Escape

Lara awoke in a large room. There were two girls chattering in a corner and, although they were quiet, the noise was still unbearable to Lara. The constant headache had been worsened by the impact of the gun. She groaned quietly, then shut her eyes and tried to blank her mind.

It didn’t work. The two girls’ annoying voices were nagging in the back of her head.

“What did she say? And to the landowner’s sun, no less! Disgraceful,” one said, disgust and shock plain in her voice.

“If the landowner’s son touched me I wouldn’t been upset,” the other said, and they both tittered.

The sound of a door opening hushed the two girls. "Has she woken up yet, Mikita?” the new person asked. By the sounds of it, she was an older woman.

“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” ‘Mikita’ said, her voice more serious but no less annoying. “She’s remained stable.”

“Mikita, you should be careful about using language like that around men. No one likes a smart girl.”

Lara managed to supress her sound of derision at the notion that ‘Mikita’ could be considered smart by anyone.

“I don’t know why he wants to keep her,” the older woman said. “A foul beast like that should stay out in the wilderness. She shouldn’t be allowed near respectable people.” She paused, and then sighed. “I guess the master has his fancies, eh?”

“I wonder when he’ll wake up. It’s been four hours already, and he said he was only going to take a quick nap,” Mikita said.

“That’s right. Maybe you should go and wake him Mikita. Hurry though- try not to stare too long!” The older woman said. All three women laughed, and the door was opened and slammed shut once again.

After that, the room was thankfully much quieter.

The two remaining woman spent what seemed like an eternity doing pointless activities before finally leaving.

Lara sighed. She thought of Adrianne, and what she was doing at that point. Whether she was OK. Then she forced herself to ask herself the same question of Ava and Maria. From what the women said, it had been at least four hours since she’d been captured. She wouldn’t make it to the others before sundown.

Oh well. She’d been there long enough. Now it was time to escape.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes.

“So you’re finally awake now?” She started and turned. It was the landowner’s son, standing in the doorway. She turned away again, cursing silently, wondering why she had not heard him come in.

“Are you sure you want to turn away princess? With your back to me, you won’t know what I’m doing, and you’re useless without your knuckledusters, aren’t you? How did a girl like you come across something like that anyway? I was quite surprised- they’re a fine piece of work, and they must have been expensive. Real metal is so hard to come by these days. I hope you don’t mind my relieving you of them?”

Lara’s head began to pound harder; her knuckledusters were one of her most precious items. The only thing that could lessen the thumping was checking her left hip for that reassuring weight. It was still there.

“You know, if you’d smile you’d be even more beautiful.” The landowner’s son said, but the comment produced no reaction from Lara. She had no desire to be beautiful.

Suddenly, she felt him touch her, his arms holding her own firmly to her sides, making it impossible for her to fight him off.

“I warned you,” he chuckled lowly. “I told you that you wouldn’t know what I was doing with you back turned, and I meant it. You’re so proud, too proud for a woman. But I can cure you of that. When I’m finished with you, you’ll have no pride left at all.” His lips touched her neck, and his hands moved up to slip the sleeves of her robe down, giving Lara a little freedom to move her arms. She slipped her right hand under the robe, across her torso to the weighted left hand side of her body, where she grabbed something cool and hard. The landowner’s son continued to kiss her shoulders, her chest and her arms. Lara was frozen. The pumping of her head became too much for her to handle.

“Real metal knuckledusters, real cotton robe, real leather tunic… I wonder what you lingerie is made from. You are a rich girl aren’t you? You’d be a great asset, if I were to marry you,” he trailed off and kissed her again, her breast. “And rich girls taste so good.”

Lara made a retching sound, followed by another and another and another. Then she was sick, all over the bed.

The landowner’s son swore. “Damn, you’re just going to be difficult, aren’t you? Luckily there are other beds.” He scooped Lara up, fully freeing her right arm. Being sick had cleared her brain; she could think and function properly now. Her free arm moved and hit the landowner’s son’s left arm at an alarming speed.

