Prologue
The child is used to the pain, she has woken up like this for a long time; so long she cannot remember the light in her life. She closes her eyes as she lets the dizziness and sickness pass. As the pain slowly starts to fade she is fully aware of something cold under her arm. She knows that the coldness can only mean one thing. She is back in the prison that she lives in. That for now, she is safe.
Her arm is now cold as ice, she knows she has to move. That only means one thing. More pain. She takes a deep breath to calm herself down which she instantly regrets as all the odour’s she previously tried to ignore hits her hard. All she could smell is urine, stool and blood, all of which belong to her.
She slowly and carefully pushes to stand up but excruciating fire like pain shoots up her arm, she cries out as her arm is unable to hold her weight and falls underneath her, her arm slams against the cold concrete once more. Crying she rolls onto her back the whole of her body protesting with each movement, but she doesn’t care anymore.
She stares at the plain grey concrete ceiling until a voice is what made the child open her eyes, the voice of her mum; Rosella. “Skylar, Skylar baby please don’t cry, I know it hurts, I know it does but be strong for mum, ok?” Skylar turns her head towards the angelic voice that she cherishes so much.
“Why are we here? Why are they doing this?” Skylar’s voice is shaken, it always is now, especially in this place.
Rosella reaches her hand through the bars that separate her and her daughter. She reaches towards her daughter’s hand but couldn’t quite reach. Skylar despite the pain stretches her hand towards her mums which she grasps tight.
Skylar looks into the eyes of her mum, all she saw was pain, torture and horror. Skylar’s eyes roam over her mum’s body and saw no wounds, no blood, nothing. She didn’t understand why she is in pain. “They are a group of people that call themselves Diabolus. These people are very bad, they would do anything to hurt a lot of people including hurting you. I’m so sorry Skylar, this is all our fault. Mine and your dad’s. These people want information we have but we are not allowed to give it to them. Do you understand?”
“W-why? Why don’t you give it to them? It’s always good to share. You told me that.” The innocent minded child replied.
“Oh dear child, you are only nine-years-old and you have been through so much yet you are still so pure. Skylar, the information I and your father have it is important, very important. If Diabolus gets the information then they will kill hundreds if not thousands of people.” Rosella tries to explain so that her young daughter would understand.
Skylar nods painfully, half smiling as she knows what needs to be done, she heard a lot of talk like this going around this place. “I understand now, it is better for one person to die then 100s of people to die. You keep your secret mum, I will be alright. I will go to heaven with grandma and grandad; I will finally get to meet them.”
Rosella is stunned to silence, she thought that Skylar would never understand it at all. She defiantly didn’t expect what she heard come out of her mouth. She just sits there staring at her daughter, a child so young ready to sacrifice her own life 100s of others. Rosella finally collects her thoughts, she squeezes Skylar’s hand tight looking her in the eyes, “Skylar Javier, you will not die here, do you understand me? You will get out of here alive one way or another. Say it.” Rosella demands from her daughter.
“I will get out of here alive one way or another,” Skylar repeats to her mum though she has no idea how she is going to get out of here. She didn’t understand much. Suddenly everything seems to go in slow motion.
Skylar feels fire ripples through her body. Rosella’s hand slips out of her daughter’s hand as she is getting dragged out of the prison just as Skylar’s hand moves to where the fire is. Her hand is soaked into liquid, the smell of iron hits her hard as she decides to look down at her body through blurry tearful eyes seeing a large deep cut along her abdomen, blood gushing out of her wound.
Skylar faintly hears “Get away from my daughter.” Followed by the sound of a loud snap followed by even more pain. She screams loud though she can barely hear herself, her heartbeat is pulsing in her ears to loud, she looks up to see who is causing her pain.
There is a man hanging over her grinning, she can just about see his lips moving through her blurred eyes but she couldn’t hear a single word he spoke.
The man grabs Skylar roughly, she could feel his nails digging into her skin. She could feel a bruise already forming on her wrist. Skylar is yanked hard to her feet causing her to yelp, luckily she finds her balance but all too quickly she is pulled out of her cell and down corridors with plainer grey walls. She looks around to try to find any window or any way for her to get away but she could see nothing. The hand on her wrist tightens as they came to a large room, again plain grey walls, no furniture except a table and 3 chairs two of which were occupied by her parents.
