Blood of The Wicked Ch. 2

He was running again. But this time he wasn't as small as he was when he was 7. It had been almost 5 years since he met Dana and he had gone through a drastic change.

Jabari never met up with his mother again, but he kept the two rings on him at all time, never letting them be taken off unless Dana was wearing them herself and promised to give them back when he was done doing whatever he needed to.

Once, he had been taken by the same people that chased him in the woods, but his rings were with Dana because he had a shower before going to bed. He was too tired and forgot to ask for them back as he fell asleep. But that night people managed to sneak into his room and take him, whisking him off to an underground base that almost always smelled like a hospital.

He had been there for some time, Jabari guessed it was close to 3 months, before there was a fire and everybody had to run. In the confusion, he managed to run and escape from the people who took him, going to where Dana was staying, where he knew she would be.

And she was there, calmly boiling water. For some reason she liked just drinking the hot water, she said it made her calmer, but Jabari always thought it was odd. But anyways, he ran in, slamming the door and leaning against it as he caught his breath.

Dana wasn't even the least bit surprised in his sudden appearance and just gave him a happy smile and a, “Welcome Home, Jabari.”

That was the one of the only time he could remember being taken by the people that wanted him so bad. He found out that the people that wanted him so bad were named Alexandria, but nobody knew much on the group since they were so secretive.

But this was his second time being captured because he was currently trying to out-run somebody twice his size through a forest he had no idea how to navigate. With each step, he could hear the guy getting closer so Jabari wasn't very confidant that he was going to learn the layout to begin with.

With a cry of both pain and surprise, Jabari was tackled to the ground, the man putting his hands over his head in a vise grip Jabari had no hopes of getting out of and his legs being pinned under the guy's body.

All Jabari felt was uncomfortably heavy breathing right in his ear, his face scrunching up as he felt a kick to his side. Another hit to his back had him curling up as much as possible to protect vital parts he needed when somebody walked through the trees, clapping and smiling sarcastically.

“Well done, well done, young man. You made it much farther than I would have thought. Most of our captives only make it to the river before collapsing. It's good to know that Big Bird over here can catch you though.” The guy said.

Jabari glared, his copper-brown eyes narrowed to almost slits. “Good to know. Maybe I can outrun anybody else tomorrow?”

“Oh probably. But we aren't giving you any food for the rest of the night now since you seem too strong. We can't have you escaping can we?” The guy, he looked around 50, said. His gnarled and veined hands came together as he addressed everybody else that had gathered around Jabari and the guy apparently nicknamed Big Bird on top of him.

With a grunt, Big Bird hefting himself off of Jabari, using Jabbari as something to help himself stand up. Jabari held in the pained grunt as he felt a knee dig into spine, digging his fingers into the dirt as he hefted himself up.

Two people were already next to him, cuffing iron shackles onto his wrists, pushing him forward as everybody started walking, like he didn't clue in.

He started walking, dragging his feet in exhaustion and in a small amount of rebellion since he was slowing everybody down.

“Hurry up, you're the prisoner here!” The old guy said. He probably had a name but Jabari couldn't care less what it was.

“You're the one that made me run through the woods!” Jabari shot back, seething as he picked his feet up a little bit more and made himself walk faster. He was already getting no food, he might as well make sure he didn't get “lost” in the woods.

As they neared the mansion, looming out of the trees and gloomy dusk sky, Jabari was tempted to run back into the woods. At least then he wouldn't be forced into the castle's dungeon.

The mansion, there was no royal family or rich family that owned it since it's been abandoned for years, was pleasantly painted white and blue shutters on all of the windows. Some of the windows were cleaner than others, a lot of the time because of how the staff and lower people in the group lived in the dirter rooms, not bothering with cleaning since they weren't used for much. The cleanest windows were the people that ran the group and their family that stayed with them. At the very top of the mansion, there was a single window facing them, which was the soon-to-be leader of Alexandria, La-a. Her father was the one to name her and you pronounce it La Dash a, just how you see it. But it was still the weirdest name that Jabari had heard, and people used to make fun of his name because it wasn't really something you hear in the broken continent of Europe.

The person that ran Alexandria had died, La-a's father, and his wife was killed later after she was shot down in the market. La-a's uncle was the only family she had left so he was in temporary power until La-a was 16, which was the age people were now legal adults.

