Dark Forest (Watty's 2017)

Part 22

It was cold and dark when her eyes finally cracked open. Her cheek was pressed against something warm and soft. She tried to pull herself up, but even the smallest of movements made the unbearable pain in her ankle that much more excruciating. She laid her head back down, blinking back tears.

"I've stopped the bleeding, and reset it as best I could. It's all I could do," a soft, feminine voice said next to her. She didn't need to move to know the voice belonged to Annika. Who else would it be?

"Where are we?" Zara's voice sounded as if she swallowed stones, and felt even worse.

"The cellar. Our temporary prison." This time, it was Ronan who answered. His voice came from directly above her. It took her a moment to register that her head was in his lap, her cape bundled into a makeshift pillow.

Zara gritted her teeth, pressing one hand against the floor as she struggled to sit up. Ronan helped her, one arm around her shoulders. A cry of pain escaped her as she stretched out her injured leg, letting her back rest against the cool wall behind them. The room resembled a wide cavern, with low ceilings and several pillars in the center. On the opposite wall, small, crescent shaped windows near the ceiling let in just enough light to see. It was already day time.

Her eyes sought out Annika first, the girl's knees pulled into her chest and arms wound tightly around them. She looked less frightened than she had the night before, but the dark circles beneath her eyes spoke of what must have been yet another sleepless night for her.

"Thank you," Zara told her, eyes flickering toward her leg that looked like it had pieces of the girl's white nightgown wound around it. If she didn't move, the pain was enough to bare. She tried not to think about what would happen when she actually had to move. A break like that wouldn't heal properly without a doctor. Of course, she was supposed to be killed soon anyways. She couldn't forget the look on Ardon's face as he snapped her ankle. She knew, without a doubt, he would have killed her then and there if he hadn't needed her so badly.

Annika shrugged off her thanks and offered her a wan smile. "I just started studying to become a healer...though I'm hardly comparable to the real thing."

"You will be one day." Ronan murmured, taking his sister's hand and squeezing it. Zara noticed the rope that had once bound his hands together was no long there, though it had left a deep red ring around both wrists.

Annika's lips pressed together tightly and Zara almost missed the slight quiver in her chin. She knew what the girl was thinking without even having to ask...they would first have to do the impossible and escape if there was going to be a 'one day'.

Zara closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the wall. Well, at least they had accomplished part of their quest. Ronan was reunited with his sister, though most likely far from the way he had intended. She couldn't help but think about all he had done trying to get to her. Including lying to Zara. Yet now that she saw them together, could she really fault him for that? She didn't know what it was like to have someone you loved that much. Someone you'd go to any lengths for. It was a special sort of bond that she would never know, having lost her whole family before the age of seven.

She couldn't be angry with a man who loved that much. Deep down, he had been right anyways. As much as Zara would have liked to say differently, the truth wouldn't have gotten her into the forest. She had needed something in return, and for her, that had been gaining back her place among the Red Capes. A reward, she realized, that was both naive and selfish.

How was that redeeming? How was that honoring Gray's memory?

And yet Gray's fate, and the eventually fate of herself and the two people next to her, all led back to the same beginning.