The arm went limp, and Lara’s legs dropped to the floor. She stood up straight, resisting the urge to collapse.

“That’s… quite a punch.” He said weakly, holding his left arm with his right. Lara kicked the back of his knee, flooring him.

“What punch?” she scoffed. “What you felt-” she slid an arm around him, and he something cool and sharp at his throat- “was a knife.”

~

Lara was, once again free.  Her knuckledusters were restored to their place in her pocket, and she’d even managed, after a little creative use of her knife, to get some money. Adrianne would be relieved. She spent the majority of her time worrying about food, water and money and their lack thereof, and it was proving detrimental to her health. Lara, for all her harshness, cared a lot about Adrianne, more then she cared for herself or anyone else, and she was constantly thinking of what would be best for her.

The thoughts of Adrianne made Lara worry about her safety, and she quickened her footsteps.

~

It was pitch black, and the moon’s light shone gently through the hazy sky. It was worse in the cities, Lara had heard. The pollution left from decades of war had added on to the pollution of too many people living too closely together and the pollution of rich people, which Lara considered to be the worst type of pollution. Rich people owned armies, and therefore deserved to die.

Adrianne and the girls had probably only travelled as far as they could before the sun had set. Without Lara, who insisted on travelling till they dropped, and who made them keep a steady and above all quick pace, the girls covered less ground but took twice as long. That meant Lara could travel at leisure, and the girls would meet her at the spring. She had made sure to get her bearings before she left and knew which way she should walk. And she enjoyed travelling alone, free of Ava’s constant chatter.

Lara couldn’t stand her younger sister. Just looking at her made her headache worsen.

She walked another mile and a half before deciding that she should settle down. She wondered again how Adrianne was doing, and sighed. Adrianne wasn’t built to travel. Ava and Maria had been travelling their whole lives, and Lara could walk for three days without food and still fight thanks to the Spartan training she had put herself through, but Adrianne found it hard to manage two days of walking, and recently they had been walking almost non-stop. The region they were travelling through had been affected more severely by the war then they had expected, and it was telling on Adrianne’s already-poor health. She had refused to admit this, just as she had refused Lara every time she had tried to offer Adrianne her own share of the rations. Lara shook her head as if to dismiss the thoughts of something she could not help, and rolled over for a few hours sleep before sunrise.

~

Adrianne, Ava and Maria were still walking. Adrianne was anxious to reach the spring where she was positive Lara would be waiting. Ava was carrying Maria, although the child was almost as big as she.

“Adrianne, can we stop now? I’m tired,” She complained, hefting Maria higher up on to her back for what had to be the hundredth time.

“Ava, let me carry her now. You’ve been holding her for about an hour.” Adrianne said, but Ava shook her head stubbornly, and picked up her pace to show that she was really ok. Adrianne sighed. She was too tired to fight.

“We’ll stop soon, ok?” She twisted her hair into a knot. “When it drops, ok? Then we’ll stop, and rest” Ava nodded, and hefted Maria up again.

Twenty minutes later, the knot had come loose, and Adrianne’s hair hung loose down her back once again.

Adrianne stopped, secretly relieved, and took a sip out of her canteen. She was running low on water. Then she and Ava set out the sleeping bags, piling them close together, and throwing Lara’s over them. Maria was in the middle, and Ava and Adrianne flanked her protectively.

They lay in silence for almost ten minutes before Ava spoke.

“Do you think Lara’s ok?” she asked, her shaking voice indicating that she was crying again.

“I think she’s fine,” Adrianne said, making her voice as reassuring as she could. “And I think that even if she wasn’t fine she wouldn’t want you to cry over her.” Adrianne cursed herself as soon as the words left her lips; it had been the wrong thing to say. “Look, Ava, you know she can protect herself. She probably just got caught up in the town doing something. She will definitely be there to meet us once we reach the spring.”

“But she hasn’t even got a sleeping bag,” Ava wailed, sobbing fully now.