But La-a wasn't even interested in running the group, just wanting to run away and start a life where she could be who she wanted to be, not who everybody else expected her to be. Which wasn't possible really, since there were guards everywhere and there was no hope of escaping if you didn't have at least one extra person for a lookout and to guide you through the long harrowing tunnel underneath the mansion.

Which was how La-a and Jabari became friends.

One day, La-a was walking around the mansion, not even doing anything, when Jabari was thrust into the hallway she was standing in, a guard kicking the back of his knees so Jabari would bow. La-a was in shock, she had never seen somebosy be treated so badly before in her life. What person in their right mind thought that they could control another, beating them into submission just so they would bow down under fake power that the person wanted to wield?

So, using her “I am soon going to be your boss” card, La-a marched up to the guard and demanded that Jabari be released into her custody for the day and that there was no if, ands, or buts about it because she was going to be the leader of Alexandria so why should you say no to her?

The guard was bowing and stumbling over himself to hand Jabari over to her, running off the minute La-a turned to Jabari with a faint smile of kindness.

“Hello, I'm La-a. What's your name?” La-a said, her smile blinding. Jabari didn't even glance at her as he continued bowing his head.

“Jabari.” Was all he said.

“I'm sorry?” La-a asked, sitting in front of him. “Is that your name? Jabari?”

“Y-Yes...English not good.” Jabari managed to say, his accent thick and hard to understand from his mumble.

“What's your accent from?”

Jabari shrugged. He was from Spain but his mother said she was from Kenya. So he just shrugged. “...Don't know. From Spain but mother is from Kenya.”

“I was wondering why you were so dark skinned! You have nice eyes though.” La-a said thoughtfully, putting a finger on her chin like she was thinking about something. “What was your mother's name?”

“Ramla. My last name is from my father.”

“Did your mother teach you English?”

Jabari shook his head. “Dana.”

“Who's Dana? Was she a babysitter?”

“No, men-ment-”

“She was your mentor?”

“Yes! That is the word.” Jabari raised his head a little and was taken aback by the colour of La-a's hair. “Why is your hair...Green?”

“What?” La-a touched a strand of her hair and held it in front of her eyes. “Oh! That. Well I asked my dad if I could dye my hair a different colour and he said sure but when the dye came out, my hair was bright green! We think it's a side effect from the dye we used and it bleached my hair enough that it looks green permanently. I kind of like it though so I'm not that bitter about it. Do you like your hair colour?”

“I do not really care about my hair.” Jabari said, shrugging. La-a looked scandalised as she leaned forward and started talking excitedly about different colours his hair could be, Jabari listening to every word of it

“Well, anyways, why was the guard treating you so bad?” La-a asked when the two had lasped into silence. Both of them had moved so they were sitting against the wall opposite where Jabari had been.

“I am here because of my...blood. I can read a book that nobody else can and that means I'm rich.”

“Don't you mean you're valuable?”

“They are the same aren't they?”

La-a smiled while shaking her head. “Why are you valuable just because you can read a book? Books aren't even that good anymore. What does the book even say?”

Jabari shrugged. “Can't tell you. My mommy says to only tell what book means to person I t-trust more than meself.”

“You sound like a pirate.” La-a grumbled before scowling. “Do you ever want to escape from here though?”

Jabari shrugged, nodding his head a little. “I would like to leave. But I can't run faster than other people.”

“I know how to get out though. Would you like to come with me?”

“Yes, I would. But how would we pull it off?”

“I have a plan. I'll tell you when we can do it.”

And that was the start of a beautiful friendship between the two.

Jabari and La-a had multiple get togethers where they planned how to escape but everytime they tried, there was always something that screwed up the entire plan. A guard at the wrong post and right where they needed to get through, La-a forgetting to bring something she needed and getting caught out of bed, Jabari having to stop because he was too tired to keep going. All of those things had happened. But today, Jabari was determined would be the last night that he stayed in that dungeon.

La-a was waiting for everybody to come in like usual. She liked to greet everybody when they came in since it helped with the planning and everybody liking her more. It was a good plan since she had a personality that just drew everybody in, making people want to talk to her more after the initial meeting. It was a good distraction from how she hated having to go to meetings in her uncle's place and sign forms that sent people off on missions they might not come back on.

Only Jabari knew about that hatred since she had ranted herself purple in the face to him since he was the only one that would listen patiently and offer her advice the best he could.

