I jolted awake, so my eyes open to complete darkness. For a moment, I forget where I am.
I couldn't make out anything in front of me, but then I hear the sounds of the car and I feel the van moving roughly side to side. The music now turned off and all that I could hear was him driving, the occasional gear change dull from the front seat behind me.
My wrists stung every time the van shook, feeling the metal slowly digging further and further into my skin.
We passed under a streetlamp briefly and I caught sight of the ends of Lucas' boots. I tried squinting my eyes to focus but I still couldn't make out the rest of him, I glanced back towards the front of the van. I could see him by the eerie glow of the dashboard as he drove, eyes focused ahead and not even registering that I had woken up yet.
I tried to take advantage, if I could wake up Lucas maybe we might have a chance of getting out of here.
I shifted quietly across the floor, my arms still risen to ease the pressure off of my wrists before stretching out my leg and nudging Lucas in the foot.
Nothing,
I tried again harder this time, his foot shifting just slightly under my boot.
Nothing.
Another harsh kick to him and still nothing.
Don't panic.
But how could I not? I didn't even know if he was able to wake up. The thud of the gun on his head was loud and if I replay it in my head, I add the crack of his skull. Which the more I replayed it the more real that sound became, even if it weren't something I heard at the time.
Not getting a reaction from him was becoming more and more scary.
I wanted to be sick, the movement of the van getting bumpier and the lack of consciousness from Lucas was all a little too much to handle.
The car jumped into a massive pothole, and I slipped fully, my back hitting the floor forcing a hiss from lips as the handcuffs dug even further into my wrists, it took all I had not to whimper in pain.
Just as I was bringing myself back up and flushing myself to the back of the passenger seat, the brakes whined, and the vehicle came to a stop.
The engine turned off and he got out. The door slamming shut behind him, echoing into the back with me the only real listener.
I wasn't prepared.
Leave me alone.
Leave me alone.
Leave me alone.
The side door slid open. It thudded as it opened fully, clunking into place and I was left looking at him. I wanted to crawl backwards because he was nothing like I remembered.
He was bigger and angrier than when I was a kid.
Terrifying really.
He went to grab my hands, but I used my legs to kick him back, colliding with his stomach but all it did was hit muscle.
Silently grabbing my legs, his hands firmly wrapped a zip tie around them. Pulling it tightly until it couldn't go anymore, and I couldn't even budge.
My heart thudded against my chest in fear, I didn't know what to do.
Nothing I could do was going to be good enough, he was so much stronger and bigger than me.
And I was still weak from the stabbing.
He released my hands from the handcuffs, but I was spared little reprise from them because he twisted my arms behind my back and tightened another set of zip ties around my wrists. So tight again that I grit my jaw against the pain. The plastic dug harshly into the red sores already present there.
I didn't want to imagine how bad Lucas' wrists were. He had been hanging from them the entire drive and without being awake he wouldn't have been able to hold his wrists carefully to prevent further rubbing.
He lifted me easily out of the van and carried me across the ground towards a line of trees.
Is he going to kill me now?
He left all those years ago and he comes back now to murder me?
But instead of taking me all the way into the trees he drops me against a tree trunk about ten metres away from the van which was driven onto the middle of a field.
The icy cold mud beneath me soaked my jeans but my eyes followed him as he walked back to the van without looking back.
I fell backwards onto the tree bark behind me, the roughness of it poking into my skin even through my winter coat.
Something I was thankful for in this cold.
If I thought getting attacked by Quinn was crazy, then I really don't know what I can class this as. Even the word insane doesn't seem to match the mood of the situation.
He slammed shut the passenger door, before moving into the light of the headlights.
He had a large rucksack over his shoulders and two green jerry cans. My heart dropping into my stomach at the sight, with the bright headlights reigning down on the cans I could see the petrol sloshing around inside of them and they were full to the brim.
He dropped them in front of the car, his gloved hands unscrewing the lids under the light.
I could analyse everything about my brother now, the dark facial hair that now covered his entire face. Unruly and unmanaged, poorly cut hair like he'd just hacked at it with blunt scissors.
He looked nothing like before, somehow aged way beyond his years. A gruff nature to him now that I couldn't ever have imagined playing some stupid game with him when I was five.
Although, what did I know?
I hadn't seen him in nearly thirteen years. He'd be thirty odd now. A fully grown man.
But believe me, this was not how I expected him to look. And I certainly wasn't expecting him to be a fucking nut case that kidnapped me.
I got the courage to speak somehow.
"What happened to you?" My words penetrated the night, he paused in the unscrewing of the second lid. His face lifted and I could only see half of it, the other shadowed but I could still see his heavy expression.
Maybe I shouldn't have spoken.