Adrianne bit her lip, and didn’t try to comfort the little girl. She couldn’t, she was too worried herself.

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

The Town

The land was wasted by the hundred years of war. Even now, although the war was officially over and peace papers had been signed, different armies still fought for control, leaving ever more destruction in their wake. The earth remained in turmoil, and peacetime, it seemed, was no better than wartime.

Amidst this sort of chaos, there will always be displaced individuals, wanderers unable to find anywhere they can easily settle, who are wary of everyone and anyone they come across.

Such people are like pack animals, travelling in small groups for protection and companionship.

~

The two girls sleeping in the comparative shelter of a well- the only thing visible for about three miles- are half of one such group. Adrianne, the older of the two had honey coloured curly hair, and a womanly figure. The younger of the two looked about fourteen. Her hair was jet black and straight, her body was hard and wiry, and her forehead was wrinkled into a frown even in her sleep, a hint to her disposition. They travelled with two younger girls, Lara’s younger sister with whom she shared no resemblance, and Marie, an angelic looking eight year old with blonde curls who still hadn’t found her sound.

They travelled together not because they wanted to, but because they needed to.

Because without each other, the world was an even more lonely, even more dangerous place.

~

Ava and Marie came back from exploring the surrounding area to find Adrianne and Lara still lying in their sleeping bags on the hard, scarred ground.

“Do you think we should wake them?” Ava asked the mute Marie. Marie stared back at her with cool, indifferent eyes. “To tell them about the town. Or should we let them sleep some more?” Ava sat down on the ground next to her sister, running her hands through her short black hair and across her creased forehead, trying to smooth out the deep-set lines.

“Let’s wait,” she said, answering her own questions. “If I wake them up now, Lara will be angry at me again, but maybe if she gets some sleep she’ll be happier, right?” Ava looked beseechingly at Marie for some affirmation that this wasn’t just wishful thinking, and Marie, who spent all of her time listening, nodded.

Marie had noticed what Ava hadn’t: that Lara wasn’t permanently angry due to lack of sleep, but for some deeper reason that no on else but Lara could understand.

~

Lara woke up first, to find Ava gazing adoringly down at her, fingers still entwined in her sister's hair. For a moment, in her just woken confusion she looked lost and helpless, but that lasted just a moment, and then the frown invaded her face and took up residence once more.

“Get off. What the hell are you doing, just sitting there, staring at me like a creep? You could at least make yourself useful. Light a fire or something,” she said, sitting up and shaking Ava’s hand off. Ava looked crestfallen, but then perked up.

“Me and Marie found a town. Over there. We were thinking maybe we should stop there, get some food and water or stuff.”

“No. We should carry on to the spring, the town is probably occupied.”

“Um, I asked around-” Ava began, but was cut off by her sister.

“You idiot! You don’t go round asking. You shouldn’t even be going into a town without Adrianne or I. Have I taught you nothing?” Ava bit her lip to stop herself from crying. Adrianne woke up from her sleep.

“Lara, why all the shouting?” She asked, her voice muffled.

“This brat found a town and went into it, asking people if it was occupied!” Lara cried, incensed. She rounded on her sister once more. “I’m ashamed to even call you my sister. Use you head once in a while, it would make life a whole hell of a lot easier for the rest of us!” Ava blinked back tears.

“Sorry Lara. But it seemed safe, and… I couldn’t see any military around so I just thought…” her sentence withered and died in the face of Lara’s glare.

“Ava,” Adrianne cut in, her usually gentle voice made even more soothing from the contrast it struck with Lara’s. “You have to understand that people like us don’t fit anywhere. People don’t like us; they’ll run us out for no reason. You’ve got to try and give as little away as possible. Asking questions like that is just going to get us exposed. I know you were trying to help, but you should have waited till either Lara or myself could have come with you. Towns are dangerous, especially when you’re alone.”

Adrianne had intervened partially to stop the shouting, but more to prevent Lara from saying something that she should regret. Not that she would.

Lara never regretted anything she said.

