Chapter Four
Lina's head was blistering with pain, throbbing mercilessly with each beat of her heart. She awoke slowly, reaching out her arms to yawn, but was met with a strong resistance, and her limbs snapped back by her sides. She shot awake, eyes wide, pain forgotten.
"Oh calm down, your going to tire yourself if you keep flailing about like that." Setrakus Ra's throaty, sinister voice sent shivers down Lina's spine.
The room the two unlikely companions now shared was quite the opposite from Five's. It was evident by the bright scarlet walls, furniture, and plush carpet that Ra liked to show off. His television was a full eighty-four inches and the crystal clear image of a kitten using a litter-box danced across its surface. Even its minuscule poops were visible in high definition.
"There was a little mishap at the usual place we'd send you to spend the night so I decided to let you go ahead and enjoy the amenities here." His smile stretched from ear to ear, revealing teeth covered in yellow plaque.
Lina hung, suspended inches above the floor by a series of coarse brown rope, on the wall next to the TV. She could feel a warmth creeping up her toes and, looking down, saw a blazing hearth beneath her.
"Why am I here?"
"Ha! Stupid girl! Didn't your cepan teach you anything?"
"But you can't hurt me until we're reunited, you can only kill us in order!"
"Ahh, that is true. But your friends have been very naughty Five, they've been quite happy wandering across the country without you."
Lina's body, perhaps realizing for the first time her truly hopeless situation, began convulsing in fear, struggling against her bonds. But they were strong, and held her back from escape.
"Aww poor little Lina," Ra snarled. "Don't worry." He reached up his hand toward Lina's face, stroking gently the hairline behind her ears. She tilted her face away from his slimy hands as far as the ropes would allow.
"You're just bait for now."
John Smith tossed and turned in his sleep, his dreams seeming to swirl endlessly around in his mind. The image of a girl, with crystalline blue eyes and silk, dark streams of hair took shape.
She was bound and gagged, hanging like a limp doll, her expression the epitome of unadulterated despair.
It was Five. It had to be.
Four startled awake, sleeping in a tent only five miles from the Mogodorian prison his group had just escaped. "I will find you," he silently promised. "The Garde will not let you down."