Marked

Sweat clung to the back of Rachel’s neck.

Her fingernails tapped against the cool, marble floors, each tick tick tick threatening to send her over the edge. Compulsively, she checked again to make sure the mute button was on. The red letters stared back at her like they had the past hundred times, eliciting a sigh from her lips.

She made sure that the watch was out of range of the camera and relaxed when she realized it was still well hidden behind her thigh.

On the other end of the watch, Abby went through a maintenance checklist with one of her guards.

It was nothing fancy, boring even.

Juan thumped his head against the wall rhythmically, his eyes focused on the ceiling above.

“This is so boring.” He groaned.

“I know. But she’s going to say something incriminating, I know it.”

He sighed, letting his face tip down so he could look at her. “Well is there any way to speed this up ’cause I’m bored shitless? Which reminds me, I gotta take a piss. How am I supposed to take a piss in here?”

Her eyes scanned the room. No toilet. She had been needing to go for the past hour too and her bladder was beginning to protest with pain. Reluctantly, Rachel set the watch down, her insides twisting at the idea of missing something important while she took a break.

She tapped on the glass of their holding cell and waited a while. There was a button on the wall that allowed her to be heard on the other side.

“Hello? I need you to let us out. We’ve gotta use the bathroom.”

To his credit, the guard arrived quickly. “Him first,” He said to Rachel.

Within a few minutes, he’d returned. Rachel slid the watch over to him behind her back.

She stood and allowed the guard to bind her wrists. They reached the bathroom at the end of the hall and he paused to unbind her hands once more.

“Don’t try anything stupid.” He warned.

Rachel rolled her eyes.

What stupid stunt could she really pull in a bathroom? Did he think she’d render him unconscious with a roll of toilet paper perhaps?

She stepped into the bathroom and took care of her human necessities. Once she was done, she washed her hands and took a long look at herself in the tiny, rectangular mirror. There was a small scar on her eyebrow from when she’d fought Charles, her eyes had more lines at the corners and her red hair looked like disgruntled flames.

Rachel shut her eyes. Hector’s voice sounded in her ears, deep, yet gentle, always so comforting.

I’ve always loved the color of your hair. Reminds me of fire.

The tears she had thought would never come erupted from her eyes in a rush, leaving tracks down the sides of her cheeks, and her body gasping for air. She gripped the sides of the sink to steady herself, unable to calm the onslaught of sobs.

She hadn’t cried that hard since Jed had run away and now that she had begun, she didn’t seem to be able to stop.

How could she when every man she had every cared about had disappeared?

As a toddler, the father she only remembered as the shadow in the office, the one who would be gone for months at a time, had left her to be marked. The brother she had loved more than her own life, had also left to pursue a dream that had surely gotten him killed. And now Hector, but at least he had been selfless in his actions.

Which somehow made it worse. Because he’d done all that for her, and now there was no way she could ever repay him.

“What’s going on in there?” The guard rapped on the door, startling Rachel out of an abyss of spiraling emotions. She sniffled and wiped the tears away. She splashed a quick handful of cool water onto her face, wiped it clean with a napkin and stepped outside.

If the guard notice her swollen eyes, he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he led her back to her holding cell.

A voice erupted from the watch as soon as they stepped through the door and she stiffened. She’d forgotten to silence the watch before she left.

Please don’t notice.

“What was that?” The guard turned to where Juan was sitting, where his leg was positioned just right so that it hid the watch from his line of vision.

Abby’s voice came over the call again, muttering something about her sons. The guard glanced down at his watch, confused. Rachel and Juan shared one panicked look right before Rachel wrapped her bound hands around the guard’s neck, shocking him. She immediately used her weight to pull his face down into her knee where it connected with his face, making him topple over into an unconscious heap.

She looked at his limp body, breathing heavy.

“Rachel!” Juan gasped in surprise.

“He was about to give us away.” She said sheepishly, but only slightly remorseful.

“But now how in the hell do we explain why there’s a guard knocked out in our cell?”

“Well...we could just, you know...get out of here. The door’s open.” She motioned with her bound hands to the doors.

“And go where?”

“Anywhere but here.”

“Rachel,” He sighed. He stood and now that he could see her clearly, he seemed uncomfortable by her big, puffy eyes, wouldn’t even look at her straight on. What was it about tears that turned men to blubbering idiots? “If we leave now, with no evidence, I’ll never know if we did the right thing. I gotta know for sure what happened to my brother.”