“Sorry Adrianne, it’s just… I haven’t seen a town like that, with people, and a well in so long- the streets even have cobbles,” Ava’s eyes filled with tears.

“Don’t cry, you idiot. Crying won’t solve anything,” Lara said, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

“But… I’m so sorry. You and Adrianne… you’re right… I’m really, really sorry-”

“If you were that sorry, you’d stop sobbing when we’ve just woken up and you’d start a fire and put on something for us to eat.”

Lara stood up, and her sleeping bag fell away, revealing a thick cotton robe dyed a rich scarlet colour. It was finely embroidered in coloured silk thread, and it was obviously not the clothing worn by the average traveller.

“I’m going for a walk. I want food when I get back,” she said, and walked off before anyone could say anything.

The remaining three, entranced as always by Lara’s grandeur, watched her leave for all of three seconds, and then Adrianne shook herself out of the spell.

“Well, I guess we better get cooking. After all, we can’t disappoint our knight, can we now?”

~

Lara lay on the ground, her eyes shut, the frown still fixed to her face. Her mind was blank. It was a skill Lara had picked up over the years, a way to escape the permanent headache, and the overwhelming, baseless rage that often gripped her.

It was the way she saved lives.

~

When Lara finally returned to the group, food had been prepared, and was set out.

“Have you guys eaten?” Lara asked in a voice so low that it could barely be heard.

“No, we were waiting for you,” Ava replied, smiling.

“That was stupid! Who told you to do that? Hurry up and eat, so we can get moving,” she said sitting down and filling her mouth with food. The others did the same, and silence reigned.

Lara’s headache crept back as she chewed. The only respite from this headache was when she blanked out her mind. Even when she was sleeping, she was aware of it. She’d grown so accustomed to the pain, she barely ever noticed its presence, but even so the silence was a blessing.

“Lara, we have to stop by in that town after all,” Adrianne said quietly, after the meal as they rolled up their sleeping bags.

“What? Adrianne, we definitely can’t go now that Ava went round asking questions.”

“Lara, it’s not like I want to go to this town either, but we hardly have any food left. And even with the map, we don’t know when we will reach the next town. If we run out before that, then what will we do?” There was a silence, in which Lara savagely rolled up her sleeping bag and tied a string around it like she was trying to strangle it. Then she finally spoke.

“Fine, I’ll go alone. You guys wait for me here, and then we’ll carry on. If I don’t get back by tonight, go on to the spring without me.”

“Lara… are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. It has to be done, doesn’t it? Or would you rather starve Adrianne?”

“Of course not! I’m just worried about you. If anything happened to you in that town, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself,” Adrianne said.

But Lara just shook her head and handed her sleeping bag to Adrianne. “Here, take this. Where’s the money?”

Adrianne took the sleeping bag and reached under her skirt for the money pouch secured round her waist. She handed it to Lara, with a worried expression. The pouch was dangerously light. “We haven’t got much left,” she warned.

“Oh well. We’ll deal with that when we need to. You guys stay here. If anyone comes, start walking towards the town. Ava, where’s this cobbled town of yours anyway?” Lara asked.

Ava beamed because Lara had asked her something, and pointed in the direction she and Marie had returned from a few hours before. “I’ll take you there!”

“I’ll take myself there,” Lara said scornfully, setting off in the direction of Ava’s pointed finger. “You stay quiet, and please, for the love of God try not to do anything stupid.”

For the second time that day, Adrianna, Ava and Marie watched Lara walk away.

“Adrianne,” Ava asked when Lara was out of earshot. “Is it really OK to let her go alone?”

Adrianne smiled, three parts fond, one part sad, at her friends retreating back and nodded. “You know her. She’ll always be okay. Nothing can hurt her anymore.”

~

Lara reached the town by midday. Ava and Maria must have been walking all night, instead of keeping watch like they should have been.

It was quiet, and Lara had the feeling that all around her, people were peeping through doors left ajar and the cracks between pairs of old, cheap curtains. Other than that, the place seemed okay. It wasn’t a poor town, but it certainly wasn’t rich either.