As Jabari walked in, La-a winked at him as he walked passed her and he smirked, his great hair falling out of his braid when he was shoved again to force him to keep walking. La-a just tsked quietly and turned to greet the rest of the people spilling into the mansion, some taking their shoes off, and others dragging their shoes on the mat provided before going over and saying their greetings to La-a.

Jabari was pushed back into his cell in the dungeons, his back hitting painfully against the stone walls. The guard's footsteps were all that Jabari heard for the next hour, the guard pacing along the entrance of the dungeon. Sometimes he stopped and talked into the radio he had strapped to his shoulder, but other than that, the click-clack-click of the shoes was all the sound Jabari had to get his mind off of everything else.

As always, when there was a shift change, Jabari got a chance to sleep since it was a usual 30 minute debreif of what the person had to do before actually going to said job, so Jabari usually fell asleep since there was nothing but silence and the small and very dim lighting of torches lining the walls.

This time, Jabari heard somebody coming down the stairs, the click-clack-click higher pitched like the person was wearing heels instead of dress shoes. The person coming down the hall Jabari couldn't see yet because there was a corner that the person had to round before you could see them, but when they did, Jabari felt like there was an amount of disappointment at how anti-climactic that was. It was just La-a but she did have food with her so he could forgive her.

“Well, hello there good sir.” La-a said with a smile. She held up the try of rice, bread, and water and pushed it through the bars. “I figured the guards wouldn't feed you so I made the chef whip something up. He agrees that there's no need to starve you since you are already getting treatment worse than any prisoner now a days.”

Jabari accepted the food with a bow and putting the food close enough so he could give La-a some if he felt like it. “The chef is a very nice person.”

La-a laughed, nodding her head. “Yeah, he is. His name is Carlos, by the way. He's going to leave to another mansion, not that far from here. But anyways, I don't have long so I'm going to have to get straight to the point in this little meeting. We aren't going to meet again after today because I can only shake my guard long enough to get to the perimeter of the yard. I can distract everybody after that but not for long. So, when you're done eating, you're going to be set free. Do you understand?”

“Why can't you come with me?” Jabari demanded.

“Because this group would go into chaos if my uncle ran it full time. I can't leave and I just realized that. Since I'm turning 16 tomorrow, full leadership will be bestowed onto me and I just can't run from that.” La-a sighed, leaning against the bars. “I'm sorry I can't escape with you like we promised.”

“I am fine. There was no need for you come with anyways. Do your duty to your family.” Jabari said, waving away La-a's concern for him. “I've been out there alone before. Will probably find Dana again if I try hard enough.”

“I just feel bad that you're going to be alone. Are you sure you are going to be okay?”

“Yes, I am sure. Let us talk about how we will leave without getting catched.”

“It's caught but anyways, there's a tunnel in the wall behind me that leads to a small labyrinth underneath the mansion-”

“What's a labyrinth?” Jabari asked, interrupting La-a's explanation.

“It's a really big maze.” At Jabari's nod of understanding, La-a continued explaining how they were going to get out.

“You have to hit a certain stone so I need you to throw this cup”, La-a indicated the cup of water that sat between them on the tray, “and make sure you hit the stone in the very middle, just underneath the torch. That'll trigger the door to open and I'll come down, get you out of this cell, and we'll run to the ground's boundary. But usually the guards notice me gone after like 10 minutes so we're going to have to hurry and get this done. The guards'll probably meet us at the boundary line, where I'll have to split with you. Hopefully you can outrun everybody and hide in a tree or something.”

“Tree climbing isn't something I can do good. Do not expect much.”

La-a laughed. “I don't, believe me.”

Jabari managed to get like 2 hours of sleep before he heard a door clang open, making him almost fall off the little bundle of straw that people called his bed.

Looking around in question, still half-asleep and very dazed, Jabari took a few seconds to realize what he was supposed to do. So when he did, he scrambled over to the tray that was hidden under his straw mattress and found the small plastic cup where he put it, in the very middle of the tray laying on its side.

Fumbling with it as he tried to get a good grip on it, there was the sound of heels click-clacking against the stones. He looked up and say La-a running around the corner, gesturing hurriedly at the cup and the wall.

“Why do I have to throw it?” Jabari asked, his voice muddled and slow from sleep.

“Because you're really good at throwing things and we need more force then somebody pushing the stone to open the door. I have a book on the mansion and it said that it needed a lot of wait to open the door. Please just do it since I really can't manage to stall any longer than a few minutes and we need to get going.” La-a pleaded, putting her hands together in front of her face like she was going to pray.

