Salvation

Chapter 3- Althea

The rush to her head as she became conscious was insane. She grunted with the pain as she slowly cracked an eye open. She felt the coldness of the ground under her and realized that she was half propped against a tree. She surveyed her surroundings, careful not to move or make a sound. The last thing she had remembered was turning from the men in the woods and walking away.

She could hear the crackle of a fire and men talking somewhere close but they weren't in her view. By the way the light shone on the trees it was somewhere mid afternoon and she could make out that she was in a small clearing in the brush. She must have been out for quite a while.

She slowly moved her hand up to touch the back of her head. She grimaced with the immediate flood of agony as her fingers moved over a large goose egg. She brought her hand down, her fingers smeared with sticky blood. A tear slipped out, not good. None of this was anywhere in the realm of good. She shouldn't have turned her back.

Fear tightened her stomach. Where was Tansy? She twisted around, a little too fast and felt like she was going to vomit. She groaned loudly.

"Looky over there Carl, I think the party arrived!" she heard a familiar voice.

She looked over her shoulder and could see the two men sitting around the fire. Her cart and horse were sitting over a few meters from the trees. She wondered if they had found Tansy when they answered for her.

"Well bout time, was starting to worry about our goods being damaged. That other girl will be useless, she's damned near dead," he laughed, "Crazy Ace would kill us if we brought him dead bodies."

Althea coughed and tried to stand up. This resulted in more of a crawl.

"Don't you touch her," she said through gritted teeth, "Let me take her to Maddy's, she's only a child. She needs some medicine or she'll die."

"We're heading the opposite direction than Maddy's girl, we're going towards Vancouver with you. You'll fetch a hell of a nice price with Crazy Ace." He snorted as if laughing at a hilarious joke.

"You know my brother's will find out, they'll beat the shit out of you both!" She screamed, spittle flying as blood rushed to her head and her vision doubled.

Both of them started laughing at this. The one named Boon slapped his leg.

"Your brothers will be out of it for days. We seen them both completely outta it. By the time they have their shit together we'll all be long gone."

She realized that they were right. There would be no getting out of this one. She finally let her arms buckle from where she had been up on all fours and slammed into the ground. She groaned and flipped herself onto her back. Staring up through the trees to the sky above. She closed her eyes tightly, willing the tears that wanted to flow back inside.

She rubbed her temples. She had to think of a way out of this. She felt another hot tear slide down the corner of her eye. This couldn't be happening. She should have shot them both. She wouldn't be in this position now. Shoot first, ask questions later. She felt so weak, she was sure she had a concussion. Not good.

Maybe she could bargain with them. Maybe appeal to their humane side.

"I have a stash at our house. I have some jewellery of my mom's. It's nice stuff. You could trade it instead of me. Come on guys, you know what's going to happen to me there, can you really do that to a friend's sister?"

They laughed again, she was beginning to see that this was just a big joke to them. They were the types who lost all sense of right or wrong a long time ago.

"Shit, we'll not only get credit for you girl, we'll get a position in his crew. Who wants to live out in this backward part? You're our in, the key." Carl took a swig from a bottle. "Besides, we go back to your house we're dead, no thank you missy." He stood up and walked over to where she laid.