Blackbird

From the Ground

I froze.

"You wouldn't dare."

Carson's blonde waves shook with his laughter. "Go on, then, Cassie - try  me."

I couldn't move an inch. Cassie. His eyes caught mine with that same frigid emptiness I once hoped to shake out of him. 

For an instant, the rope slacked around my neck, but then he kicked me away from him. Pitiful in motion, I hit the ground hard, even while rolling with the kick. My stomach dropped and blood gushed with every heartless cough. 

"Cass! No!" Katie called from behind the intricate metalwork of her cannon.

"Shut it, Metalmouth." Megan growled from behind and tightened the steel grip of her blade on Kate's throat. "One false move, and I'll slit you where you sit." 

Kate growled in response, but stopped speaking. 

I hadn't moved from my fetal position on the ground. My eyes were glued to the lines in the hard stone, neat circles and curved lines making flowers and daggers. No one would find a body here for days... weeks, even. Dirt and pebbles stuck in my palms and knees where they touched the cold rock and stuck with them as I moved. 

But... I had to hesitate. 

This is what he wants.

"Wh-" my voice cut off in vicious hacking. Yet again, I bit the dirt. Isaiah winced audibly to my right, earning him a warning cluck from Gerald. Did I really use to know these people? My heart throbbed in my throat. Were they ever my friends?  

My breathing stabilized. In... out. In... out. ...Here we go. "What do you want, Carson? Why are you doing this?" I gathered my strength and turned to face him. Those blue, blue eyes - my breathing hitched and slowly returned. In... out. In... out. He's not the boy you thought he was. 

"Why do you think?" He abandoned his post in the middle of everything to approach me imposingly, taking up as much as space as he could with his puffed-out chest and big arms flexing their toned muscles. "What is the one thing I've always wanted?" 

I cringed, but couldn't keep myself from crying out, "You had that with us! We gave you everything!"

Carson shook his head and stopped. From the ground, with one hand up and ready to cover any more blood I felt like coughing up but the other palm and my two knees safely down, all I could see was his blood-stained white Vans and Seahawks socks. Suddenly, he dropped, down to my level so I could study his crystalline eyes, dirt-flecked freckles, and thick flaxen hair in heart-wrenching detail. "You had nothing to give." My heart skipped a beat. Too close. 

He left too soon, but somehow, not soon enough, and I could breathe again. I could also cough again. Blood splattered the cobblestone, narrowly missing his escaping shoes. "Megan! Are the police on their way?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Excellent. Tie up the prisoners - the cops can take it from here." 

I grunted and held my head haphazardly as Gerald dragged me towards the wall, next to Isaiah. Katie hopped on a sprained ankle as Megan shoved her down besides us, hands tied. 

"Try to keep quiet, you hear?" Carson called to us as he shut the trap door behind himself and his followers. "We wouldn't want any trouble." The door slammed bitterly behind him. 

The world froze for a moment after the lock clicked. Finally, Katie broke the silence with a sigh.

"We sure messed up this time." 

Isaiah nodded in agreement. "What are we going to do?"

All eyes turned to sweet Cindy, lying unconscious on the ground. She would've been useful right now, I couldn't help thinking as my hand went to my head. The poor girl only ever knew how to help and to heal, and look what happened to her. 

"How did this happen?"

I realized I spoke out loud a moment too late, and could only bury my head in my hands again. Something warm seeped out of my skull near the back, matting my dark curls, and my hands came away sticky and red. 

"We messed up," Kate repeated numbly.

Isaiah nodded solemnly and resumed work on untying her ropes. After a couple more seconds, Katie shook them off loosely, then turned to work on his while he fixed mine. 

"It's not too late."

Isaiah didn't pause. "Of course it isn't."

"We can still fix this."

He nodded. "Of course we can." 

"As long as we stay determined -"

"Yes, yes, right."

Kate slammed her fist on the ground. "Give it a rest, Cass! You can't wish you way out of everything!"

I was too dead inside to fight this time; too exhausted, too beaten. She must've sensed this, because she slowly dropped her fist and spread the fingers apart. 

She whispered, "You can't win every time."

Isaiah paused as I stood. I walked across the bridge, through the night air, over the trap door, and over to poor, small Cindy, where she lay on the hard stone. Her long, fair hair covered her face defensively, and I pushed it aside as I lifted her head into my lap, sitting by her side. Her skin was colder than the cobblestone. 

You were right all along, weren't' you, little Cindy?