The child is roughly pushed onto the chair, the roughness of the push made her knees bend forcing her to sit. She barely felt that her arms are being tight behind her back. She is looking back and forth between her mum and her dad, trying so hard to stay awake, but she felt the darkness to pull her in. They were sat opposite her, they both look pained but none of them has wounds on them.
“Javier’s, you tell us what you know or your precious little daughter gets it.” a man states, a blade in his hand, proving that he wasn’t messing around anymore. “I have been kind for 2 months, now it is time to get nasty.”
Rosella and Arthur just turn their heads to look at their daughter looking at her apologetically in which Skylar just gives a sly nod as if to say ‘it will be ok.’
“Not going to talk, huh?” the man talks again, gripping the handle of his blade tight, he walks towards Skylar stopping by her side his eyes roam over her body to see where would hurt most. He looks at previous wounds from previous interrogations with the child. He stares into the girl’s eyes as his blade glides smoothly down her leg. Skylar grits her teeth to stop the scream, though her eyes spoke a thousand screams. Agonising and torture.
The man turns to look at Rosella and Arthur, “Are you two going to talk yet or do I need to mess Skylar up a little more, make her scream maybe?”
The parents stay silent, they both watch the blood ooze out of the wound dribbling down her leg. The man chuckles and lets the blade glide against Skylar’s skin once more this time her shoulder which causes a scream to ripple through her.
To Skylar, everything was getting darker and darker but she knew better to know that it isn’t because the night was coming but because the darkness is winning.
“Tell us what you know or she will die.” The man states, staring at Skylar seeing how beat up and bloody she is, he is surprised to see her still awake.
When the parents stay quiet, the man lifts his blade up again moving for another stab when Arthur finally shouts, “Stop! I will tell you.” He hangs his head in defeat.
The man spins around in triumph, “About time Javier, it took you this long to save your daughter. Do you even love her?”
Arthur glares up at the stranger, he opens his mouth but it Skylar chokes over, “No!” she has a coughing fit, blood spraying out her mouth onto the floor, but she carries on “Don’t tell them a thing.”
The man spins back around towards Skylar giving her a deadly look, “I can make your life a living hell, now I suggest you shut up and let daddy Javier do all the talking.” He turns back towards Rosella and Arthur. “Now tell me what you were going to say.”
“That we don’t know a thing,” Arthur answers starring the man dead in the eyes acting like he is telling the truth.
The man’s mouth twitches up just a little in irritation as he wasted his time. “Then I don’t need either of you two.” He stabs Arthur first his blade goes into Arthur over and over causing the chair to break into several large pieces. Even after Arthur is dead he just keeps stabbing taking his anger out on the corpse on the floor.
Bloodcurdling screams leave both Rosella and Skylar’s mouth. A scream of horror. Fear. Terror. That just turned the man’s attention to Rosella. “Don’t worry, I will look after your daughter.” The man taunts before slicing her throat, blood gushing from her neck, covering mortified Skylar in her own mother’s blood.
Skylar sat motionless staring at her dead mother, she couldn’t take her eyes off her, even when everything turned into chaos.
A door is forced in, four agents moving into the room, scanning the room quickly analysing the situation. Two men make a move towards the agents, one of the men are taken straight out with a bullet to the head but the other one drives his blade into one of the agents forearms, the agent lets a little yelp out before grabbing a blade out of his belt and stabbing in the forehead, placing his foot on the abdomen pushing the body away from him and sliding off his blade.
One of the agents laughs, “Is that all they have? Diabolus isn’t as big and bad as everyone made them out to be.” he states, he thought everyone in the room was dead. In fact, he didn’t even see the girl in the chair drenched in blood.
A different agent glares at him, “Really Damian? You think this is funny? We have a severely injured child and you think it’s funny?”
Damian’s eyes scan around the room until he finally finds the small girl, that looked around 9 years old, “That girl? Derek look she is dead, look at all of the blood on her.” Damian answers back thinking it is obvious he is right.
Derek shakes his head “Secure the perimeter.” He commands to his team before slowly walking towards the little girl trying not to freak her, she seems zoned out, and he doesn’t even think that she registered what just went on around her. It is when he is stood right next to her, he sees what she is staring at; the dead woman in the chair opposite her and next to the chair of the dead woman is a man that was stabbed to death. He prayed to himself that she didn’t witness anything. Not at her age but by the horror on her face she seemed to witnessed everything, he felt sick to the stomach thinking a child so young witnessed something so terrifying.
