The Island's Captives

Chapter Eight: One Half of the World Does Not Know How the Other Half Lives

Amelia Garcia

"Wilson?" I peaked into the warehouse, still sleepy. I had heard the boys arrive and I had also heard something that sounded like muffled screams. I was pretty sure that was what it was, and I knew something bad had happened.

​"Amy? What you doing up? It's like, four in the morning," Wilson said, leading me back to my room.

​"You guys woke me up," I explained. I looked over my shoulder and saw Daniel and Fawkes and Alan, with two kids who had been tied up with rope, shirts over their heads like hostages. "What's going on? Who are they?"

​"I'm not sure," Wilson confessed, "But whoever they are, they can give us the answers."

​"Do they have to be all tied up?" I asked, trying to look past him as he tried to block my view. I looked at him, and he looked a little guilty.

​"The girl threw a coconut at Alan," Wilson explained, "And till we know who they are and why they're here, we can't trust them."

​"She threw a coconut at him?" I asked, rather surprised. Wilson nodded. "Huh, that's funny, I mean...it's not funny, it's bad. But it's kinda funny..." Wilson smiled at me and I could see his shiny white teeth. For a moment, I felt a fluttering in my stomach, but it was gone before I could decide what it meant.

​"Wilson, Curls," Fawkes addressed us, "You can both go back to bed. You too, Alan. Daniel and I'll take care of these two." He roughly grabbed a hold of one of the kids, the quieter of the two. Daniel was left to handle the screaming kid, who was obviously a girl by the sound of the screams. I wanted to know who they were, as well as ask Fawkes if he could take away the ropes and shirts, but I knew I had to wait. So I went to my door. Wilson stood by me.

​"Do you think they're from the other side of the island?" I asked.

​"I don't know, maybe," Wilson replied. He winked at me. "See ya tomorrow-I mean, today."

​"See ya in a few hours," I chuckled.

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​"I'm gonna repeat this one more time," Fawkes said through clenched teeth the next afternoon, "Where are you from?"

The boy made no reply, his face passive, and the girl merely cried some more. When no one answered, Daniel punched the boy, adding yet another injury to the victim, who was already covered in bruises and cuts.

​Wilson and I, along with Melody and Marie, watched the interrogation from the other side of the warehouse. Alan stood beside the victims, acting as guard (though he looked like he wanted to throw up), while Daniel acted, no, was the persecutor. Fawkes asked the questions.

​"Why does he have to be so-so mean?" I asked Wilson. I didn't like having to watch the boy getting hit each time he and the girl refused to answer a question. It was so...violent. I remembered my days from when I lived with Mom, and I actually shuddered from the memories of her returning home, drunk and angry...at me...

​"Cuz we need to know where they're from. Why there're here. And Fawkes did warn them he would use violence if they didn't answer," Wilson replied. He didn't seem nearly as upset about the matter as I was.

​"They may have been more inclined to answer if you guys hadn't attacked them," I said angrily to him. He actually backed off a couple steps. I usually try to not get upset, or at least I usually try to not show it, but I couldn't stand seeing the boy getting hurt.

"We weren't going to!" Wilson said. He sounded a lot like a little boy trying to explain to his mother why he had done something bad. Which, except for the mother part, was exactly what he was doing. "But when she threw that coconut at us, we thought we had no choice but to attack." I turned away from him, upset and, yet, sad. I had hoped Wilson would've sided with me and told Fawkes to not hurt the boy anymore, or to tell Daniel to stop hitting him. But he did neither.