Rachel’s shoulder’s slumped.

“Not only that but what about Simone?” He continued. “We’ll never be able to get to her. Our fingerprints won’t open up any doors. Trust me, I’ve tried opening up this piece of crap,” He pointed at the cell doors. “A thousand times with no success.”

Drawing in a deep breath, she nodded her head. He was right. How long before someone saw the guard lying on the floor through the cameras and Rachel had to abandon her mission?

Say something, damn it.

“Alright, well let’s get this guy out of the way. When he wakes up I’ll take whatever punishment Abby decides to give me.”

Juan removed the bindings from her wrists and dragged the guard away from the entrance and into a corner of the room. Eventually, the doors shut out of their own accord and they were once again right where they’d started. No closer to figuring out if Abby was up to no good than they were this morning.

She wondered where Yalina was listening in from and if she was just as bored as they were.

Air trickled through the vents like water, reminding Rachel of the sound the river made back at the compound as it rushed through the heart of the mountain.

“What’s going on now?” Abby’s voice said, sounding exasperated but surprisingly clear.

“The two mountain kids are holding a guard hostage.”

“Hostage? Hardly.” Rachel said as she eyed the guard, lying in a heap. A sour taste spread within her mouth at the sound of Abby’s cynical voice. She glared into the camera, hoping Abby could see her, yet carefully maintained her watch out of their sight.

She wondered why no one had eavesdropped in on her ‘supposed’ conversation with Simone yet and figured out they weren’t really talking about anything.

“Why were they put in the same holding cell in the first place? Better question, why weren’t more officers assigned to them?”

“With all due respect ma’am,” The male voice cleared his throat. “We’re a little short staffed given that some of our guards are in lock up.” Well there was her answer. With Abby locking up the protesters, there were less eyes and ears everywhere. Perfect for Rachel, not so great for Abby.

“I’m getting really tired of these childish theatrics!” Rachel could almost see Abby’s storming grey eyes and mouth pinched into an unsatisfied sneer. “Put them in separate rooms. I’m done with these two.”

“Damn, Rachel. They’re gonna kick us out.”

Rachel ignored him his moment of panic and listened intently.

“We’re going to have to go back into the woods and live off of squirrels and nuts...”

A humming sound filled the other end of the watch, rhythmic, like ringing bells. Abby was calling someone.

“We’ll be captured by poachers and then we’ll— ”

“Shh!” Rachel ordered, pointing down at the watch. Juan pursed his lips and they both leaned closer, straining to hear. It sounded like Abby was on the other side of the room--the sounds bleeding through the watch were faint and distorted.

“Yes, I did as you told me.”

The shuffling of feet drowned out the other person’s voice, though Rachel could tell it was a male.

“All it did was cause an uproar. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this together...”

Keep what together?

“I told you, people are starting to ask questions. They want to know why we keep abandoning our soldiers.”

The male voice rose, but what he said was still undecipherable.

“We made a deal and I’ve upheld my end of it for years now. This is not my fault; it is yours for what you allowed to happen on the mountain!”

Something slammed against wood—Rachel suspected it was Abby’s hand crashing down against her desk. She sounded closer now. Rachel held her breath as if readying herself for an intense blow.

“I’m sending them to you now, I’m done. They’ll be on the next shipment out so you can Mark them and I can finally get back to my own life.”

Rachel gasped and dropped the watch. It landed next to Juan with a clang where he picked it up with a shocked expression, all the color draining from his tanned skin.

The phone call between Abby and the nameless man ended and Rachel struggled to process everything Abby had just said. Shock, intermingled with a twisted sense of satisfaction raced through her body. She was glad to have Abby unmasked once and for all but even though she had questioned Abby’s morals time and time again, she had never in a million years suspected she was working for the poachers.

Was she surprised? No.

But was she afraid? Absolutely.

The doors in Abby’s office hissed open like the breath of a ghost. Meanwhile, Rachel and Juan didn’t dare do so much as breathe.

“Fetch me the two in holding cell forty-seven. Do it now.”

A/N Abby is working for the poachers? Whaaaaat? Did you see that coming? Leave me a comment, I’d love to hear from you!