Chapter 2
Willie opened his eyes and groaned. His head throbbed worse than anything he had ever felt, and when he felt for the back of his head, he found a huge bruise.
He found himself tied to a chair in a dimly lit room. The only light hung above him, and so he couldn’t see much. Willie shuddered. This was just like those interrogation rooms in novels where the witness is tortured to give up information. If this was meant to scare him, it was working.
“Let me out of here! I didn’t do anything!” Willie yelled.
“So he finally wakes up,” a low, eerie voice said.
“Took him long enough,” said another.
Both the soldiers from the fight stepped into the light. There wasn’t a mark on them, and they had changed out of their bloodied clothes for some clean shirts and pants. Now that Willie got a close look at them together, it was almost certain they were related. One of them had a scar across one eye. Willie wondered why he didn’t just heal it with his Elite powers.
“Look, I tried to stop you from killing each other, though it seems you didn’t need my help. I don’t understand why you’re chasing me.”
“You don’t understand many things,” one man said. “You are just a pawn. My name is Nill, and this is my brother Frill.” The Nill gestured to the brother with the scar.
Willie took a deep breath and tried to get his bearings. They wanted him for some reason. Maybe he could use that to his advantage. He tried to test the bonds of his ropes, but they were tied securely. These guys were professionals.
“I’ll only cooperate with you if you untie me. Otherwise, not a peep out of me.”
Frill made an angry noise, but Nill raised a calming hand. “No need to get emotional. We will agree to your terms. It is not of consequence whether you are tied or not, for you can’t escape either way.”
Frill untied his hands, though Willie was sure he made it as painful as possible. He clenched his hands, trying to get the blood to circulate through them, and tried to devise a plan on escaping. Nothing came to mind.
“Time to get to business. Our leader . . . you could call him a mentor . . . has need of you.”
Willie shook his head, desperately trying to figure out what was going on. “Why? I just stopped you two from fighting!”
The man, Nill, leaned close to his face, and Willie could feel his breath on his face. “Exactly. We staged that fight. Our mentor has certain . . . abilities . . . and one of those is seeing all the possible strands of the future. He said that whoever prevented us from fighting would be the person we needed to catch.”
Willie did a double take. “But anyone could have stopped the fight!”
“No,” Nill said seriously. “Only you could have. In all the strands of the future our mentor saw- every single one- you were the only one to stop the fight. You are the person we are looking for.”
These people were out of their mind. The decided to try and kill each other because their cult leader had a dream. Willie shook his head. He was in some serious trouble.
Nill continued to speak, and Frill circled around Willie menacingly. “Our mentor believes that you have the ability to thwart our plans in the near future. Our orders are to kill you.”
Willie jerked his head up, his eyes wide and fearful. Until then, he had been hoping there had been some sort of fluke, some mistake. But now, hearing the certainty in his captors voice, he knew they were serious. They really intended to finish him. Willie made a sudden decision, then suddenly made a dive for the dark area outside of the light. He had hoped to get out of the crazy brothers line of sight, but Frill was too strong. He dragged Willie back to the floor and tied his hands again. From what Willie could see, Frill was the muscle while Nill was the brain.
Nill tutted like he was a school child. “There’s no point in trying to escape. In my defense, I don’t enjoy doing this. You are but a child.”
Willie gave a gasp of pain Frill tightened his grip on Willie. It felt like a python, slowly cutting off his air until he would be completely out of breathe. “If you don’t enjoy this, then let me go,” he spat.
Nill shook his head sadly. “What the mentor says is law. He says to kill you. We kill you.”
Frill slowly drew a knife, and even in the dim light, Willie knew that he was enjoying this. He walked closer and closer until Willie could feel his breath on his face. He gave a maniacal grin, showing his uneven and yellow teeth. They reminded Willie of one of the older bullies that would torment him in his younger days. Willie writhed and kicked, trying to make it as difficult as possible for Frill to get close.
Frill slapped him in the face and raised the knife up above his head, preparing to strike.
Willie felt so scared that he couldn’t move, but then he remembered. This is what Bain felt when fighting the Cursed Dragon. He went down fighting, and so would Willie.
“Come at me!” he yelled, then waited for the final blow.
A streaking sound filled the room, and a 2-foot long arrow impaled itself into Frill’s arm. He gave a shriek that seemed too high for someone his size and dropped the knife. Willie turned around and caught the knife with his hands before it touched the ground, palming it using his skills as a pickpocket. Now he at least had a weapon.
A second arrow hit Nill in the thigh, sending him crashing through the ground, and another pierced his shoulder. Frill had already ripped out the arrow out of his arm, and it healed as he ran towards Willie.
Willie scanned the room, looking for the best escape path. As far was he could see, there only exits were on the other side of the room. Meaning he would have to go through Frill and Nill. Willie guessed that hiding in the shadows was the safest option while wherever the arrows were coming would finish off the brothers. He ran out of the light and into the dark area of the room, crouching behind a crate that was covered in dust. Looking behind him, he saw a hooded figure all dressed in black detach from the roof and land on Frill’s shoulders. The figure took out a knife and tried to stab Frill, but Frill wouldn’t stay still.
“They’re Elites with healing powers!” Willie yelled at the figure. “Stabbing him won’t do you any good.”
