Waltzing With Fate

The Challenge

I go to my room and put on some of the gym clothes that I find in my closet. They consist of a blue tank top and a black pair of shorts. I go to my bathroom and grab a hair tie and put my hair into a french braid. I also grab my pair of royal blue and white converse I placed onto one of my shelves in my closet. I walk out of my room and mentally prepare for the fight ahead of me. I know that Jackson is cocky and doesn't believe in my skills. I also know that he doesn't kill people who have done nothing wrong, so I won't have to worry about dying tonight.
Another thing that I know is that I have to be careful because all of my combat training is violence based and I barely know anything else. Jackson probably knows a calmer version of martial arts than I do. I hope I can scramble together enough peaceful moves to make sure I don't kill him.
I make it to the gym and everyone is waiting for me, even my brother. I walk to the side of the mat and set my shoes on the bench. My feet hit the mat and it forms around them.
Jackson is standing in the center in a pair of black gym shorts and a green t-shirt. He towers over me as if I am a child looking up at an adult. He looks like he is ready to beat me, and he is ready to do it quickly.
The mat moves as I step closer to the middle so we can begin the match. Hanna informs us that the match ends when one of us is either unconscious or one of us taps out. Jackson and I agree to the rules and we both get into our stances. My stance is more on the open side with my fists resting right in front of me roughly three inches apart. His stance is almost the same, but his feet are close together, which is his first mistake. His second mistake is to tell me that I should get the first punch because I'm a girl. I refuse to give the first punch and he gladly takes it.
He tries to get behind me with a right hook to my jaw, but I dodge it and go in for a left hook to his kidney. It makes contact and he falls to the ground. I take advantage of his moment of weakness. I grab his right shoulder and pull his arm behind his back and push it upwards. He slams his left hand on the mat as I slowly push his forearm closer and closer to his shoulder. I let his arm loose. He grabs my forearm and pulls me down to the ground. He kneels next to me making sure I can't get up.
"Check."
I slam my palm in the space between his ribs and he rolls away from me. Once he rolls away I get up and place my knee on his diaphragm and my hand on his forehead so he has no chance of getting up.
"Checkmate."
He taps the mat three times to tap out of the match and I let him get up.
Everyone other than Hanna looks shocked as he gets up with a look of defeat on his face. Jackson looks at everyone and walks out of the gym with his head hanging in defeat. Hanna looks at me with a smile and she walks up to me.
"You did it," she yells as she embraces me.
"I did do it, but I feel bad about embarrassing him."
"You shouldn't, he was being horrible to you and you dealt with it. Also, he deserved it because he decided to second guess you."
"I still feel bad."
"Don't feel bad you did it because you stand up for yourself."
"I'm still going to feel bad."
"Whatever."
She goes out the door and I am left alone in the gym.
My gaze drifts everywhere around the gym, settling on a set of targets in the back left corner. The targets are on a wall and they have many knife holes in them. I look over to my right on the wall and there is a knife with a four inch blade with a handle that settles in my hand perfectly. I throw it at the target and it embeds itself in the center of the target. I walk to the target and grab the knife. As I walk back to the other end of the range I get the feeling that I am being watched. I turn around and I feel something sharp going into my neck. I look back and the last face I see before I go unconscious is the face of someone I never wanted to see again.
I wake up in an unfamiliar room. It is painted a light gray and it has only the chair I am sitting on. There is a window on the wall to my left that is one way glass so they can see me but I can't see them. I know that my uncle is behind the glass staring at me waiting for me to try and escape. There is a door right in front of me that doesn't have a window, it is just a solid metal door. 
My hands are bound to the back of the chair and my feet are also bound together. The knife that I was throwing before I blacked out is six feet in front of me; taunting me. My uncle wants me to go for the knife but I won't. I know that the ceiling above the knife is a hologram and there are snipers waiting for me. I begin to slide the chair backwards; away from the knife.
The door opens and my uncle steps in. He glances at me, and I stare into his cold eyes waiting for him to look away. He doesn't look away, though, he keeps looking at me. He looks at all of the bruises I gained from the fight I had earlier and from falling on my face.
"Where did you get the bruises?"
"Why do you care?"
"I care because you are my niece."
"You didn't care when I came back bloodied from the missions you sent me on."
"Is it because of the boy that you beat in that so-called fight of yours?"
"How do you know about that?"
"I know a lot of things like how your brother remembers who you and I are."
"Really, I thought you knew me better than that because if you did you would know that I would never put him in danger like that."
"Then I guess you wouldn't mind if I asked my soldiers to bring him in here and ask him."
"Uncle, are you really that dumb? People will come looking for us even if I have told them not to."
"You really aren't as dumb as I thought you were Leigh. I didn't take him...yet. All I did was make sure he knows I have you. I also told him that he can't free you and that you are as good as dead."
"How dare you. You have no right to make my brother think I am dead. Do you know what that will do to him?"
"Yes I do, It will make him fall right into my hands because he will want evidence and he will want more and more proof so he can hold onto the little bit he has of you."
"Why?"
"I did this because I need you to know that you can't escape me. You never have and you never will."