He didn't respond and decided to ignore my disappointed comment, dropping his head down to focus on the can.
I shifted my position, unsettled when he stood up and started walking over to me.
The bag dropped from his shoulders a couple of meters away from me on the right, my breathing increased in response.
He dug around inside of it, going by feel now that the light from the car didn't reach us. A light switched on though a moment later when he'd put on a head torch over his black woolly hat.
Once again diving back into the bag before resurfacing with a screwdriver and standing up again.
"Fallen?"
It was the first time I'd actually said his name.
He paused again, head cocking slightly in my direction but again decided better of it and continued walking to the van.
My chances of communication with him failed, not that I expected it to work.
I resigned to watching him unscrew the number plates from the vehicle, tucking them under his arm when he walked back over and threw them into his rucksack as well.
I understood kind of what was happening, but I was also worried that he hadn't made a move to get Lucas out from the back.
But he was still my sibling. We shared blood.
Surely, I would know to some extent what he was capable of?
And yet... a lot can happen in thirteen years so what did I know of anything in regard to Fallen.
I've just got to stay calm.
Because he wouldn't.
That would be insane, he wouldn't.
I heard the sloshing above me.
My head twisted up immediately at the sound and that's when I tried to get up, but I fell down once the ties on my ankles trapped my legs.
Fallen was drenching the van in the petrol.
Which I expected.
But I did not expect him to do it with Lucas still in the back and if I thought it was a mistake, I just had to look at him pouring it into the back of the van through the side door to know he understood exactly what he was doing.
Fear immediately gripped my heart
"What are you doing!?" My panic caused my voice to increase in volume.
I got no response, he started throwing it into the front of the car now.
The fumes surely would gas out Lucas at any rate, but I couldn't hear a sound come from the back of the van.
"Get him out of there!" I screamed now because Fallen didn't seem to want to listen to me any other way before. He didn't care and that was terrifying.
"GET HIM OUT!" I would have cringed at the shrill tone of my scream, but I was past the point of caring a long while ago as I looked at the scene in front of me.
"No. Elbina, this needs to be done." I shook my head, the tears brimming at my eyes. He was actually serious. He thought this was the right thing to do.
Holy crap.
The cold didn't even seem to touch me anymore, instead my entire skin burned up.
"Please, don't kill him."
Was this what this came down to?
Was I actually having to plead with my brother NOT to murder him!
I repeated it over and over again, my tears starting to make me sound weird as they clogged my throat.
"Fallen! You don't need to do this." I didn't think he could hear it through my sobs, but he turned and lowered his grip on the jerry can.
"You don't understand."
"How can I understand this!? What logic is there to this!?" Spit flew from my mouth as I shouted across to him, but he just shook his head in the darkness.
"If you knew what I did... You'd understand."
"NO! YOU FUCKING MENTAL CASE! NO, I WOULDN'T!" He turned and started throwing the last of the petrol from the jerry can over the van.
Then he grabs the other can from the ground, moving around the back of the van out of view.
"FALLEN! GOD'S SAKE, FALLEN!" He didn't respond because he was gone. He wasn't going to change his mind.
Which only left me with the option of at least trying to stop it the other way.
I used him moving around to the other side of the truck as a chance to get onto my knees, the zip ties already painful on my wrists. But I was a teenager and a woman, so I had looked at how to escape from them. A sad indictment of our society but it helped nonetheless.
I hoped that he wouldn't be able to hear me over him dowsing the vehicle.
I lifted my wrists up into the air behind my back, quickly bringing them down.
It didn't work the first time and I cursed loudly in my head to prevent me shouting out loud. I tried again, no luck. My wrists sting but I grit my teeth and did it a third time sighing when I felt it snap freeing my arms.
I scrambled with the zip tie on my legs, pulling the end over and pressing the tab in the locking mechanism down with my longest nail so I could loosen it up.
Jumping to my feet, I ran over to the van, heading to the back doors as Fallen moved to the front. He was still focused on throwing the petrol that he didn't notice me pulling open the back doors, Lucas in clear view of me as the light in the back of the van lit up.
I couldn't hesitate but I also didn't have anything to break the handcuffs with.
I rummaged around Lucas, checking the floor around us but coming up with nothing only soaking my hands with the petrol that pooled along the floor as it neared closer to Lucas. I changed tactics, digging through his pockets trying to find anything that might help.
I pulled out a swiss army knife from his inside jacket pocket, classic Lucas. Grinning like a madman I found the bendy metal that attached to the scissor tool and jammed that into the keyhole. Tilting the metal to bend it, I tried to twist it, but it failed.
I tried twisting the other way first and then back again and nearly cried when it released.
"ELBINA!"
No
No
NO
NO
His footsteps crunch in the ground as he ran to where I was before, I fumbled with the pocketknife through the panic in my hands.