The figure paused, almost as if surprised, then nodded. While still riding Frill’s shoulders, the cloaked figure pulled out a piece of cloth. He shoved it into Frill’s face. Frill’s contorted into an odd expression, and his eyes rolled upward and then promptly fell to the ground.
Nill tried to tackle the black-clothed figure, but was too slow. The figure twisted around Nill’s attack and kicked out his legs from underneath him. Nill fell to the ground with a thump, and then the figure stuffed the piece of cloth into his face. After taking a sniff of the cloth, Nill gave a groan and fell unconscious.
The figure walked up to Willie, and he shuffled back, keeping a few feet of distance between us. The figure raised a hand, as if submitting, and raised its hood. A boy a few years older than Willie stood in front of him, and he gave Willie a grin that made him feel more nervous than placated.
“Hey, buddy. I’m not here to hurt you. I’m just going to take you to a safe place.”
Willie gave a grimace and said, “First of all, don’t talk to me as if I’m a hurt puppy. Second, I’m not going anywhere with strangers after all of this.” Willie’s bruised back and head pounded, and his head swam a bit.
“Kid, you really don’t have a choice.”
He came at Willie fast. Willie’s head hit the back of the concrete, and his already bruised head took another beating. The boy threw him over his shoulder and walked to the exit, stepping over the prone bodies of Willie’s kidnappers. Willie hit his back and kicked with all his might, but the other boy was just too strong. Eventually, he gave up and sat dejectedly as the boy walked out the dim building and into the street. Looking back, he saw that Nill and Frill had imprisoned him inside a run down grocery store. Original.
After a few minutes of walking, the older boy looked over his shoulder to Willie and remarked, “Now that you’ve cooled down a bit, I’m going to set you down. Don’t even think about escaping. You’ve seen me in physical combat.”
He set Willie down, and they walked in silence. He didn’t bother trying to strike a conversation. Willie looked for alleys, soldiers, anything that might give him a chance to get away from this guy, but to no avail. Nill and Frill must have taken him to a different part of town or maybe even a different city, because he couldn’t recognize a thing in sight. The boy continued walking down the street into dirtier and grimier areas. Soon no one passed them, it was so deserted.
They approached a small inn, grungy looking and smelly. Willie wrinkled his nose in disgust. Even after living on the streets, this place seemed shady. Willie expected to the other, taller boy to head towards the inn’s entrance, but instead they walked to the garbage pile next to it. The guy reached into the dirty pile and grabbed something. Willie couldn’t tell what it was until the guy pulled, and a door opened out of the ground. A ladder descended into the ground.
He gave Willie a look and said, “You ready?”
Willie gave one look at the hole in the ground. This was a completely random stranger, and even though he had saved him from Nill and Frill, Willie’s trust had taken a beating. He was going nowhere near the boy. Reaching into the pocket of his coat, Willie whipped out the knife he had picked off of Frill. “Don’t move!” he yelled, his hand shaking a bit. He had never threatened anyone before. “I’m getting out of here, so don’t try and stop me. I have the weapon.”
The boy narrowed his eyes, and Willie noticed a tinge of annoyance. “I told you, don’t bother running off. I saved your life. You can trust me.”
“Dude, you’re a total stranger! Sorry, but I’m going.” Willie slowly started to back up from the boy, holding the knife in between them as a threat.
The boy moved faster than Willie expected, ducking under the blade and slamming a fist down onto Willie’s wrist. He yelled out in pain and dropped the knife, and the boy deftly grabbed from the air. The fight was over before it even started.
Without giving an word, he motioned with the knife towards the ladder descending into the ground. “In you go.”
Willie spat on the ground and went down the rusty ladders into darkness. It went on and on for about twenty feet until his foot hit solid ground. Pushing off from the ladder, he found some sort of living quarters. In one corner, there was an unmade bed. In another was a kitchen. In the center of the room was a table filled with swords and knives of all sizes. Bows and arrows lined the wall, and a glass case held a black suit that would blend perfectly into the night.
“Welcome to my bunker,” the other guy said. “I think it’s about time I introduced myself. I’m Rhode.”
Willie’s anger of being taken captive twice now came bubbling up. “I don’t care who you are. Just tell me what you want with me.”
He gave a sigh and said, “Okay kid. If you want to talk business, we’ll talk business. I’m a Retriever, well among other things, and since I just saved your life, according to Retriever law you owe me.”
Willie gave him a puzzled look, “Time out. What’s a Retriever?”
A sudden laugh burst out of him, then he looked at Willie and stopped. “You’re serious?” He paused in surprise. “Retrievers are kind of like thieves, people of the night. We try to right the wrongs in our kingdom.” He gave another pause. “Think of us as a group of vigilantes.”
Willie narrowed his eyes. “So you guys are illegal? Why hasn’t the king put a stop to this? He has to know of your existence.”
Rhode bowed his head dejectedly. “The king isn’t as good as he seems to be. He may seem like a benevolent old man, but he has a heart of stone. He is an Elite with fire powers after all. The only reason Retrievers still survive is because we can easily evade the king’s efforts to eradicate us.”
Willie slowly nodded. “Okay, I get it. I’m Willie by the way. What do you want with me?”
Rhode gave one of his mischievous smiles, and he immediately felt nervous. “Like I said before, you owe me. I’m going to make you my apprentice.”
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