***
By the time Maarqyn finally came up the stairs, Georgianna’s wrists had been bound before her, and she had been forced to her knees between the two Tsevstakre. Maarqyn tapped a Cinystalq collar repeatedly into his palm as he approached, his eyes narrowed.
Georgianna watched him, trying to keep her fingers from shaking in fear. Was it her imagination, or did that collar look different to the one she’d picked up from the ground? There were no coloured wires spilling from the open ends, no damage at all as far as she could see. Her gaze flickered from the collar up to Maarqyn’s face as he stepped closer, nodding to the men on either side of her. Both men took a step away from her, leaving her on her knees in the centre of the floor. She looked helplessly at each one, but neither acknowledged her, their eyes fixed forward. One, however, had the smallest of smiles on his face.
“Are you sure you would not like to change your story?” Maarqyn asked slowly, tapping the collar harder into his palm.
“My story?” she asked.
“That you were called here as a medic,” Maarqyn replied slowly.
Georgianna paused, and slowly shook her head.
Maarqyn stepped forward and took hold of the two sides of the collar, pulling them deftly apart. Georgianna shifted on her knees, trying to move herself back, but Maarqyn was faster. Georgianna lifted her bound hands towards her neck, shaking her head.
“No, please!” she begged. “Don’t!”
Maarqyn took no heed of her pleas, swatting her hands out of the way, and clamping the collar around her neck in a single movement. A vibration rumbled through her skin, a cold shiver that travelled down her spine and settled in her stomach.
Barely pausing, Maarqyn stood up straight and reached into his pocket, pulling out a tsentyl. He swiped it open, holding it in one palm as he glanced down at Georgianna.
“Where are my dreta?” he asked.
Georgianna, touching the collar tentatively with her fingers, looked up at Maarqyn quickly and shook her head.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
Maarqyn touched the tsentyl. The shock that travelled through her body seared like lightning collected and released on command, shooting through her body to the tips of her fingers and toes. She screamed, falling forward. Her hands hit the floor. Another shock reverberated through her skin. She slid forward onto her elbows.
“Where are they?” he asked again.
Georgianna gasped and carefully brought her head up.
“I don’t know.”
Another bolt of lightning ripped a cry from her. Maarqyn kept the shocks coming. Two, three, four, he sent one after the other in quick succession. Georgianna balled her hands into fists, gritting her teeth together. Her body shook and trembled against the dusty floor until finally the last echoes of the shock faded into the memory of pain.
“Come on, Medic,” Maarqyn sneered. “We both know you were involved.”
Georgianna carefully pushed herself up until she could look at him. For a moment, she simply stared at him, her breath rattling through her tightly clamped teeth. Maarqyn was smiling, a sick, amused smirk that didn’t reach his eyes. The tsentyl lay open in one hand, his thumb hovering over it, ready to shock her again.
“I came here because I was called,” she breathed.
“And yet you have no tsentyl to prove it, no supplies to treat an injured person?”
His thumb pressed down and Georgianna was back on the floor, writhing and screaming.
“Where are they, Medic?” Maarqyn shouted over her screams. “Tell me where Alec and Nyah are. I will let you go.”
Unlike before, now Maarqyn didn’t remove his thumb from the tsentyl. He kept it pressed to the surface, administering shock after shock to Georgianna’s trembling body. Her throat was raw from screaming. She couldn’t think, couldn’t focus on any thought other than the pain and making it stop. She clutched at the collar, trying to pull it from her neck, but it only sent the shocks through her hands instead, shooting in the opposite direction as well.
“They’re gone!” she screamed finally. “I was looking for them!”
The pain, while not gone completely, dropped instantly. Old tremors still radiated through her skin, but no new assaults came from the collar. Each breath seared in pain down her throat into her lungs as Georgianna lay on her side, staring across the dirty floor.
Maarqyn paced for a moment before he crouched down, taking hold of the collar and yanking her up from the floor.
Georgianna yelped, clutching at his wrist and trying to keep the pressure from her neck. Maarqyn pulled her close, glaring at her and ensuring she could see his thumb hovering over the tsentyl.
“Gone where?” he asked.
It was over, Georgianna knew that. There was no point in denying now, not when she had admitted that she knew about the escape.
“I don’t know,” she breathed.
Maarqyn’s thumb moved to press the charge, his fingers slipping from the collar so that he could shock her again. She shook her head desperately.
“I promise, I don’t know!” she cried. “I was meant to meet them and they weren’t here!”
She couldn’t tell them about the second meeting place, not when Alec was probably still waiting for her.
“Please! Please, I’m telling the truth! I knew about the escape, but I don’t know where they are now!”
Maarqyn stood up straight, brushing the dust from his arms. Georgianna watched him in desperation, her gaze fixed onto his face as he looked down at her in disgust. He finally glanced at the man on her left.
Holding out the tsentyl, he handed it to the Tsevstakre before rubbing his hands together.
“Keep shocking her while I see if the others found any tracks,” he stated as if telling the man to make sure his breakfast didn’t burn. “She’s going to Lyndbury anyway. They won’t care what state they get her in.”
Georgianna’s screams had begun before Maarqyn’s foot hit the first step downstairs.
36 Hopeless Apparition
Georgianna was no longer sure whether the shakes travelling through her body were from the torture administered from the cinystalq collar, or fear at what was coming. Each press of the tsentyl sent electric agony through her, snapping and licking at every nerve, jolting each limb into spasms. She tried listening for the sound of footsteps on the stairs, but could hear nothing over her own desperate screams.
Each shock, though lasting only seconds, had effects that continued on and on. With each administration, the aftermath took longer to wear off, her hands constantly trembling against the floor. She tried to lift herself between shocks, braced against the floor on her knees and elbows, though even those didn’t hold up fully when the next shock came.
