Chapter 6
“I can’t keep up.” I shouted at him. He had to pull me along and in these shoes I can’t match his stride. My lungs felt like they were going to burst or disintegrate inside my body. I huffed and blew air out of my mouth hard, the cool air burning my lungs. “I need to stop. I tell you, I’m going to keel over.”
He growls something. I can’t quite catch what he says, but then suddenly I’m being hoisted like a sack of minerals over his shoulder. We take off again. It’s so undignified to be carried around, but I really was going to pass out if I had to run anymore.
“Put me down,” I yell to his back. Though I didn’t really want him to put me down, a strange excitement crossed my mind as he carried me without much effort. It was one of those scenes from a story book, the heroine carried off by her valiant hero. But he was not my hero, he was my captor and I wasn’t his heroine, but his hostage. He had threatened my life. Hero’s don’t threaten their heroines.
“Just leave me here and you can escape.” I pleaded with him. “You don’t need me anymore. I’m just slowing you down.” I try to reason with him, but it does no good. He is a rather thick headed creature. But most men I have met so far tended to be obstinate.
He ignored me.
To my surprise, instead of going the way I had come in, we descended deep into the center of the building. He shouldn’t have known his way around our world and yet he never faltered on his unknown course, bursting through doors, angling down stairs, me, a lump of flesh on his back.
“Where on planet’s surface do you think you are going?” I questioned him tersely. “If you haven’t guessed by now, you’re going in the wrong direction.” I threw one arm out, pointing to a map on the far wall. “The front entry way is back in the opposite direction.”
“And that is where they will be expecting us. We are going where few would think to look.” He didn’t elaborate. As he adjusted me over his shoulder, his hand slid over the exposed skin behind my knee, moving higher. I don’t know if it was accidental or intentional, but it unnerved me, sending little shocks through me nervous system. I pushed my indecent thoughts aside.
“Hey, whatever your name is,” I groused. “Keep your hands on acceptable territories of my person.” His hand retreated.
“Are there acceptable areas on your body where I can touch you? And if so, please enlighten me where those areas are located.”
Was that a teasing tone he had just used? He was making fun of me. Perhaps it had been accidental, but if some unknown person was grouping his skin, then maybe he wouldn’t think it was so funny. Or maybe not, he was from the outside. Perhaps their behavior with each other was different from our own. It was likely he didn’t know how to be civilized.
I answered him after a few seconds. “I would say nowhere, but then you would likely drop me out of spite.” I made a concession in my head to remember that he wasn’t like the rest of us. He was a man/beast with little knowledge of our ways. “So I’m just going to say keep your hands below my knee. That is neutral territory. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yes,” he chuckled. “I think I have a good understanding of what you mean.” Something in his voice made me question what he could be thinking at that moment. Did he think me overly prudish? Or was he laughing because I had assumed his gesture was something other than what it had been. He had merely needed to adjust my weight on his shoulder and I had thought it was advancement on my person.
He was rather attractive, even for an unknown man/beast from the outside, and I was a bland counterpoint to his striking features. His eyes especially eclipsed my own bluish gray ones. He was strong and virile and I was soft and ineffectual. Under normal circumstances, he would never have seen me in a crowd. I did very well at blending in. This creature would never have made advancement on my person. I couldn’t have been that appealing, especially since he had more important things to concern himself with; our lives for example.
We were descending further into the buildings underground structure. I couldn’t see a way to escape from down here. All the exits were above us, not below. I couldn’t imagine what he was thinking, or how he planned on getting us out of this mess. Eventually we would have to turn back and give ourselves in. Both of us would be forced to turn ourselves in, because I knew that my earlier actions would be construed by everyone as the actions of an accomplice.
“It’s Casian.”
“What?” I had been off in my own thoughts. I didn’t at first understand him. Though he spoke our language, his accent was different making me assume it wasn’t his natural language.
“My name,” he repeated himself. “It’s Casian.”
Casian, I said his name in my head. It was such a beautiful name, not one I would have guessed to put on this man/beast. Somehow I had thought he would have a tougher name, a harder edge sounding name that would suit his physical self. I wondered if anyone of his people ever called him out on having such a sissy or effeminate name. It was a pretty name, a girl’s name.
“It’s good to know you think so highly of my name,” he said with obvious sarcasm. “But then it’s no worse than being thought of as a man/beast.”
What did he just say? If I didn’t know better I would have thought he had invaded my mind. But such things were impossible without the proper equipment. He couldn’t have- it’s impossible.
“I assure you, it’s very possible. So do you deny you find my name sissy?” He questioned.
I didn’t want to answer. I had thought that, but it was his fault for listening. “It’s a crime to invade a person’s mind without proper documentation and a reason. Only licensed officials have the jurisdiction to read minds and even then it is with the circumspect of our leaders to ensure the person is not exploited. You could be locked away for what you just did.”
But he wasn’t one of us and likely didn’t know that such actions were considered a felony. But even still I was enraged that he had been listening in on my thoughts and the thoughts of my people. My own thoughts were very personal and the unwarranted search into my mind broke every code of ethics I had ever learned in my world.
I was embarrassed because he had heard my thoughts about him, not just that I had called him a man/beast, but other thoughts that should only be kept inside a woman’s mind.
“I apologize,” he said sincerely, but he still could have been reading my thoughts as he was apologizing. “I don’t normally listen in so intently, but under the circumstances it was necessary.”
