Wings Of Choice (Joel Pimentel)

32 - Saved And To Be Saved

One lash tear the Cassandra's right sleeves, and the second one sliced through her skin on her left arm. Lucas closed his eyes as he watched her being tortured, and bite his lips as he heard her screams.

He might hold grudges on her for leaving him but seeing her in pain physically is not how he imagined to seek revenge on her. He held his fists tight, and swallow the lump in his throat before he open his mouth to tell the servant to stop.

Before he can do that Erick crashed into the door, making a big hole in it. Using his wings he throw Lucas to the other side of the room. When he saw Cassandra with lashes on her body Erick's eyes got fury, before he storms on the servant, grabbing him by his neck and push him to the wall.

"Erick, don't." Cassandra begged him to stop. Erick tighten up his grip on the servant's neck, crushing his bone. "He hurt you, he deserves it." Erick replies.

Then he threw away the servant's body and untie Cassandra. "Him too." Cass says, referring to her brother Riki. Erick nods and do as Cass tells him to without asking further questions. "The girl stays." Lucas says, trying to stand up after Erick's wings hit him hard and caused him to hit the wall.

Erick orders Cassandra to take Riki out from the cabin before he turned around to face Lucas. "Fight me." he challenged him. "My pleasure." Lucas replies, ready to attack with a dagger in his hand.

Erick dodges every strike from Lucas. It seems like the trainings paid off. Until Lucas gets to read Erick's move and finds a way to bury his dagger in Erick's chest. "You're not that fast." he smirk as he drag the dagger down his rib before taking it out and stabs his abdomen.

Screaming in pain, Erick grabs Lucas's hand and draws the dagger out from his flesh. Using his full strength, Erick moves Lucas's hand and stab him back. "You underestimate the strength of a mixed blood." Erick hissed before he threw Lucas out from the window.

"Let's go." Erick says when he step out from the cabin's door. He picks Cassandra up, but she insisted that she can walk by herself. "Help him." she tells Erick to help Riki.

It was a long walk, and Erick starts to feel weak. Cassandra helps Riki to sit with his back on a tree, while Erick dropped himself beside Riki. That's when Cassandra notices the cut on his upper body.

"Erick don't move!" she says as she tears his shirt and reveal the big cut across his chest and a stab in his abs. "You're hurt." tears run down her cheeks.

"It was nothing compared to what this guy is having." Erick chuckles, nodding at Riki. He takes a look at his wound. "Wow that's hardcore." he laughs, before he winced. "Dammit, now it hurts" "Just stop talking!" Cassandra tells him.

"Okay what should we do with this." she ties Erick's shirt around his chest. "Put pressure, right? Okay." she talks to herself. "You know chances are we gonna just die in here, right? No one knows where we are." Erick tells her.

"They'll find a way. That's why I need you to save your energy while waiting for our family to find us." Cassandra says before she moves to Riki and tend him. "Why is he here by the way? Isn't he the guy with scary people in his house?" Erick asks, recalling the last time he met Riki.

"It's complicated. Long story short, he's my brother." Cassandra answers. "They hurt you bad. You're his son but he tortured you." she says to Riki with tears pooling in her eyes.

She let out her arm and slide it under Riki's head to keep him comfortable. "I'm fine, really." Riki says faintly. "You're not. I got less than 5 lashes and it hurts so much I can't even let out my wings. You was whipped all over your body, you can't be fine." Cass replied.

The three of them can do nothing but stare to the sky, hoping that the others will find a way to track them. It's getting dark, but no one comes to find them yet. "How did you find us?" Cassandra asks Erick.

"I saw you sneaked out, had a bad feeling about it so I followed you. I was right, you are doing something stupid." Erick answers. "And you just have to join my stupidity by barging into that cabin to save us? Thank you but look at us now. It's not really helping." Cassandra says sarcastically.

"I thought I'll can just take you and fly away. How can I foresee that pug is going to slash my bulky chest. Also, I didn't expect another family member." he replies.  The cut on his chest doesn't hurt that much anymore, or maybe he's just too weak to feel the pain.

They went silent for a while. "Joel is going to kill me." Cassandra says. "If Richard marries Samia after I'm dead, I'll haunt him every time he tries to sleep with her." Erick tries to crack a joke.

"We are not going to die here. Look at Riki, he's fighting." Cass says, turning her head to look at Riki. Riki was unresponsive, so Cassandra moves his head. "Riki, talk to me. Riki!" she says in panic.

She sits up and slaps his face softly. A few moments later Riki slowly opens his eyes. "I'm just tired. Let me sleep." he speaks under his breath. "Don't! You can't sleep. I'm taking you back to the palace and you'll meet your girl again."

---

In the palace, Finn tries his best to get a vision of where Erick and Cassandra are. He puts their belongings around a mirror and moves his finger in circles in front of it. After up to ten attempts the mirror starts to show the image of 3 people laying on the ground.

"That's them!" Chris points his finger to the image. Joel's eyes widened when he sees the blood on Cassandra's face. "We need to search different woods in here. That guy looks like he doesn't have that much time." he says referring to Riki. He then orders his cousins to split up and find them.