Love in a Ruined World

Hope Will Return

Chapter 10: Hope Will Return

David marched their prisoner into the station, but the man's smirk had not disappeared. Neal and Emma put the other men that they had subdued in one cell, while he headed for the other with their leader.

"You know, your pixie has spunk," Cane said, as he craned his neck to look at Snow.

"I like spunk...I love when they fight me," he leered and then cried out, as David knocked his head into the bars, before shoving him into the cell and locking it.

"Keep staring at her and I'll gouge your eyes out," the prince threatened, but the the other man only glared back at him.

"And for that, I'll make sure your death is excruciating," he promised, as he looked at Snow again.

"And I'll make sure she gets to watch. The last thing you'll see is your blood spraying across her face while I fuck her!" he promised, causing David to snap and reach for his neck through the bars, while he and his men laughed at him.

"David!" Snow cried, as she pulled him back.

"Baby...look at me. He can't get to me or Emma and he never will," she promised, as she held his face in her hands.

"Keep telling yourself that, pixie...because my army is on its way to this precious little spot and then it's all over," he warned.

"Dad...we need to get that item to Gold," Emma said, as she also put herself in his line of vision. He started to calm down, knowing that escaping to their homeland may be the only chance for them to survive now.

"Leroy..." he said, as the dwarves walked in.

"If he moves...make a mess out of him with your pick axe," David ordered. Leroy smirked.

"With pleasure," he said, as the dwarves took watch duty. David spared another hard look at Cane, before taking his wife's hand and leading her out, with Emma and Neal following.

"He's too dangerous to be kept alive," David said.

"You're not a killer," Snow replied, as they stopped in the street.

"But he is Snow. A killer, a rapist...he's more of a monster than any we've possibly ever encountered and that's saying something," David said.

"He's right...the stuff that he's done would make us all retch right here in the streets," Neal agreed.

"Then New York...that's all him? The regime, the starvation?" Emma asked. Neal nodded.

"He's got all the gold, which is now currency again. Which means he has the army, all the guns and ammo. He's hoarded all the food, supplies, medicine, and has his men just randomly execute people to quote, get the population numbers under control," Neal said, as he looked at Snow and Emma.

"He even made getting pregnant a capital crime, though just about everything is with him. I've heard that he executes pregnant women and the man that got her that way," he added. Snow gasped and felt the bile rise in her throat.

"Then we need to hope that this bean still has some magic," David said.

"And if it doesn't?" Emma asked.

"Then I suggest, as much as I hate it, that we execute Cane and his lackeys. Then we migrate...it's the only way we'll have a chance if his army is on the way," Neal answered.

"I know it's not our way...but that man is a sadistic, genocidal maniac," Neal added.

"Agreed," David said.

"I'd just like to know how the hell he even found out about us. I mean, he didn't seem like he just stumbled into town. He was looking for this place," Emma replied.