Sever - A Wattpad Featured Story

Blue - Chapter 7 - Then

I'm shackled like a dog. Wrists together. Feet barely ten inches apart. And it itches worse than before. I've unwittingly teased the cuffs until red marks have formed along the translucent skin below my palm, where my blood pulses as I piece together my plan. I'm strong, that much I know. Quick. Perhaps. Certainly not trained like the uniforms who sit around me. Detective Pike looks like she could whip me with her hair alone, were it not tied up in a frizzy bun.

We travelled to the Southern Cemetery in a four-car convoy. Last time I checked the two tail cars had gone, though the blue and yellow striped police car ahead has remained a consistent reminder of the danger I pose them, even if it only exercises its sirens when the traffic slows to a halt.

'Turn left here,' the Detective says, leaning forward. The driver looks like he's about to protest when she adds, 'we're going to Cannock Farm first.'

Great. A farm. Just like the village I left behind. Maybe this is the nostalgic part of her questioning. Will it get a different story out of me, to see a farm like the village of my childhood home? Hardly. To my slight satisfaction, the car in front radios in but doesn't join us, and not long after, the lanes start to thin and countryside replaces the dense city with its wild trees, unkempt grass and roaming cattle. Whatever strings the Detective has pulled to get me in an isolated environment seem to be working.

It makes me want to go home all the more; want to taste her perfume on my clothes and go back to life before.

Only what if the Detective's going to apply a different kind of pressure to get a full confession out of me? Not going back to the station puts me out of their protection. From the frown and the way she's caressing the gun in her holster, a sudden unsettling feeling starts to sink in.

'Where are we going?' I say.

'You don't get to ask questions,' she replies and we drive on, a silent ensemble of suspicions brewing between us.

'Don't suppose I can go for a whizz,' I say, eventually, when the smell of damp leaves and bark blowing in through the open windows becomes too much. It's the closest I've got to fresh air - the funeral excluded - for sixteen days, but it does little to settle the growing anxiety. She's taking me off-piste to torture me.

As for my question, no one bothers to even reply.

A quarter of an hour later we pull up at a service station that is truly in the middle of no where, and one of the few whose name does not represent one of the large oil refineries. I didn't think actual people, rather than corporations, could own a petrol station anymore. The monkey on my right yanks at my arm so suddenly that I yelp, and the two in the front laugh as my cheeks redden. They should thank their lucky stars that there is a wire mesh screen separating the back seats and more pertinently my foot from their ribcages. I imagine sinking a steel toe capped boot into their torsos and smile slightly. This is what I've become, getting cheap kicks from imagining what I'll do to these people when I'm out. Only I'm not getting out, and they know it.

If only I were allowed shoes with laces.

'You have three minutes,' Detective Pike says, checking her watch.

'You don't mean I have to go in like this?' I say, shuffling to the passenger door so that the chains rattle.

The detective raises her eyebrows at me, as if to say I've wasted enough of her time for one day. And I have. All of their time has been wasted supervising a criminal like me. I told them it was an accident. Somewhere inside they must know I'm not a threat to society.

I slide out, handcuffs first, and am led along by the big uniform, otherwise known as Mike, or so it says on the iD tag dangling beneath the two red stars on his lapel. He's the lowest qualified monkey in the car. Councillor Seaford wants to introduce iD tags for the whole population. So far, only public sector workers and school-goers have got them. I suppose because they were in the neatest line on the council's database at the time. Thinking about it, inmates probably have them too, although they're not exactly going anywhere so what would be the point. Maybe they get given one when they leave. A 'goodbye but we'll be watching you' kind of going home present.

I hope Seaford doesn't mess the political system up too badly. Although what do I care. Unless I get acquitted at trial, I won't be able to vote. Won't benefit from anything the government puts in place. Maybe I should start researching their prison benefits system instead.

'So, you're really going to walk me into that petrol station shackled like a dog,' I say, as we mount the steps up to a partially glazed foyer. It's a 1990's shopfit, which means its licence will shortly expire and the owners will have to flatten the place and replace the tanks soon. The toilets will probably stink. 'Don't you think we're a little conspicuous? If someone was going to break me free, you're an easy target to go for.'

Mike twists his lips. 'And who's going to break you out, pretty boy?'

No one. That's the point. Half of my relatives back at the cemetery would probably have thrown me in the pit with my father. How their opinion would change if they knew what he was capable of.

'Can't even spread my legs wide enough to sit on the toilet,' I mutter.

The officer laughs aloud, and for the first time we do attract the attention of a young couple holding hands by the side of a magazine stall by the counter. A pang of jealousy stirs within. That should be me, with Jade.

I expect to walk onwards but Mike stops me and leans in to my wrists. Producing a key from his sleeve, he twists it into the cuffs binding my ankles until they un-click. He leaves the handcuffs in place.

'If you're not back here in thirty seconds, I'm going to shoot you myself, you understand?'

If nodding were a defence in court, I would have won my trial right there. Thirty seconds might be a lot when you're waiting in a queue for your ticket. Though it's nothing when your only option is to run.

Thanks for reading Chapter Seven of Sever, where Blue hatches a plan. Spoiler alert: Blue is not going back into the police car anytime soon. Wanna find out why? Next, it's Jade. How will she escape from those men trying to smuggle her out of her house? Keep reading...

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CAST LIST (so far)

Jade Lively - Lilly Collins (the protagonist)

Adrian Lively - Alex Pettyfer (Jade's husband)

Marcus Lively - William Fichtner aka Alex from Prison Break (Adrian's father)

Blue - Liam Hemsworth (the protagonist / anti-hero and Jade's ex-boyfriend)

Mikey Drosner - Jack Black (Blue's lawyer)

Detective Pike - Viola Davis (Blue's prosecutor)

Prime Minister Christopher Seaford - Gary Oldman

Terrence Ridley - Mackenzie Crook (one of the pirates from Pirates of the Caribbean)