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LEXI

AN UNKNOWN TIME

A s I came to from being unconscious, it was like pulling my mind up from mud, sluggish and slow to awareness.

The first thing I noticed was how hard my muscles were clamped, agitated, it dawned on me that I was shivering with cold.

I wrapped my arms around me. I was wearing a tiny little flowered sun dress and it felt like winter.

I peeled my eyes open. Nearly everything on my body hurt, even my eyelashes.

It was dark. When everything had happened, when I had been in a giant brawl on my lawn, it had been midmorning.

I could see a blade of grass in front of my eyes.

It was in focus, everything else was blurred and foggy.

I couldn’t hear anything over the roar in my head.

It sounded like when you had earplugs in and yet it was loud everywhere, but you couldn’t hear it, not really, not over the sound of your own breathing, your own self.

But under it, rising in my awareness, a man’s voice.

It was Torin, his face at the level of mine, crawling closer. He whispered, “Wheesht.”

As his face emerged fully in my view his finger was pressed to his lips. He silently shook his head.

Be quiet, don’t say anything... I went small and quiet like a kitten.

He sprung up into a crouched position, his big rough hand lightly resting on my shoulder, comfortingly. I looked up at the underside of his bearded chin. He was looking out, and slowly turning his head, looking around in every direction, then looking over his shoulder, then scanning around again.

After a few very tense moments he asked, “Ye cold?”

I nodded.

He unfastened the brooch on his cloak, swept it off and laid it across me. It was a bit warmer. He passed me the brooch and whispered, “Can ye fasten it so I daena lose it?”

I nodded, fumbling the brooch’s needle through the thick fabric and latching it, realizing it was pinned to my dress, and not the other side, so it was useless as a fastener, but at least it wouldn’t get lost...

I think because of the pain subsiding, the cold, the fear, I crashed, losing consciousness once more. This time a bit more like falling asleep than passing out, though the two things were just barely different.

Both caused me to go dark.

I woke with a start when I heard a man yelp in pain.

I sat up bolt upright.

In the middle of a small clearing, two men were holding Torin’s arms while another man punched his face.

One of the men was wearing a headlamp, blazing light into Torin’s eyes.

His eye was blackened, a gash on his head. His lip looked swollen.

I slammed my hands over my mouth to keep from screaming.

I didn’t know if they saw me, if they knew where I was.

I looked around, I was alone, about thirty feet away, in the dark.

I pulled the cloak around my shoulders, then I inched.

I inched more, stealthily, silently toward a tree. If I could get behind it before the light was swept around the?—

The light was swept around the clearing.

I froze.

The light hit me.

I stayed frozen, hoping they didn’t see me, but they were all looking right at me. Torin bellowed and struggled in his captors’ grip.

Run!

I scrambled up and began to run, run run run! Making it about eight steps before I was tackled from behind by some big asshole with a smell of body odor and evil.

I tripped over a rock, hard, as I fell forward with the big guy on me, knocking the air out of me. I shrieked in pain.

It was so dark I had no idea who was on me, what he looked like, but if you had told me ‘grizzly bear’ I would have believed you.

I was lifted and thrown over his shoulder, in shock with pain. I struggled but it was useless. I beat his back. I could hear Torin, yelling, his voice low from agonizing pain, “Lexi! Are ye okay, Lexi?—”

Another punch and he quieted.

I kept shrieking and pushing and shoving against the monster’s back, trying to get off, up, away, but his hand was clamped on my legs, clamped down on me, and as he walked and as I struggled, as my head was over his back, practically upside down, I just wore myself out.

He dropped me to the ground and roughly pushed and pulled until he wrenched my arms behind me and tied my hands together then he roughly shoved me up and over onto a horse, ass in the air.

The cloak hung uselessly from my shoulder.

I couldn’t move. I was going to fall forward or back and without my hands to stop my fall either way I would be seriously hurt.

Torin yelled, “Daena hurt her!”

The sounds of struggling, then the group of men moved closer to the horses and the horse I was draped across was set into a walk.

The leather saddle hurt my stomach, my ribs, and my hip bones — this giant horse’s movements were excruciating because I couldn’t adjust or move in anyway — the pain was overwhelming and relentless. My face was pressed against the side of a sweating filthy horse, all the blood rushing to my head.

My head was jostled, I raised it enough to see Torin shuffling along beside me as he was pushed from behind by our captors. He whispered, “Daena tell them who ye are.”

I moaned.

He whispered, “Mistress… daena die, please.”

I mumbled. “I won’t.”

“Daena worry, I will get ye free. I promise, I will get ye home, I promise I will keep ye safe…” I lost consciousness again.