Gunned | SatoSere

Chapter 17 - Trust

Serena jostles from her chair when she comes back to consciousness at the feeling of her blazer sleeve being lifted. She jolts away from the touch before her eyes open only to find an elderly woman with a set of bandages in her hand.

"And who exactly are you?" Serena asks carefully.

The woman responds in a near wheeze that lets Serena relax slightly. She was seemingly harmless, practically hunched over. "Who I am isn't important. I've been ordered to wrap your wound."

Serena doesn't flinch away, but eyes her carefully when her sleeve is lifted again, watching each wind of the bandage over her shoulder. The bleeding finally stopped, but she still winces at the pain when the wrappings are tightened one last time for good measure.

As soon as her sleeve is put back down, the door to the room opens again and two more men appear with oni masks covering their faces. They seize her body, one wrapping a blindfold over her eyes despite her doing her best to move out of his reach. She feels the ropes around her ankles come loose as does the chair, her wrists still chained. They haul her up and soon she's being led.

"The least you could do is tell me where we're going," she asks, straining to hear anything around her to give her any information, then mumbling, "not like I have much of a choice to follow."

"On a ride," one laughs beside her.

"Who knew this was all it took," the other one comments and it makes Serena tense.

She hears doors open around her and warmth hits her face with a cool breeze. There's gravel that crunches beneath her feet with every step and suddenly she's lifted and thrown, a metal surface clanging against her body painfully as doors latch shut.

"Throwing me around like a rag doll. Great," she curses aloud, sarcastically.

Her answer was the revving of the engine and she feels the surface lurch forward and that's when she realizes she's in the back of a van. She rolls onto her back and heaves herself up into a sitting position, sighing as she tries to temper the anxiousness. Her shoulder and jaw aches, and her wrists sting but not enough to distract her from what lies at her destination.

Serena didn't realize just how much she missed Ash's voice until it reached her in the fog of her pain. But reality caved in just as quickly and she was pushing him away again, for good reason, so she told herself. This wasn't about feelings anymore, this was a matter of lives, and she couldn't afford to be so selfish. Even so, his voice replays in her mind like her favorite song and it's a childish thing to wish she had asked what tune Ash always hums or whistles throughout the manor.

She wouldn't have been able to live if he didn't, so she holds to the melody of his voice that would be her last lullaby, and hopes that he listened to her in the end.

The drive feels like hours long and her body is stiff when they finally stop and the engine is cut off. Serena holds her breath, listening to the footsteps that round the van and tenses when the doors creak open. She's hauled to her feet again and led out of the van, the smell of the salt and sea wafting into her senses when she greets the open air.

Serena's blindfold is untied and falls from her eyes with the crash of a wave in the distance, as the sight in front of her makes her feel like she's seeing her for the first time all over again. The most extravagant thing in all of Lumiose City, but a little different now, because Ash is more than the ocean to dive into, but everything that makes the world turn.

Ash stands across the way with Dawn, Misty, and Miette flanking his sides. The air in her lungs leaves her because he's here and that could only mean one thing — the truth to all of Giovanni's lies. The guards beside her have their rifles drawn, another guard coming up behind her and unlocking the cuffs on her wrist before nudging her forward immediately with the barrel of his gun. Serena takes slow steps and the tears are falling from her eyes before she can stop them as she watches Ash walk towards her, with his hands raised in the air.