Chapter 59: Danger Lurks Behind You.

"It's only in fairy tales that princesses can afford to wait for the handsome prince to save them. In real life, they have to bust out of their own coffins and do the saving themselves."

-Meg Cabot, Abandon

Primrose was still trying to find a way out of the warren, when she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her tail. There was only one explanation: Vervain had caught her, this was the end.

She was dragged on the ground a short distance, before she suddenly felt herself carried upwards. Before she had a chance to realize what was happening, her hind legs had left the ground, followed soon afterwards by the rest of her body. She was hanging upside down in mid-air.

Terrified and in intense pain, it took her a while to notice Vervain on the ground, wandering through piles of trash searching for her. If he was down there, then it wasn't him who had captured her. She painfully looked upwards, and saw the metal hook of the crane. She gasped in fear as she saw how large this horrible monster was. Suddenly, she felt herself falling, causing her to squeal in terror.

Then, just as suddenly as she had started to fall, she landed in a barrel of water. She had no idea what was going on, but that was the least of concerns. She tried desperately to make it to the surface so she could breathe, to no avail. After what felt like forever, she was pulled upwards again, out of the water.

Her fur soaking wet, Primrose tried to catch her breath. After having regained enough strength to move, she tried kicking the hook, with the hopes that it would let her go, but nothing happened, it stubbornly held on to her tail.

Suddenly, she felt herself falling again, and landed in the water. As she struggled to remain conscious and uselessly attempted to get her head out of the water, she heard the loud cry of a seagull; it sounded even worse than usual, with her ears filled with water. To make things worse, she only heard one cry; Kehaar had plainly flown away without doing anything to help her. He had most likely not spotted her.

Once again, the hook was raised, and Primrose desperately gasped for air. It was plain that whatever this monster was, it took great pleasure in torturing her. After a few moments, she fell for the third time, but this time, she was able to return to the surface. The hook had set her free.

She slowly swam to the edge, and pushed herself out of the barrel, landing roughly on the ground next to it. She spent a long time lying on the ground, motionless. The pain in her tail was unbearable, but at least Vervain hadn't found her.

After a while, she heard some soft footsteps. She slowly opened her eyes and saw the one rabbit she feared the most, staring at her with an evil smirk on his face. She opened her mouth, but she didn't have enough strength to squeal. She simply ran away as fast as she could. After a few moments, she crashed into another rabbit; it was Blueberry, but with her blurry vision, she mistook him for the Black Rabbit of Inlé.

-"Wha..." the kitten said in surprise. "Say, ma'am, there's something wrong with your tail."

-"My lord," Primrose said, "please take me with you. Anything to get me away from him."

-"What are you talking about? You're in no condition to go anywhere. You mustn't let your wound get infected..."

Primrose couldn't understand what the Black Rabbit was saying. Why didn't he just take her to Inlé? As Vervain kept getting closer, she had no choice but to keep running.

Moments later, Vervain arrived next to Blueberry.

-"Which way did she go?" he shouted.

-"That way," the kitten replied, pointing towards Hazel's car. "Just follow the blood. I hope she'll liv..."

-"Blood?"

-"Yes, her tail is bleeding. In fact, you stepped in it..."

Vervain looked down. His front paws were in a puddle of Primrose's blood. The sight was more than he could handle. He pounced onto Blueberry, and both rabbits fell over the edge. A few moments later, they landed on a mattress, the same one that had saved Blueberry's life earlier; Vervain was on top of him.

-"Seriously, Vervain?" the black rabbit said. "That's the second time you shove me today! What is wrong with you?"

-"Blood..." Vervain weakly mumbled.

-"Oi! What are you two doing?"

Vervain turned his head, and saw Granite angrily staring at him.

-"She's just outside the pit. Just follow the blood and you'll find her," the bearded rabbit said; he didn't feel strong enough to track down Primrose himself, so he might as well let Granite do it.

-"I'm going right away!" the white rabbit shouted. "And as soon as she's back in the pit, I'm fighting you, Vervain."

With that, Granite ran towards the path leading out of the warren.

-"Would you mind letting me get up?" Blueberry said.

Vervain silently hopped off Blueberry, and ran away before the kitten could say anything. He spent a long time wandering throughout the pit. After a while, he hopped on top of a heap of trash; the fog had started to clear, and the view was rather decent.

-"I seem to be alone here with that half-sized Blueberry rabbit," he told no-one in particular. "This is creepy."

-"Except you're not." Vervain leaped back in fear, almost falling off the trash, before turning to see who had spoken.

-"You!"

The Speaker of the Past was staring at him, her face not showing a single emotion.

-"You are not feeling well, Vervain," she eventually said.

-"Of course not, do you realize how much you scared me?"

-"There's something else..."

Before the Speaker could finish her sentence, Vervain had already run off.

After her encounter with "the Black Rabbit", Primrose had continued to run. Her strength was rapidly fading, and she left a trail of blood everywhere she went. Suddenly, she saw two bright red lights further away, and heard a loud noise. They were the lights at the back of Hazel's car, but she thought they were the eyes of the Black Rabbit; she ran towards them and climbed on top of the bumper. Moments later, the vehicle started to move, carrying her away from the junkyard.

Primrose remained on the bumper for a long time, in a state of half-consciousness. The pain persisted, and a few drops of blood fell from her tail onto the road at regular intervals. After a while, a bump caused her to fall off the bumper, landing roughly in the grass next to the road.

-"Hazel...I love you..." were her last words before losing consciousness.