She found an open shop that was selling dried supplies. Lara knew from experience that shops this far out didn’t insist on ration coupons. Anything was good enough for them. The shopkeeper was a young girl, who smiled nervously from behind the counter.

Lara allowed herself to relax marginally. It was clear that the town was occupied; the atmosphere was too peaceful. And she doubted that it was one of those army funded towns either, those generally reeked of opulent, arrogant, army bastards, and coupons were mandatory.

She paid for the supplies she picked up, left the shop, and was promptly affronted by a rich looking young man with a smirk smeared across his face.

“Is it wise for a girl to be unescorted in an unfamiliar town? Especially one of your stature- and beauty.”

Lara looked at him for the briefest of seconds, then turned away and carried on walking. The man walked alongside her.

“We can provide you with an escort, or if you wish to rest, residence.”

“I want neither,” Lara snapped curtly. “Refrain from following me.”

The last had been an order, and it clearly rankled with the young man who had, up until that point, trying to woo her. “I’m sorry ma’am,” and he spat the word, “but no matter how great your social standing and wealth, I resent a woman talking to me that way. You should know your place.” He pulled her closer to him, and parted his lips to speak once more, but Lara’s free hand rose and slapped him. She didn’t consider it to be particularly hard, but the man recoiled.

“I know my place. You should know yours. Dirty male pigs have no right to touch women,” she said stiffly, quickening her pace.

She noticed, too late, the crowd that had gathered.

“How dare you touch the landowner’s son like that?” a beefy man said, detaching himself from the crowd. “How dare you speak to him that way? You may be fine, but here you are a worthless-” he never finished that particular sentence. Lara silently brought her knee up as soon as he was within reach, and it hit him in the groin. He doubled over in pain. Another man came forward with the intention to attack.

Lara smiled grimly and slipped her hand into a pocket that was concealed by the folds of her robe.

When it came out, it was encased in a shining set of real metal knuckledusters. Lara knew she fought well; she had to. Her movements were quick and precise, and none of her aggressors noticed the knuckledusters until it was too late. And then they were sprawled on the ground; unconscious or wisely faking it.

An old woman watching from the doorway of one of the houses shouted at her. “You monster! What have you done? You witch! A plague upon you, and your children,” she cried, her curses undermined by the frailty of her voice.

“What they got was nothing more than they deserved,” Lara replied. But the old woman was no longer cursing. She was not even looking at Lara, but instead at a point somewhere behind her. She spun around just in time to kick the landowner’s son in the gut, but he still managed to hit her with the butt of his rifle. She heard a snatch of their conversation before she blacked out.

“Why didn’t you just shoot her?” the old woman wailed.

“She’s too interesting to be shot,” was her reply. “Besides, what a waste of such a pretty girl.”

And then, she was gone.

~

“She hasn’t come back yet,” Adrianne stated needlessly, trying to keep the nervousness from showing in her voice. “It’s almost sundown.”

“She’ll come back. She wouldn’t just leave us here, would she?” Ava was crying once again. It was the seventh time since Lara had left. Adrianne didn’t answer her question. Instead she said:

“We’ll leave at sundown. If Lara’s not here, then we’ll just have to go on without her.” On her face played a brave expression, but in the pit of her stomach, guilt and fear were already gathering.

Next Chapter

B is for Boyracers -1

You see, Myfanwy Lewis is trouble.

I first realised it when she asked Adam to make it official between them.

It was after a month of being with us. Of course it is possible that she did not quite know what she was asking. But it is just as possible that she did.

Adam was group property. It was an unspoken agreement. We were none of us exclusive anyway, but Adam, as the irresistibly hot group member, was the person who we knew in our souls could not be tied down.

Myfanwy, apparently, did not feel this.

By asking Adam to make their relationship official, and therefore exclusive, she was picking a fight with all of us.

What made it worse was the fact that Adam said yes.

The easy, open dynamic we had was ruined.

