Violet Eyes: Chapter 2

Chapter: 2

The Linwood sisters lowered their faces as they strolled through Kerrimore. It was a lively city at the heart of Little Pennington. The Third Star peeked behind gauzy clouds, drivers honked their horns in road rage, and males danced with embellished cardboard signs, straining their throats to advertise their companies. 

Relna kicked an empty beer can and watched it cartwheel down the curb. Her stomach fluttered and her calves burned.

They still had a distance to go before the Shadian border.

Relna twitched, feeling a squeeze from her sister. Milly turned her nose to the soldiers on the correlating sidewalk. There was a human and drin in military fatigues, questioning a couple of anxious teenage girls with rifles hanging at their hips, muzzles pointing to the sky.

Relna pulled Milly down the way they’d come. She dug her shade arm deeper in her pocket as she guided her sister to a crosswalk.

She didn’t dare look back.

“God, they’re out here looking for us now,” Milly whispered as she thumbed a button on a pole. “I’m worried. The Guard is stubborn.”

Relna nodded, feeling her shade arm tremble.

The LED panel switched to WALK and the girls traversed the zebra crossing.

Relna spotted a hummer full of earnest soldiers down the street. The driver looked behind dark shades, his head always on the move. The passengers were three drins with modified rifles for their three fingered hands. Their basset-like ears flapped in the wind as they perused the area with glossy eyes.   

Relna and Milly swung around the corner.

It was only a matter of time until they were caught. They’d be hung upon capture. Petrovich and the Guard had no mercy for people who mingled with the shade.

Relna remembered the news report of a man who was found with shade-lings in his basement two years ago. Thomas Osborne was his name, she recalled. He claimed ignorance when asked about the half rat, half spiders in his cellar. It was assumed that the creatures had burrowed and made residence in Osborne’s household. Even so, Osborne was hung at the gallows without trial, right in the center of Pennington’s main plaza as an example. 

Relna rid the dangling, ruffled corpse from her mind.

“I think we should split up for now,” Milly said, finding another pair of girls being interrogated down the sidewalk. “It looks like they’re searching for two women. I think Auntie and Reuben told them what to look out for.”

Relna tensed when Milly had uttered the names of their family members. She also felt sick at the thought of separating with the only person she trusted.

“It’s our last way to get closer to the forest,” Milly continued, rounding another corner. “They’ll keep searching for us until we leave Pennington.”

“Alright,” Relna said, hating the plan but not in the mood to disagree. “Where will we meet up?”

“How about Danver’s Wayworks? That should be good. Yeah, the main market we always go to.”

Relna nodded nervously.

The two halted and locked eyes.

Small cars rolled over the rocky pavement and citizens in heavy coats curved by. A pair of pigeons tweeted their way to a perch on a stoop, watching in curiosity.

Milly unloosed her necklace and pushed it in Relna’s hand.

Relna gazed at the apple colored pendant hanging from the silver assortment. The necklace was given to Milly by their father who was fighting with the Assailants down in South Remson. It was a gift when he had visited three days after their mother’s death.

The necklace was the figure of Relna’s jealousy in the past; Milly was the only one to receive something at the time. Their father had only smiled at Relna and pulled out his empty pockets. He held Relna’s shoulders and promised something when she was older. Reuben, on the other hand, was given stories and tips of life in the military. Those talks alone had helped Reuben find his life’s aspiration.

“Why are you giving this to me?” Relna asked, rolling the pendant between an index finger and thumb.

Milly pursed her lips. “It’s something I want you to keep for now. When we’re not together, hold it and think about dad and me. It should calm yourself when you’re in trouble. A technique I learned back in nursing school. You can trust me on this, it helps a lot.”

Relna took it, feeling her eyes water. She pulled out her shade arm for a quick moment and latched the silver around her neck.

She nodded to Milly before turning away. 

…

A few hours had passed. Relna advanced through Danver’s Wayworks, an underground network of habitation and merchandise, alone. She kicked her boots along the way, meandering through travelers and shoppers with purpose.

Humans—with drins and luvians interspersed—stepped with knapsacks of purchased wares and material. Merchants and vendors sold smuggled goods with explosive voices and hand gestures. Some rode on the red and black tolleys; others strolled with small families of three or four.   

