reached her ears. Jane hadn't eaten for two days and drunk very little. The constant worry and fear were slowly wearing her down. Her cell was cold with only a thin blanket for a bed.

She had been hit again. The thing questioning her hadn't believed her when she said she didn't know anything about what they were questioning her on. He had lashed out at her when she said that. As she reflected now she though it would probably have been wise for her to have kept her mouth shut and had not added that 'even if I did I wouldn't tell you!' Then to have tried to run when he spat in her face also probably wasn't a good idea.

Gingerly she touched her ribs and winced. They were sore and tender and when she lifted her shirt to see the damage she winced again. Her right side was a mass of purple bruising. With a sigh she dropped her shirt again and sat with her back firmly against the wall.

Why hadn't Will, Simon, Bran and Barney come to rescue her? Surely they could have found her by now. A nagging little voice stirred up in her brain.

"Maybe they don't care." She shook that thought out of her head

"They care." She spoke aloud to reassure herself. "They must care."

"Why haven't they come to find you then? Why have they left you here in this prison, getting hit by these creatures?"

"They will rescue me." Jane said more forcibly. "They will rescue me," She said again, as if repeating could make her believe it. She stood once more and began pacing the cell

"Maybe this is why prisoners in solitary confinement go insane," she thought wildly "they start hearing voices." She let out a quiet peal of laughter, high and shrill, then threw herself at the wall and stared pounding on it wildly, trying to find a crack to break the wall down with. Her captors at the door smiled and listened as she grew weary and fell to the floor, they laughed with glee at the state her hands must be in. They grinned at each other as her laughter faded into body shaking sobs and she cried herself to sleep.