Elizabeth shuddered.
There it was again.
A sinister, ominous knock that brought rain clouds over her home.
Okay, maybe that was a bit over-the-top, but nonetheless, it was suspicious.
Like, who in their right mind knocks on a door at three in the morning?!
Anyway, Elizabeth pushed away those thoughts and breathed noisily in her bed. Her blue eyes blinked rapidly and gradually became wide.
The knocking stopped for a while. Then it came again, louder.
Her heart seized in her chest. Hurriedly, she threw a bathrobe over her night-gown, slipped her feet into fluffy shoes, and ventured out of her comfort zone.
The hallway was dark. She was afraid of flipping the switch in case they heard her, or worse, saw the light flicker on. She really didn't want them to know, whoever they were, that she was inside.
She crept down the corridor down to Margaret's room, the closest to hers. She was just about to turn the knob when she heard the sound of a door opening. Had they managed to pick the lock to get in? She froze on the spot.
Veronica's purple head peeked out and caught sight of her. Elizabeth brought a finger to her lips very slowly, shushing her obnoxious sister. She indicated toward Margaret's door, and then pointed toward Baltra's door while making eye contact with her sister. Veronica, eyebrows narrowed, nodded and proceeded with waking their father up.
Elizabeth turned the door knob ever so quietly to see her once-sleeping sister sitting up in her bed, worry clouding her face. When Elizabeth motioned for her to come, she mouthed 'is something wrong?' but followed suit anyway.
The three sisters had regrouped outside in the hallway, waiting for their father. They all exchanged looks when Baltra emerged, and gave the girls a horrific shock. His face had gone excessively pale, and his eyes were as wide as saucers. "Quickly," he said in a hushed whisper, "escape out the back door. Don't look back!"
The two elder sisters didn't question their father and went down the stairs toward the back of the house. Only Elizabeth hesitated, rooted to the spot. 'Escape'… was Father up against bad people? Is that why he wants us to go, to save our lives?
She couldn't abandon her father here. But the pleading look in his eyes made her waver. She decided to go with her sisters, but the suspicion in her heart did not go away.
The door was hanging open when she reached it. Her sister's faces peeked out, urging her to come. She took one look back at the dark stairs before disappearing into the late night.
…
"Who are they?" Veronica mouthed. Elizabeth and Margaret stayed silent.
They were hiding behind trees in the forest at the back of their home, watching the scene in front of their house. Two men were knocking violently on the front door, while another two were holding torches for light. In the dim glow, the sisters could see that they were dressed in posh-looking suits.
"What do they want with us?" Veronica whispered again, but when Elizabeth looked up, Margaret's face was the epitome of fear. Her eldest sister crouched, hugging her knees in worry.
"I've seen them before," she revealed breathlessly. "They are not… nice people."
All three sisters' hearts thumped in unison at that moment. All they could do was continue watching.
"Open up, old man!" one of them grouched, and Elizabeth could tell he was a rough man. Just the size of him was already intimidating.
The door opened, and to her horror her father stepped out. "You called?"
A slap sent Baltra to the ground. Elizabeth cried out but no sound emerged. "Don't play dumb with me, geezer!" The man shouted.
She looked to her sisters in terror. They had the same looks on their faces. Couldn't any of the neighbors hear what the ruckus was about?
Then she saw it. Elizabeth saw, in the dim moonlight, a face peeking out from one of the nearby houses, eyeing the scene below. It was one of the neighbors whose name she had forgotten, but nonetheless, was kind and good-hearted. All of a sudden, the face locked eyes with Elizabeth, and out of the blue, vanished rapidly behind the curtain.
Elizabeth could only stare. Is he coming down to help them? Or staying in his room?
But judging by the terrified look in his eyes, she assumed he wouldn't be coming down anytime soon.
Her father was coughing hard now. And then she saw the man, whatever monster he was, lean down toward him and whisper in his ear. Fear sparked in Baltra's eyes, and unconsciously, his gaze spun toward them.
The man's gaze followed.
Uh-oh.
"Run!" Elizabeth heard a frantic yelp, and realized it was hers. The sisters fled into the woods, tripping over roots and stumbling onto fallen branches, but never stopping for a second, for they knew those men would be on their trail.
Elizabeth stripped off her bathrobe to make it easier for her to run, and followed Veronica who was in the lead. Margaret was close behind her, or so she had thought.
The sound of something breezing through the air and sticking into an object along with a cry of pain made her turn around, only to see Margaret collapsing and a gun pointed toward her. A gun, the fatal thing that she'd only read about in books.
Elizabeth had yet to compromise all of this when dizziness struck her, and she fell.
…
She awoke bound in ropes. Elizabeth surveyed her surroundings, and found a dart sitting next to her.
