Chapter Two
It felt like two minutes since I'd laid my head down to sleep the previous night, when I was shook awake by Diana. I rubbed my eyes and stared at her sarcy expression.
"A whole load of the kids on the casting list have run off after Rico did last night, and Caine wants you to go help him round them up" She smirks at me, her, I suppose you could say dainty, face was contorted maliciously. I roll over to look at my bedside clock. It flashes 6:42 am. I groan rising slowly from my duvet and get out of my bed.
"Why can't you go Diana? Spend some quality time together?" She glares at me, her brown eyes flashing evilly. She hates that I know her little secret.
"Caine wants you down in the hall at 7." She calls as she flounces off. Seven O 'clock? It's only a few kids, barely the mafia. They probably haven't even made it down to town yet so I don't know why he's so worried. And the casting can wait another hour or two surely. I get into a black T-shirt and some jeans and head downstairs, tying my auburn hair up as I go.
Caine and a few of his cronies are waiting at the tables as I walk in. They're moving cheerio's around like little kids, making a "game plan" one of them told me as I sat down. Caine looked a little embarrassed as he saw my expression but the others went on, completely oblivious. I yawn and eat a cold piece of toast slowly. Caine and the others get up and agitatedly wait for me to finish. I savour their anxiety, and then steadily get up to leave.
It's freezing. The land rover speeds dangerously along the bumpy track the others thought the escapees would have taken. The driver would easily squish them at this rate. We slow to a stop at some bushes where, a little path leads directly down to the beach. We get out and follow the path down, wary of the nettles and roots. Caine flicks most of them away with his hands but a he misses couple and one sends a boy, Davey I think, sprawling into a patch of nettles. I laugh under my breath as he is carried away by two others with a sprained ankle and a face full of red and white spots.
Caine is more careful this time. Going through the obstacles logically. I would help and I suppose I could push the roots back into the earth, but I couldn't be bothered. Especially not at 7:36 in the morning. Finally, about half a mile down the track we find them. They must have heard us coming as they are sprinting away fast. However a little girl trips and falls and a sibling turns back to help her up and suddenly we're on top of them. Each little wrist clasped by bigger, older hands and shoved back towards the trucks. As Caine has got his hands full with a squirming boy of about ten, I push the nettles and roots back into the ground with a deft flick of my wrist.
When we return, they are the first to be cast. Each bully without any known power plunges another's hands into the clumpy cement. It dries quicker than I thought, and I see the hope drain out of them. It makes me feel sick. I'm a bully, I know that. I like to manipulate anyone and everyone. I like to get what I want. But I'm not a psychopath, a torturer, I'm not evil. I tell myself this throughout the whole, dreadful procedure, just to keep myself sane. They scream and cry, but no one even acknowledges their existence. I thought I could handle it, I told myself I could conquer pity and empathy. They are week, stupid emotions that I refuse to feel. But every moment I think, I could easily, so easily crush their captures back with one tiny hand movement, and wash theirs clean. But I held myself still, knowing my place was behind Caine, for the moment. I promised myself time and time again. Only for the moment.