"Leave," I demand.
"Yes your royal highness."
I watch him as he walks out of the door. I hear yelling, but I can't quite understand what they are saying. A woman walks in and cuts the cord off of my hands and ankles. She leads me to a pair of my uncle's soldiers who roughly grab me by my arms and drag me into an extravagant bedroom. They lock the door on their way out.
I look all around and begin tugging at windows and doors hoping one of them wouldn't be locked. I pull the knife out from the bottom of my shoe and I cut the cables to all of the cameras in the room. I go over to the door and I take two hairpins from the inside of my shoe and I start picking the lock. I hear the first click and after I move the pin around a bit I hear the third click, then the fourth, and then the final click. I open the door quietly and look at both sides of the hallway. There is nothing there. I take the hallway to my left and I walk down a corridor lined with several doors on each wall.
I sprint down the hallway and come to another intersection of hallways. This time I am going to take the hallway to my right still hoping that it will lead me to an exit. I start to sprint down the other hallway again and I look ahead of me. I see a set of French doors that lead to the outside.
I sprint forward and I run into what seems like a brick wall. I recoil back and I look up at what I had just run into. The guy standing in front of me has burgundy hair with deep brooding hazel eyes that stare into your soul. He towers over me like a skyscraper in a city filled with small buildings. He looks over at me like I am really small. His expression changes as I look up at the guy towering over me. His eyes lock into mine and there is something familiar about his expression and his remarkable hazel eyes. Memories flow through my mind of a boy and me laughing together in the treehouse my uncle had built for me. I look up at him and hug him. I finally found him again.
"Aldric, where have you been, " I choke out through my tears.
"Your Uncle gave me the same deal as you got, but instead of your brother it was with you."
"Why did he give you the deal with me?"
"He gave me the deal because he knows I would walk through fire for you. He also knows that it would give him more power over you. I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry you did what you had to do to keep us alive. You knew if you didn't go he would bring you in and slowly torture me until I bled to death. He would begin to torture you while he was torturing me and he would make both of us suffer."
"I know, but I still wish that I could have taken you with me instead of leaving you here with him."
"It's not your fault."
"I know but look at your arms I know that those weren't there the last time I saw you." I say gesturing to the scars that cover them.
"I was tortured after you left."
"Aldric... I'm so so sorry that you had to go through that alone. Aldric come with me, and you won't have to deal with Cassius anymore. You can fight with me against him in the effort to save our kind."
"I can't leave, he will kill me..."
"Yes, you can because nobody will even let anything happen to you... I won't let anything happen to you, or your family."
"Aldric, have you seen the girl?" A man yelled from me in the hallway to our left.
"No, I haven't." Aldric shouted trying to hide the shakiness in his voice.
"Leigh, you should be glad that I love you. I am terrified to go, but I am going to leave with you. I want to help create a better future for everyone."
I smile as we run down the hall to the exit right ahead of us. He opens the door, and we run to the garage where the four wheelers are that can get us out of here without taking as much time as a car. We both grab a four wheeler and we ride as fast as we can to get off of the property. 
Once we get to the road I grab my phone out of my pocket and I begin to dial Liam's number. The phone rang for a few seconds and it was answered by him.
"Leigh, is that you?" He asks as he tries to hide the fear that floods into his voice.
"Yes it is me, Liam I need you to tell Hanna that I am at the beginning of freedom... she will understand."
"Okay I will please stay safe."
"I will stay safe and I will come back to you because I promised you that I would never leave you again, and I intend to keep that promise."
"Okay I will see you in a while."
"See you in a while."
I hang up and Aldric has a confused look on his face.
"What's Freedom Way?"
"Freedom Way is what we used to call the road that begins at this intersection. It's called that because when we were here together after you were forced to leave. Hanna and I tried to escape and failed. We said that if we made it to this road that we would be free from Cassius."
"When did you try to escape?"
"A week after you left."
"A week after I left the took me into a room and started to torture me to get answers. It got so bad that I got used to the torture, I got used to a knife cutting into my arms. I got used to the same questions and torture over and over again. Then one day they stopped, they stopped the torture. They realized that I had nothing to give them and that their torture had no effect on me."
"I'm sorry," I say as I wrap him into a hug. He rests his head on my shoulder and I can feel my shirt getting wet with the hot tears that are rolling down his face. He begins to sink to the ground and I go with him. He has been hurting and has been being hurt for so long that he had to erase the feelings that he had until now. He is crying all the tears he has ever hidden in his entire life. He is spilling out his pain on me and it hurts to know that he has been in that much pain.
I hear a car pulling up as we both stand up and he recollects himself. Hanna steps out and hugs us both.
"Aldric! I didn't think I would ever see you again." She shouts through her tears of joy.
"I know, and I feel the same way and I never want to leave again." Aldric replies as he wipes his eyes again.
"You better not leave or be taken away from us again."
"I won't because I know that you wouldn't do the same thing that Cassius did to me."
"Oh Aldric, we will never let anyone take you away from your family again."
"I know, but let's go before we are taken back by Cassius."