She was on her knees, and soon she found that her sisters across from her were too. Baltra's head was bleeding, and she wanted to cry out to him, but the gag in her mouth prevented her to do so.
The man who had shouted at her father looked even more massive up close. He had a scary purple gaze and terrifying muscles. Heck, he even had a scary hairstyle.
"So these are your property too, old man?" He sneered at the girls. "Guess you didn't let that money go to waste, after all."
"I promised to pay you back in two more years' time; just give me some more time!" Baltra exclaimed exasperatedly, his dark brown eyes watery. "Just… let my daughters go!"
Elizabeth's mouth hung open. Money? Waste? Time?
The scary man's eyes locked onto hers, and she immediately shivered in her shoes—metaphorically, the shoes she'd lost while running. He advanced toward her, and leaned down in her face. Elizabeth could smell cigar smoke and beer hanging around this ominous man.
"You don't know, do you? The shady things your father has been doing behind your backs to bring you up to this?" He smirked evilly, and Elizabeth did not like that smirk. She wanted to head-butt him like how they did in books, but she was too afraid as she wilted under his gaze.
He straightened, and opened his mouth. "Your shameless father borrowed money from the esteemed Lieutenant Wrath to raise his two daughters after their mother died. Now I see he's got a third one, too." He looked down at the sniveling old man on the ground. "Wonder how you got that one, huh, Baltra?"
Her father's name was said with such shame and hatred that Elizabeth could not bear it. She shook her head violently, trying to get the loose gag out of her mouth, all the while thinking her father probably had a valid reason to borrow money from this Wrath guy… didn't he?
"Howzer, please!" The man's name was spoken for the first time by her pleading father. "Just let my daughters go. You can have me instead."
Elizabeth shook free of her gag and roared, "No!"
The man known as Howzer looked at her and smirked again, to her annoyance. "I would love to do that, Baltra, but you see, you yourself are not enough to settle the bill Lieutenant Wrath gave you. It states here in this notice I have from the esteemed lieutenant," and he took a scroll from one of his henchmen and read aloud, "to 'hoard all property belonging to Baltra Liones, including himself and his family members'. End quote. Better not to turn against his orders, you know? You and I know that from experience."
Baltra's face contorted, and Elizabeth realized her adopted father was crying. Tears splashed onto the ground, and his bleeding lips quivered.
"She's not one of us!"
Elizabeth swiveled to the voice. Margaret had shook free of her gag too, but her eyebrows were narrowed viciously and her gaze was set steadily on her. Her heart stopped.
Howzer stuck a finger in his ear, annoyed. "What?"
Margaret was so determined, so strong… "She's not one of the Liones!" She motioned toward Elizabeth. Eh?
Howzer squinted at Baltra. "Is that true?"
Baltra caught sight of Margaret's blazing eyes, and looked at Howzer adamantly. "Who's she?"
Elizabeth felt her heart breaking. Weren't they her family?
Veronica had also broken free of her mouth gag. "All in all, she's not one of us. You can check for birth papers, but you won't find anything in there."
Howzer laughed, and it was not a nice laugh. "No, but we'll find lots of other things of value to the Lieutenant." He signaled the men behind him.
And, to the family's horror, they entered the house, and after ten minutes emerged with items from Margaret's shelves, Veronica's cupboards, Elizabeth's desk and last of all, Baltra's work shed. Baltra gasped aloud, but said nothing.
Elizabeth wanted to scream, but her voice was gone. Her family was denying her, and now everything she ever owned… gone too? Silent tears streamed down her face.
A man stepped up to Howzer and murmured in his ear. He smirked. "It's true there aren't any birth papers for her. Let her go."
Elizabeth, dumbfounded, let her bonds be severed—her physical ones and her emotional ones. But when she caught her sister's gaze again, Margaret's was of a happy sadness… but there was no hints of remorse in it whatsoever.
Then she understood. Her family had been trying to convince them to let her, only her, go free.
"No!" She yelled, finding her voice again, struggling against the men's rough arms and, once they let go of her, clinging onto one's pant leg. "Tie me up like the others!"
"Tch!" A kick sent her flying. Blood spilled from her nose, but she got up again, trying to get them to bind her, but they refused. Her nose, dirty with snot and blood running from them, went numb.
"Leave her alone, men," Howzer stated, a cold indifference hovering around him this time. "It says here 'to take all property' and not the people he loves, and she's not his property anyway. Not worth your time."
The men abandoned her and returned to Howzer's side. Just when she thought everything was over, a sneer had resurfaced onto his evil face.
"It's not the end yet, I'm afraid," and he motioned with his fingers. To her horror, one of them took out a matchbox.
"No," she whispered.
He swiped it along the side and a spark ignited.
"No!" she cried. "NO!"
The man let the lit match drop from his fingers.
"NOOO!"