Skylar is suddenly back to earth as she senses someone is stood next to her, her head snaps to look at the new stranger, her breathing becomes heavy as she starts to freak out about everything.
Derek put’s his hands up showing he isn’t equipped with any weapon, “Hey, hey. I’m not going to hurt you like they did. Ok? I am here to help you.” Derek state, kneeling down next to her to be at her height. “I’m going to untie your hands now.”
Skylar doesn’t say a single word, she turns her head back to stare at the two dead bodies in front of her, and she feels her hands loosen as the stranger unties the ropes as promised. She jumps to the side causing her to fall off the chair when Derek places his hand on her shoulder. He instantly knows he done the wrong thing when he notices how much of the blood is actually hers. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to alarm you, my name is Derek, and this is my team. We are not going to hurt you. We came to help you.”
Skylar finally speaks, her voice broken, tears streaming down her face both from physical and emotional pain. “They were meant to kill me not them.”
“What?” Derek is stunned by what he hears, she is just a child.
Skylar turns to look at Derek, for the first time she actually looks at him, sees how different he looks to the other men, how he has armour, she looks down his armour and sees a knife and gun. As soon as she sees them she is scurrying backwards, crying in pain as she does, causing her whole body to tremble.
Derek looks down to see what has her so freaked, he silently curses himself for being so stupid. “Hey, look. I will put them down on the chair, then I am going to see what wounds you have, ok?”
Skylar just manages to register what was said, she gulps hard, nodding. Derek smiles a little when he actually got a response. He takes his weapons out of his belt and puts them on the chair she was sat on moments ago then he cautiously walks towards the terrified child.
Skylar starts to calm down just a little when he approaches her, he seems to want to help. He is seeing her needs and doing what it takes to gain her trust. Can she trust him? She doesn’t know but for now, she will accept his help.
Derek sighs deeply when he sees how deep and bad each and every wound is, he can see a few broken bones, including her leg. She wouldn’t be able to walk on it. He introduces himself again trying to find a connection with her. “My name is Derek.”
“S-S-Skylar.” She stutters, she suddenly starts to feel exhausted.
“Skylar, what a beautiful name.” Derek smiles a little, he sits next to her. “Well Skylar, we have a small problem.”
Skylar looks at Derek fear in her eyes. “What is it? More are coming, aren’t they?” She remembers hearing talk of how many people they have at their disposal.
Derek chuckles without amusement but with surprise at how she knew that. “We don’t know for certain, but just in case we want to get you out of here, but you see with your injuries. You will not be able to walk. So with your permission, I want to carry you out of here so that I can get you medical attention.” He found himself talking to her like an adult and he didn’t have a clue why. He didn’t know why he didn’t just pick this child up kicking and screaming like he has a few times before.
Skylar gulps hard, she looks into Derek’s eyes, she didn’t see the darkness she saw the other men’s, in fact, she saw the opposite; she saw the light. That is what she needed right now. Some sort of light.
The child nods but as soon as he moves closer, a thought comes into her mind. “It…it is going to hurt isn’t it?” She looks him in the eye, expecting an honest answer.
“Yes, it is going to hurt a lot, but I will try not make you move a lot so it will not hurt much, ok?” Derek decides to answer her honestly, he thought of it as a trust test.
Skylar nods once more, “Ok, thank you for being honest.” She takes a deep breath, that itself hurt. She decides to close her eyes tight, before saying the words that made her nervous and scared, “I’m ready.”
Derek watches her and as soon as her eyes are closed he smiles at how brave she is being. How she is putting her life in his hands. He carefully moves one arm under her arms and the other under her knees. He gently picks her up, he looks down at her when he hears her stifling screams, he can see she doesn’t want to make more of a scene than she already had.
“Damian, retrieve my weapons please then everyone covers us.” Derek commands again, he is sure that he feels Skylar tense when she hears the word ‘weapons’ he wouldn’t blame her if she did, she has been through hell.
He walks her out of the building his team covering them both as they walked towards his car, he gently places her in the back and he climbs in the front, he looks back to Skylar who has now passed out from either exhaustion or blood loss, he didn’t know which so he put his foot down and drove her towards safety.
He promised himself something there and then. He would make sure this child would never feel that sort of pain again.