Adam and Myfanwy were one of those incredibly, irritatingly couple-y couples. They did everything together and began to skip group nights out in favour of couples nights in.

That's when we really started hating her, but by then it was too late.

She was in, and getting rid of her would mean getting rid of Adam, too.



Myfanwy Lewis was also the only one with a holiday home in Brighton.

We usually spent our time dossing around and getting as far away from sobriety as possible.

We all knew we were fuck-ups; even Adam, even gorgeous pristine Myfanwy. It didn't matter that, when she was lucid, Marie was a genius, or that Serenity was an heir to a small-but-ever-expanding chain of North London based fast food shops: we had all failed in some way or another.

We all had our own reasons for being the way we were, but what they all bown down to is that living life without having to give a fuck about anything is just easier.

No one can deny that.

So we spent our free time carousing.

One day, a Saturday, Adam says he's sick of London. Adam gets sick of Londonat least three times a year, this is nothing new.

He suggests we go to his family cottage in Cambria, which is what we always do.

We're all fine with that except Myfanwy.

She doesn't want to go to Cambria where she'd freeze her tits off.

Marie's the one who speaks.

"Well, have you a better idea?" she asks, in a snappy way.

"Yes," Myfanwy says. "Actually I do."



And that's how we got to Brighton.

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A is for Absinthe

It started, as many things do, with a drink.

Black Absinthe, to be precise, eighty-five per cent. The sides  of the bottle were stained black where the drink had dripped down the sides; the green fairy on the label was split neatly in two.

We were sitting in a circle out on Top Field in the chilly early spring air, taking shots from the bottle cap.

It was Myfanwy Lewis’s first night out with us, ever. She was sitting opposite the circle to me, with her perfectly made up face and pristine shirt and jeans.

I wanted to mess her up. I think we all did.

She knew she had something to prove to us, you could see it in her eyes. So she gulped down six shots without even smudging that pillarbox red lipstick of hers.

Brigitte sat in my lap after a while, and she let me touch her up as we watched Myfanwy sway in and out of focus again and again before being engulfed in that wall of lust that surrounded Adam.

We were all a little bit coated in it, I think.

It was a cold night, and our breath hung like mist in the crisp air, but the absinthe filled our veins with fire and everyone shed a layer or so. Save Myfanwy the Perfect, we all knew each other well. There were no secrets among us.

Brigitte was a perfect being.

Not the same kind of perfect as Myfanwy, not by a long shot.

Brigitte’s perfection was harder to find, and even when you found it, you couldn’t name it.

It was something about the way she held her tiny figure. Something about the way you felt when you held that tiny figure. It was a little how she bit her plump lips. The fact that no matter what you did she seemed so innocent.

How she fit in the world so well.

Whatever it was, it had me well and truly hooked.

Sam, Alex, Jordon and all the others, well they were good. They had their strengths, and they were sweet, but Brigitte made me feel as though I was a world away.

I won the right to take her back to the old warehouse I called home, the warehouse I was loath to let the others stay in.

It was a squat, but it was my squat. The first thing I did when I found it was make it secure.

Boarded up the windows with whatever I could find, made sure the doors were all shut and locked properly, made sure there were no other points of access.

I’m not too up on the law surrounding these things, but I’m pretty sure that made it legally mine.

Only then did I begin to make in a home.

Brigitte was probably the most familiar with it out of all our group, but she was the least presumptuous. She expected to be denied access every time she knocked on the iron door, or to be chucked out the second we were done.

It’s funny, you see, because she’s probably the only one I’d allow to stay there with me forever.

We didn’t get up to much that night, though, the night Myfanwy first came out with us.

We passed out on the mattress and slept like deadmen the night through.

You see, the point is, that was the night Myfanwy joined us for good.

She wasn’t one of us, that was for sure, but Adam was willing to overlook that fact, so we were too.

If we’d never let her in we would have probably stayed in our little corner of North London.

We’d all be whole, uninjured.

Brigitte would never have found out that I love her.

Nothing would have changed.

Next Chapter