And the last thing she saw, with her watery vision, was her beloved home for seventeen years going up in flames and the only people who cared about her being dragged away into a large car and driven away.
…
Elizabeth awoke on cold hard ground. It's so cold…
She sat up and looked at her bare feet. I seem to have lost my bathrobe…
Yesterday morning's horrid memories came flooding back into her mind.
The fire… the screaming… her sisters' cries… her father's tears…
Tears streamed down her own cheeks. Shivering, she looked toward the house. It had all been burned to a crisp, and there was no flame left. Everything she once had, reduced to embers.
Her muddy fingers ran through her damp hair. It seemed it had rained slightly in the morning. From the sun, she assumed it would be 8 in the morning. How long had it been since those incidents happened? Where was her family now?
Elizabeth got to her feet. Mud squished in between her toes.
She had to find them.
And rescue them. Somehow.
Faded tire tracks told her the car had disappeared somewhere into the woods. Cold, tired and hungry, she followed them.
…
She had been walking for a good deal when she tripped, stumbling headfirst into more mud. Wiping it from her greasy, tear-streaked face, her feet caked in mud screamed for her to stop.
No, I have to go on… Father and my sisters…
She collapsed onto the ground and lay there. The tears fell from her face, and she just lay there for a very, very long time and cried until she couldn't cry anymore. She just stared at the sky through the leaves and decided to try to get something to eat.
Elizabeth wandered around the woods a bit more, in case she could find any fruit trees. To her relief, a gooseberry bush was in sight. She picked some of those and munched on them on the way, the sweet and sour juice dribbling down her chin. Next she found a river, and the cool, clean water washed away the dirt on her face and arms and, temporarily, her insecurities.
When she got up, she realized to her horror that she had left the tire trail. Frantic, she tried to look for it again but to no avail. Thinking all hope was lost, she sat beneath a large tree and cried some more. Her family was probably suffering now and she couldn't do anything about it.
She ventured further into the woods, her eyes barely open to see where she was going. Suddenly a whirring noise startled her.
Instinctively, Elizabeth jumped behind a tree. Her blue eyes were now wide and alert, and she sucked in a breath, and held it. Out of the blue, a car appeared, and went south.
If she was not wrong that car looked like the one her family was driven off in. Speeding up, but all the more cautious and careful, Elizabeth became hot on the heels of the car.
She reached a building, pretty big with the words 'Lianes Vends Dye' emblazoned across its surface. The car door opened, and she hid quickly behind a bush. It was a large clearing, where this building was situated, but then she realized this was the back of it. The front was much bigger, and though she couldn't bet on it, grander indeed.
A man stepped out, tugging on another man's collar and dragging him into the building. The glass doors opened wide to let him in after he flashed a tag at a hidden sensor.
Was this the place her family was held captive in? Elizabeth surveyed her surroundings, then, sure there was no one around, crept out of her hiding place. She was sure there was some sort of close-circuit cameras closing in on her every movement, so she took care not to get too close to the building. Instead she rounded the back, to the side of it, where it looked a little more run-down compared to the grandness of the back. There was a door there, with a knob, and when she found she could open it, she snuck inside.
Crates filled the room. Solely wooden crates surrounded her being. Standing there in awe, Elizabeth walked between crates, old ones and ones that were here recently, she could tell. Their wood was newer than the near-rotting ones.
She stopped at a cluster of them. The tag 'Lieutenant Wrath' had been slapped onto them. This couldn't be…
She looked around and spotted a crowbar. After a while of struggle and toil, the crates sprung open, and curiously she peeked inside.
It was her family's, all of it! All their clothes were in one crate, and the sister's belongings were in the other. Another was filled with her father's tools and trinkets, and she couldn't but help smile remorsefully when she saw them.
A glint of wood caught her eye beneath all those. What's that?
She dug slowly, careful not to wound herself on any sharp things without making too much noise. She retrieved three wooden cylindrical objects with holes in them, a sign carved into each of them: a sun, a moon, and a star.
Flutes? She was tempted to blow into one and see what would happen, but she decided to ask her father about it later. If she ever got to see him.
Her top priority now was to save her sisters and father. Right now, these things meant nothing. But just for safekeeping, she pocketed the flutes and discreetly put the covers back on so no one would have thought a dirty girl had been snooping around Lieutenant Wrath's crates.
"You, the dirty girl who's snooping around Lieutenant Wrath's crates, put your hands in the air NOW!"
An amazing near 3,000 beauty for you people! To be honest, I think it's the longest I've ever written in a short time... but then again, it's been a long time since I've EVER written.
Oh no, Eli's caught this time. What's her next move? Find out in Chapter 4!
Reviews are much appreciated!
P.S Wish I didn't have to type Eli's name over and over again... such a workout for my fingers!
-Mint-chan.