Georgianna didn’t hear anything, but one of the guards must have, because one reached out and nudged the other. The shocks stopped long enough for Georgianna’s cries to fall to a whimpering that allowed her to hear boots on the stairs.
“Volsonne?” one of the guards asked.
Glancing up just enough to see Maarqyn heading towards her, Georgianna received a kick to the stomach from the Tsevstakre Commander, sending her recoiling on her side.
“They’re gone!” he snapped furiously. “Get her downstairs. We need to sweep up here for evidence, see if we can find out who else was involved.”
Maarqyn snatched the tsentyl from one of the guards before stalking away downstairs to the other men he’d brought with him.
Dragged to her feet, Georgianna stumbled down the stairs between the two guards, hitting the wall as she found herself unable to right her steps in time to make the turn. The Tsevstakre behind her reached out, grabbing her arm and flinging her sideways, sending her down the last two steps to the dirty floor.
“Wait with her outside,” Maarqyn ordered, barely looking at them between conversing with one of the other Tsevstakre. “I need to get the others back here.”
Georgianna was pulled to her feet, dra
gged by her arms. She tripped and stumbled, and was finally flung against a wall outside. Sliding down it, she collapsed over her knees as a length of thick rope was attached to the binding around her wrists. He kept hold of the other end. He stepped away, holding a conversation in Adtvenis with one of the other Tsevstakre positioned outside.
Staring across the street, Georgianna watched the Veniche people staring at her, murmuring to each other. Her gaze swept dejectedly through the crowd, knowing that nobody would help her here. There would be no rebel force to surge forward and fight for her freedom. She was one person, and remembering Beck’s words about Alec, she knew that one person was not worth the risk of many. No one even knew that she’d been caught. She would be in the compound before anybody even considered organising a plan.
Her gaze had passed him by a couple of faces before Georgianna realised that the expression the face held was not one of curiosity, but horrified pain. Her breath caught in her chest. She checked the Tsevstakre, distracted in conversation, before she sought him again. He took a few moments to locate. There were so many faces staring back at her that finding the one she wanted, while her head spun and pounded in pain, took concentration she just didn’t have.
Finally she saw them, Keiran’s blue-grey eyes staring back, his teeth bared as his lips pulled back into an angry snarl. Georgianna shook her head quickly, urging him to run, but he was moving closer. Edging through the crowd, he watched the Adveni as he came closer to the wall she’d been placed against.
Georgianna tracked his movements, glancing at the Adveni guards whenever Keiran slipped behind other onlookers. In a panic as she looked back and couldn’t see him, her breath stopped, and she searched the crowd desperately.
“George.”
She jumped, the voice was so close that she expected him to be standing right next to her. However, when she looked to the side, there was nobody for at least ten feet. Even the faces in the crowd were not Keiran’s. Georgianna let out a quiet moan, resting her head back against the brick. She wanted to see him. Maybe she was hearing things. Maybe she’d never seen him at all; he was just an apparition to calm her desperate mind.
Then, inch by inch, a set of fingers edged around the corner of the building and tapped against the brick. Georgianna turned her head and looked at the two guards, but it seemed neither of them had noticed. With a moan, she pushed herself up straight.
“Keiran?” she breathed. “They knew! In the compound, they knew.”
Behind the wall, Keiran let out a growl. At the edge of the crowd, Georgianna spotted a boy watching him, his eyes narrowed curiously as his gaze flickered between Georgianna and Keiran. She gulped.
“You have to go,” she whispered. “They know there was help, I’ve not… I’ve not said who.”
She paused, her breath rattling through chattering teeth. She didn’t want to say it, she didn’t want to be left alone, but she knew that Keiran couldn’t be caught up in this. He hadn’t really wanted to be involved in the first place. He’d done it for her.
“Keiran, please go.”
Georgianna glanced again towards the guards.
“George, I…”
“My father… Please, Keiran, you have to tell him.”
Glancing around the wall again, Keiran paused a moment longer, his gaze locking with Georgianna’s. His expression was pained, angry, and Georgianna wondered who exactly he was angry at, whether it was the Adveni, or Taye for getting them involved in this in the first place. Perhaps he was angry at her for getting caught. She was certainly angry enough at herself.
“Go,” she urged.
“No, I could get…”
“Keiran!” she breathed.
Keiran ducked back behind the wall far enough that only his hand remained, fingertips pressed so hard against the brick that they turned white. She turned her head and looked forward, taking a glance out of the corner of her eye at the guards. They were both watching Maarqyn as he stepped out of the doorway, giving orders to four men on where to search.
“I’m going to the compound,” Georgianna breathed. “You’d be killed. Go, please.”
She didn’t dare look towards the corner again. She didn’t dare risk that one of the guards might notice.
“We’ll get you back,” the whisper came. “I’ll get you out, I promise.”
Georgianna was tugged sideways along the wall, a quick and vicious snap of the rope binding her. The guards were staring at her. For a moment Georgianna feared that they had heard the last of the conversation. However, their glares remained on her, not one of them looking towards the alleyway Keiran had hidden himself in. She realised that she was the one they wanted.
One of the Tsevstakre came forward, hauling her to her feet with a grumble in Adtvenis.
They turned, dragging her along behind them like an animal being led to slaughter. She chanced a look behind her. Keiran, and the fingers around the edge of the wall, were gone.
Hanging her head, she was glad that the Tsevstakre hadn’t spotted Keiran, that he had managed to get away, but she had never felt so alone and helpless. While Alec and Nyah were free, each corner turning them to safety, she was being dragged to the compound with Maarqyn, the very man they had escaped. Every step leading her to being buryd alive.