Unicorn Riders - Pinch (English)

Chapter 11: Getting out

"Psst!"

At first Vera thought she was hearing things. Even in her uncomfortable state she had finally managed to fall asleep for real. But she only realized it when this strange sound woke her up. Half asleep she rolled around as far as possible. The sound had not come from the camp where Whitmore spent his guard duty sitting at the campfire with his head on his chest and snoring, but it had come from the darkness behind her. The little light that came from the fire didn't let her see any more than the tree and the few bushes around it.

"Psssssst!"

The sound repeated itself and seemed to be somewhat more demanding. Slowly Vera woke up again, also due to her shoulders being totally tense and hurting. On the other hand this noise did make her nervous. Johnson and company were bad enough - what else was creeping around in the dark? When she had managed to turn around and faced the bushes she squinted her eyes to try and see more.

"Hey!" A voice seemed to actually come out of the bushes. "Are you real?"

Vera frowned confused. In that situation it had to be the silliest question she could have imagined. It was so daft that she couldn't come up with an answer for the moment. "Eh... what?" she asked, quietly enough to not alarm the three criminals. Still, she wouldn't have to worry about Whitmore hearing her.

"Who are you?" the voice from the bushes asked. It was a high pitched voice, like a child's. Vera couldn't tell whether it belonged to a boy or a girl, but still she was puzzled. After she had spent the entire time hiking through the wilderness all on her own there were actually a lot of people around here at night. And now a child was, too?

"You go first!" she responded in a vigorous whisper. "I'm just lying here."

Some rustling came from the bushes she had heard the voice from. The child seemed to to think very carefully. "I'm looking for some food" it eventually explained quietly. "You know where to find some?"

She was able to surpress the loud laughter that was about to roll over her tongue, but she couldn't help but grin over her entire face. Good thing that no one was able to make it out in the dark. "As a matter of fact, I do" she answered. "Would you mind helping me if I helped you?"

"I don't know" the child relucantly replied. "What kind of help do you offer?"

That's some kind of joke, isn't it? Vera sighed impatiently. Captured and tied up by criminals, and now she had to negotiate her release with some brushwood? She had had fever dreams that had made more sense than that. "Just get me out of here!" she hissingly demanded. "I promise I'll make up for it."

Again the bushes rustled before the answer came from the hidden child. "Fine. But you have to come over here."

It started to annoy Vera immensely. "You've got to be fu...

"Hush!" the child panicked. "Be quiet, for God's sake!" They both held their breath and listened if something was happening in the camp, but apart from Whitmore's silent snoring there was nothing they could hear. "Roll over to me! If they catch me, we're done for."

This could not be happening! But Vera didn't have much of a choice. With careful movement she crawled more or less out of her blanket and headed towards the bushes. She tried her best to keep the noise at bay, but she had little control over it, being only able to move in a mixture of rolling, twisting and crawling. With large effort she finally made it to the bushes and turned her back on them. "I have a knife in my jacket" she whipsered.

"I've got my own" the voice in the bushes declared, followed by a silent click. A few heartbeats later the ropes were off, and Vera's hands were free again. She was so relieved she could have cried. When she started to rub her wrists to restart blood circulation in them her fingers gained their feeling back, and the pain in her shoulders got significantly better.