Amongst them, Milly was nowhere to be found.

Relna gripped her nut sized pendant and kept moving.

She blamed Reuben and Kristen for her distress. They were kindred she had once loved and trusted. But that was before they had kicked her and Milly out of the bungalow—the place they had once called “home”.

Relna quickly dropped the thought and got back on task.

She strained her neck, inspecting the area with her left eye. She spotted shanty towns and small communities betwixt the market zones. Light lanced down the man-made apertures strewed in the roof. Chandeliers of candles and torches illuminated the underground. Posters and news bulletins were tacked to the black stone walls.

The atmosphere was familiar: Relna had visited the city-like tunnel many times in the past to buy foreign food and cheap clothing.

She recalled when it was still in construction. She’d watch other children in envy as they learned to ride bikes with training wheels. Diggers and workers would return home with brown splotched and torn t-shirts. It took about ten years and some to build it. The tunnel bridged Little Pennington and North Remson together. People often traversed it to commute.

Relna slowed.

A grey-skinned drin in a camouflaged jacket towered over the shoppers like a mobile tree. His ears flapped as he swept the area with a rifle’s muzzle. As he boomed through, people swerved and gave room like a field of grass being pushed away by the wind. A silver star insignia shined on his shoulder under the stenciled PRR for Pennington Resistance Regiment.

Relna lowered her head and banked left through the crowd, grazing by a bald man with bottle cap glasses.

A carton of eggs hit the floor after the rub.

Relna felt a strong grip on her shoulder and was halted. Her eyes dilated and she cursed as the drin pounded closer.

Relna turned and faced the livid, bald man. A small family that consisted of a woman and three children stared at her with yo-yo shaped eyes. Cracked eggs pooled yoke around the bald man’s boots. “Ten pounds,” the man said with spittle. “Out with it.”

Relna met the eyes of the approaching drin. He was about six meters away, next to a medicine peddler.

His rifle gleamed in his arms.

Relna pulled out a slew of gold coins and dropped them on the bald man’s palm. Relna didn’t count them, but was sure it was more than enough. The man let go with a warm nod and Relna skirted around people and away from the oncoming drin.

A gong resounded throughout the cavern: It was six o’ clock in the afternoon.

Relna headed for the exit and hoped that Milly had somehow escaped the dark underground already.

Shoppers usually poured in at this time. Work shifts would end around the hour and families would rush in to garner supplies before supper.

This would work in Relna’s favor.

She ducked her head, eyes downcast. She grabbed on to a civilian drin’s overcoat and hid in his seven-foot shadow. She watched a flood of people bustle in the opposite direction. The grainy smell of plantation farmers, unkempt clothes of construction workers, and the weary faces of businessmen hurried in the wide wave on the left. Relna felt safer with the shields of bodies swarming around her.

Her smile faded when she found the exit.

A tunnel of stairs, with a thirty-five foot breadth, led to the polluted air outside. A black rail divided the customers going up and down.

What stressed Relna were the soldiers posted near the stairs.

What nerved her even more was the sight of Milly being forced to a wall and being handcuffed by a drin. A nasty bruise dressed her cheek as a human soldier readied a pistol, asking questions.

Relna stood still.

A woman bumped into her from behind. She endured another shove and rebuke and knew that there was nothing she could do to help Milly. She would need to find another exit and plan a way to save her later. There were seven soldiers holed around the stairway. There were probably even more at the apex.

Relna spun on a dime, wondering where the other exits might be. After the swivel, she stared down the dark barrel of a rifle. Two soldiers—one human, one drin—glowered behind orange sunglasses. “Hands behind your back,” the drin said, his droopy ears flapping with excitement.

Relna trembled and conceded. She felt cold, iron cuffs around her wrists. Her eyes watered and she bit back a scream. She looked to Milly for help, but she was already being led up the stairs to the outside.

People gave curious stares as they walked by, paying great detail to Relna’s black and thorny arm.

Relna hung her head as the drin nudged her with the rifle and pointed to the stairway.

Violet Eyes: Chapter 3  [18+] #1558931 Relna fell in love with Lords she had vowed to kill. by LeVari-X