DO IT!
The minute I freed his other hand I grabbed under his arms and pulled him ungracefully out of the van. I got him as far away as possible before my body hit the ground hard with Fallen above me angrily, dropping Lucas to the floor as a result. The scream left my lips before I could stop it, the force of him hitting me sprouting agony from my ribs.
It subsided through the adrenaline rush, and I started to fight back.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" His hands slapped away my punches, grabbing my wrists and trapping them against the mud and rotten leaves beneath me.
"YOU CAN'T KILL HIM!" I bucked my hips feebly trying to throw him, but he sat on my legs bearing down all his weight and I was unable to move a muscle.
"I'M PROTECTING YOU!" Spit landed on my face from the scream he let out. I was so sick of people saying that!
"BULLSHIT! YOU THINK THIS IS PROTECTION!?"
I didn't recognise this person staring down at me.
He wasn't my brother.
He wasn't even human.
"I can't trust him." I wince against his nails digging into my wrists, I fidget against the cold wet mud beneath me till it's soaking into the back of my neck.
"I trust him! More than I could ever trust you."
I paused, narrowing my eyes in pure and utter disgust at the person in front of me.
"I swear... if you kill him, I won't ever stop trying to kill you... And I mean that with everything in me." Even if I don't think I'd have the guts, to kill someone... But I say it like I meant it and it at least has Fallen edging the briefest amount back hearing it.
His head shook, his jaw tightening in anger. I could see his face now with the ominous glow of the moon above us, barely illuminating his features.
There was the longest pause as he breathed harshly, looking up at his surroundings as he thought hard. Glancing back at Lucas' body on the floor behind him.
Finally, his head dropped down with narrowed eyes. "If I get a whiff of anything from him, I'm not going to hesitate."
"You won't." I was sure of it.
"This is a favour to you, do you understand? If you don't follow my every instruction from now on then I will shoot him and I'll just do only what I need to do, to keep us both safe. I have no loyalties to him.... Remember that." His eyes darkened pushing down on my wrists further trying to make his point.
Every stubborn bone in my body wanted to retaliate but this was the best deal I was going to get in this situation; so, I nodded slowly.
He carefully sat back, slowly letting go of my wrists almost waiting for me to try and throw a punch. Tempting as it was, I only brought them together so I could rub the redness from the ties.
Deciding that I was going to listen to him from now on, he got off my legs ordering me to stand up.
My legs were shaky, and I felt awful, the pain unbearable in my ribs, but I somehow managed to stand.
I stepped over to Lucas, dropping back down onto my knees. Wobbling slightly on my hands before I leant down to rest my hand on the side of his head. My hand shaking involuntarily, gently touching over his cheek.
I dropped my head down listening for his breathing.
Shallow but even and consistent.
The breath released from me in relief, dropping my head down to touch my head with his. He was still warm. Alive and I tried to remind myself of that.
Fallen pushed me aside gently. "Move."
He leant down and grabbed Lucas, pulling him up and dragging him further from the van; dropping him onto the floor against a tree as he reached the lining of the woods.
I stared after him, the careful way he manoeuvred around me odd and disturbing in contrast to his actions prior. I pulled myself up, catching my breath when I managed to get to my feet. Reaching the tree line beside Fallen and Lucas who was now slumped again on the cold floor.
Fallen gave another final warning look to me before striding back over to the van, throwing the jerry cans into the back. His hand pulled out a matchstick box from his pocket and lit one, fizzling to life as he moved backwards towards us and further towards the wood. The small light bright in the darkness and I couldn't help but watch it fall to the ground almost in slow motion before it lit up the soaked grass at Fallen's feet and caught immediately.
It spread fast along the line, an almost explosion of light as the flames contacted the van covered in the fuel.
The shear heat from the flames hit me from way back and I had to shield my face from both the blinding light and the heat.
"We need to hurry before someone reports it." He didn't want to hang around, throwing his large rucksack to me to throw over my shoulder whilst he leant down and threw Lucas over his own.
Lucas wasn't exactly light, and I could tell Fallen was feeling it when it took him a couple of steps to adjust to the heavy load before continuing into the trees at a slow pace.
I adjusted the bag, feeling the pain from both my ribs and my wound flaring and pulsing with anger. This day had been long, but it wasn't over yet by a long way.
The sweat clung to my skin from the adrenaline and the pain that was wreaking havoc in my body, but I needed to keep Lucas alive. And if that meant following Fallen into the woods, then that's exactly what I was going to do.
I glanced backwards, the high flames burning furiously still, and I couldn't help the deep hate for my brother. Because if it weren't for me fighting, Lucas would be burning with it and that thought alone was enough to bring bile to the back of my throat.
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