Jabari sighed, heaving himself up and carefully putting the cup in between the bars. He closed one eye to position his throw, moving around to try and get a better angle. When he found the best place, he picked the cup up and chucked it at the wall for all he was worth.

There was a loud crash before there was some rumbling. Jabari wince at how loud it was but didn't have long to think about it as he was pulled out of the cell, La-a sprinting into the barely there opening in the wall. Jabari had a hard time keeping up with his wrist in a death grip but he did that best he could.

Footsteps could be heard behind them, which made La-a and Jabari speed up considerably. There was a small sliver of light off in the distance that helped Jabari and La-a keep running since they were so close. The footsteps behind seemed to be getting quieter and quieter too so that helped spur them forward, the light growing bigger and bigger as they ran.

Breaking through the crack in the wall, dust and stone getting stuck on them as they fell over each other getting out of the wall. La-a was wheezing, holding her stomach in pain while Jabari was shakily getting up, using the wall to support him as he too panted.

Groping the wall, Jabari tried to feel for something like a loose stone or a small button that could close the hole in the wall. He found a small stone, you could only see it if you got right up close and felt the wall in the lowest part and the farthest corner from the crack in the right side of the wall.

The hole in the door closed, thankfully, when Jabari and La-a both pressed as hard as they could against the button. But even though it closed, it closed extremely slowly.

“We need to move, and we need to move fast.” La-a announced. She straightened from the crouch she was in and offered Jabari her hand to help him up. “Should we stop for a bit when we get to cover or just keep going?”

“We should run as far as we can.” Jabari said slowly. He stood, awkwardly holding La-a's hand before letting it drop to her side. “And we should leave now if we hope to make it out of here.”

“That's true. Now let's hope that we can make it to the woods, hmm?”

Sprinting through the woods with no shoes on wasn't very fun for Jabari. He tried to keep up but there was always a branch or a small amount of pine needles that made him slow down and limp across the small patch he stepped in. La-a was patient enough to not snap at him, understand that he didn't have shoes and it wasn't his fault, but she was still a little annoyed since they were running for their life.

“Sorry, I am sorry for holding you up. You can run ahead, I am burden.” Jabari said, stopping to lean against a tree as he talked.

“No! I am not leaving you. Yeah, you have no shoes so you get slowed down, but that doesn't mean I should just keep running when you need help! Buck up and keep going but go faster when you hear footsteps.” La-a said, walking up to Jabari and jabbing a finger into the middle of his chest. “I'm not leaving you because of something you can't help.”

“Okay”, Jabari said quietly, nodding in acceptance.

“Stop! La-a, you need to come back!” Somebody shouted, making the two jerk and wheel around to keep running.

They both looked at each other, taking each other's hand, squeezing once, before they turned opposite ways and sprinted away from each other. Jabari heard three people, but the sound of how many footfalls there were, running after him. All of them sounded to be light on their feet, which was good. Jabari was lighter and knew how to run without making a sound.

He weaved in and out of trees, the dim light of the moon his only way to tell tree from person. Jabari ducked, darted, and skidded through the forest, hiding in alcoves of trees that would cover him for a few moments to under bushes where he could catch his breath. Even when he heard nobody pursuing him, he still ran.

Stumbling blindly around, Jabari tried to make his way through a bush, the wind suddenly against him as the leaves and branches started scratching and catching onto his dirtied white cotton shirt and drawstring pants. But he pushed through it, not realizing he was in the backyard of another mansion as he tripped over one final root and sprawled onto the soft grass, panting and wheezing on the ground by himself.

Before he knew it, he had passed out and there were suddenly people around him, people of all different colours and backgrounds, all checking on him, throwing a blanket over him, making sure he was still breathing and wasn't in shock like so many people thought he was.

He let out a small groan when somebody prodded his side, he had multiple bruises there from constant kicks to his side and branches hitting him when he didn't see them. There were twitters throughout the crowd when he made a sound and somebody was picking him up, holding him close to their chest like he was something precious meant to be protected.

Blearily, Jabari heard somebody ask him his name, to which he barely had the energy to answer, “Jabari”, before he was even more exhausted.

“You can sleep now. You are safe, young one.” A voice said. The voice sounded like they were used to being listened to and Jabari wasn't going to be the one to argue since he was so tired.