Necessary, he said. That is a poor and thoughtless excuse. Reading a mind is not something one does on a whim and only trained professionals have the liberty and knowledge to enact such a tactic on a person. He was being selfish, eavesdropping on myself and my people to get what he wanted. It was intrusive and dangerous for all persons involved. And he could accomplish it without my people’s devices. What else could he do?
“You know we can’t go any farther down. This is a dead end.” I said to him. I tried to keep my thoughts to a minimum in case he was still listening, but sometimes I couldn’t help myself. I had had no reason before to learn to guard my thoughts.
We had reached the end of a darkened hallway, only the emergency lights flickered dimly above us. He stood for a moment then slowly lowered me to the ground. His hand made an inappropriate move over my person. It made my skin tingle and caused my breath to escape in a little puff of warm air, a strange noise moved through my throat without warning. Hands, I mentally shouted at him, knowing he was listening.
“Sorry,” he whispered, then caught sight of my arched stare. “Sorry,” he repeated, apologizing this time for reading my thoughts. “But that time you pushed your thoughts on me,” he argued.
There was a door, concealed under several boxes of used parts and out-of-date junk. Pushing them aside, he revealed the door fully. He pulled back on an aged lever, unlocking a panel in the floor. Inserting a long series of codes, the hatch to the now exposed door slowly slid open.
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nbsp; “I did no such thing,” I defended myself from his claim, “And as for calling you a man/beast, it’s your own fault for eavesdropping. You attacked me. How else should I have seen you?” I was rambling, but he simply folded his arms and allowed me to continue; his expression composed. “You threatened to kill me and for what?” I thrust the bag in his face. I had been clutching it since he pushed the thing into my arms, holding it like I was protecting my own child. “This,” I stated harshly, pushing it closer to his face. “You were going to kill me over some stupid bag.”
I tucked the bag under my arm. “I’ve no doubt lost my job and I’ll be lucky if they don’t lock me away. I called the Grande Regent a monster. What was I thinking?”
“I know. I heard,” he said. “But he wouldn’t have fired you. He likes the way you make his tea. Not to mention your mother would have his head if he let you go. She’s a rather influential person around here.” Casian unfolded his arms, his posture changing as he drew closer to me. “I would not have hurt you. It was simply a way to get them to react and to prove you were not acting as my accomplice.”
I didn’t realize at first that I was crying. I don’t normally cry. It’s such a weak and unhelpful solution to a problem. Crying wouldn’t solve this. And no one would believe I wasn’t his accomplice. I wasn’t even sure. My actions spoke for themselves. I needed to think of a way to help him escape but find a way to save myself at the same time. First I needed to stop crying.
“Lora,” he spoke my name for the first time. “I don’t deserve your support, but I’m a selfish man. That’s why I took you with me when I could have easily left you behind. There is something about you that I never expected to see in this place.”
I felt him brush away my tears, giving me the first smile I had ever seen on his face. His violet eyes gleamed even in the dim light and I noticed for the first time a lightning bolt tattoo that ran from his hairline to his chin, bisecting his right eye. I didn’t remember seeing it there before.
He took my hand and led me to the opening in the floor. It was dark inside the mouth of the opening, a small set of stairs disappearing into seeming nothingness. I didn’t want to go in to that dark, scary abyss; wherever it led. I’ve had an irrational fear of dark spaces since I was a child, not the darkness itself but the things I can’t see because of it. The unknown frightens me, but it doesn’t stop me from doing what I must to save this man; Casian.
“This leads to the catacombs under your city. Your friend Zeke showed me a picture of them from your archives and the access numbers to get through them.” So he had read Zeke’s thoughts, or Zeke had mentally given him the information. Willingly, I’m not sure.
The catacombs hadn’t been accessed since before the time our city was created. It had been used by our predecessors to escape the harsh world above, before the structures could be built to one day be the world we existed in today. But the old city had gone unused, crushed by time and erosion, making the catacombs non-existent. Or so I was led to believe by others. Could the ancient city beneath the ground still exist? And could it have access into the outside world?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“Stop reading my thoughts.”
“Sorry.”
You’re not sorry,” I accused. “If you were truly sorry, you would stop doing it.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “I’m not sorry. You don’t make a habit of saying what you really think or feel so I’m forced to look into your head to understand you.”
He lowered himself into the opening in the floor, looking up at me as I stood over him.
“You are afraid of this dark space, yet you would follow me down into it. You would be afraid and scared of every little sound or brush against you and I wouldn’t know. You wouldn’t have told me. Because I read your thoughts I can assure you that the catacombs are not a dangerous maze of rubble and that it is quite safe to travel through them. Your people have been using these passages for years, though few know of such things.”
He looked up at me, those jewel toned eyes beseeching me. I was about to make a decision that would shape the rest of my life. But then I had already made up my mind without even realizing it. There was something about him and I that made sense, that we had been destined to meet, to fulfill some purpose for the benefit of both of our worlds. I had saved his life and in some secret portion of my soul I realized he was saving mine. I would never go back to who or what I was intended to be in my world.
“Will you come with me, Lora?” he asked, seeing me beyond the scope of my world. I knew what he was asking of me. And I wondered if I had the strength to accept.
I knelt down on the cold floor, in that dim room, surrounded by junk. I put my hand over his and he clasped my fingers in a tight grip. “Yes,” I answered.
He lowered himself down into the hole and I followed, his bag slung over my right arm. It was too dark to see, but I could feel him just behind and below me. Every few seconds he would touch my leg, perhaps to assure himself that I was still there. But I had already made up my mind to follow him. I had risked everything I knew to save him. I wouldn’t turn craven on him now. We were a united front, together in the unknown world around us.