I clenched my teeth hard while I growled at him. He was lucky I was bound, or I would have shown him a wind-pool of prizes for disrespecting a pretty lady like me!
“All I asked, really, is where are we going?” I asked him again, this time, a little sweeter.
“You three have a long criminal record! Where do you think you’re going?” he snapped at me while he turned around and went to the front of the wagon.
“I dunno…”
“Use your imagination.”
“Death?”
He scoffed. “If only you were so lucky.”
“But I’m still a minor,” I whimpered. “That’s illegal.”
“Not for the Deo guild it isn’t.” He pivoted around and cracked a devious grin. “But don’t worry, we’ll get to that. First, you’ll get to sit in the hot house. After all, you’ve earned it.”
“The hot house? That’s your plan? We get thrown in a dungeon of torment and torture?! That doesn’t sound like something the High Order would do!” I cried, pretending to be scared. But he ignored me. I scoffed at that. “Who the fuck do you think you are, anyway, you bunch of pussies?!”
The four of them in the front laughed.
“If Clave were here, he’d—”
“Oh no, not Clave!” They taunted, interrupting me. They then began to sing the chorus of a stupid song to mock me. “If Clave were here, he’d show us what do, he’d beat us up and rip us in two! And if we survive, he’d come at us again, and ring our necks before we could count to ten!” The enforcer leading the way smacked his knees, laughing loudly at the silly song. “Hahaha! That was a good one!”
I huffed. “Hmph, idiots…”
They kept at it until they reached a campsite that had no more than three barracks and a few wooden tables and chairs, and a big fireplace in the middle that was aflame with burning wood. There rest of those fuckers who broke into our home were here, laughing their asses off and drinking.
“This is it?” Someone in a snappy uniform said as he walked up to our wagon. He looked like the commander. He was a bald-headed tall ugly looking motherfucker who wore his Kyruz strips proud.
“Yeah,” one of them in the front said, but I couldn’t see which. From the wagon in the back, all I could see was the commander and the back of the asshole who was taunting me earlier. “Pixie, Lanette, and Gam.”
“What about Clave and Clover?”
“There weren’t at the premises, General Wenstel.”
He frowned. “Very well. We will load them for extended transport soon. I’m sure the High Order w-wwo—uld—” He coughed, putting his fist to his lips as he hunched over. The general cleared his throat, but the sight of something black and cloudy coming out of his mouth made me stretch my neck further to see what was happening. “Excuse me. Like I was—saahae—saying—cough, cough…shit—”
“General? Are you all—cough, cough—” The enforcer hacked up a lung, the sight of black shadows coming out of their mouths putting a big smile on my face.
Gam joined me to watch as he noticed me bounce up and down my feet, the crowd choking up from something bad. Everyone but us were affected, the general ordering his men to evacuate, but it was too late.
Clave was here, and he wasn’t showing those silver coats any mercy!
One by one they fell, clenching their throats that grew with black veins. Clave was choking them out with his shadows, snapping the general’s neck and dropping him to the ground. The two of us watched in amusement as the silver coats started to break a sweat, their bodies shaking, and their faces turning pale as they started to collapse to their knees, and onto their sides.
“Clave…” Gam whispered with his mouth hanging on the floor.
“Haha! That’s what you get you filthy bastards!” I cheered, pumping my fists in the air. “Who is laughing now?!”
I looked to the others who tried to scream for help, but they were soon cut off. Slumping over, the last of the soldiers in the barracks were dead.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” Clave said, but I couldn’t see him. Not until he popped his head from the edge of the wagon’s top, his gruesome appearance making me shirk back into Gam’s arms with a sharp yelp.
“AACCKK!!” I held my chest, Clave greeting me with a big toothy smile as his head hung upside down.
“Master, what happened to you?” Gam asked, his voice rattled and afraid.
Clave looked like a zombie, with cuts all over his body like he’d blown up and stitched himself back together. His skin was a sickly shade of yellow, and his eyes bloodshot. He jumped down from the wagon, landing with a thud on the ground.
“Don’t worry about that, my dear Gam,” Clave said with a grin, but that smile looked threatening.
Clave had always been a little unsettling, but now he seemed downright dangerous.
He looked down to the dead skirted along his feet, pacing around with his hands in his pockets.
I didn’t get it—he looked like death, his clothes were torn, his shadows veiled him, and his mana wasn’t growing…had he died?
“Thanks for leading me to your operation,” Clave said, his shadows continuing to repair his body. He searched them until he found one enforcer with the scroll that would break the Kutra spell, and then he took the talisman from the prick who was being mean to me.
In no time, Clave freed us, and I jumped on him for a big hug.
“Big brother, you saved us!”
“Thank you, Master…” Gam bowed, and Pixie huffed.
Clave chuckled, looking up to her with a smirk. “What’s the matter, big mama? Upset you got bear-trapped?”
