Page 8 of To Trap a Soul

Managing to get away from him, her body slammed against the opposing wall when she ran from her room. She headed down the hallway, fleeing towards her parents’ room and the exit beyond – since both were in the same direction. She didn’t know where all the light was coming from, but she hoped it was her mother and father with their brass candle stands.

When she turned the corner, one of her brown slippers almost came off her feet as she ran face-first into a living wall of muscle. She grunted in surprise, just as a set of hands grabbed her biceps and stopped her from falling onto her arse.

She barely had the chance to take in his tanned, beard-covered face before a grin filled his hard features and he crouched. Shrieking and kicking her legs, Lindi bashed on his firm back when he threw her over his shoulder and carted her down the hallway.

Her heart sprinted so hard she could feel it in her gut pressing against his hard shoulder, which shoved into her painfully, making her legs tingle with oncoming numbness. Her lungs were so seized with fear she was close to choking on her laboured breaths.

“Let me go!” she shouted, reaching back to yank on his long black ponytail. No amount of pulling, punching, or kicking stopped the ugly brute.

“Papa!” she yelled, her voice twisting into a high pitch when she was carried past the threshold of their bedroom door. Her eyes widened with horror when saw her parents held at knife point by a third man wielding another torch.

“Lindiwe!” he called, reaching for her as he bolted forward, only to trip back when the armoured man stabbed his blade towards him.

“Stay back!” He cut his dagger sideways through the air. “I’m fuckin’ warnin’ ya.”

Her mother’s cries and yells could be heard, but Lindi couldn’t decipher anything more than her name being called.

God, please save me!Lindi’s mind prayed as she pushed up on the man’s back to alleviate the ache her gut from being carted around like a sack.

Just as they reached the small living area of her home, the first man she encountered lit up the space further when he cut past them. He opened the front door, and her struggles grew fiercer.

She reached back to sink her nails into the neck of the man carrying her, wishing they were deep enough to kill.

“What do you want?” she asked, frantically peering into the night when the cool air of outside prickled her skin. It was crisp and harsh with the autumn season steadily approaching its midway point, and her jacket and thin nightgown offered little warmth. “Where are you taking me?”

Other than the dewy mud squelching beneath his big boots, her sharp breaths, and the crackle of fire, there were no other sounds. She was given no answer as she was taken further away from her home. Right before they reached the fence line that separated their yard from their crops, Lindi slipped down his body and was placed on her feet.

Without a second thought, she took a single step to the side to sprint away before her wrist was grabbed. Wide-eyed and gasping for air against the terror lining her bloodstream, she slapped at him and fought as he tied her wrists together.

Her sounds of protest went quiet when she knew that no one, other than her parents, would be able to hear her. Their farm, although nestled up against another family’s farm, was too far for the sound to carry. Other than the sounds of her scuffling to free herself, and the grind of his leather armour, all was quiet. A bat squeaked above, and a horse that didn’t belong to them letout a loud white plume of hot breath when it snorted, but there was little else.

She was alone. She was helpless, and no one was going to save her.

It was then that tears filled her eyes and quickly spilled over. She was too afraid to do little more than tremble in case they turned violent. Currently they were just binding her wrists. She hated that she could hardly see what the man doing it looked like with the waning moon barely peaking past the treetops. The other man with the torch had stepped around the three waiting horses and appeared to be checking their gear.

Their packs were full of some of their crops, like they’d already gone through their farm.

“W-why are you doing this?” she whispered this time, her eyes searching for an escape, a weapon, just a way to avoid this.

He paused when she winced due to him yanking the rope in two different directions, the coarseness of it abrading her soft skin. His pink lips disappeared behind his full beard, as if he thinned them in thought, before they revealed themselves once more.

“Nothing personal, lass,” he grated. “We won’t harm you along the way, that’s all you need to know.”

That didn’t make her feel better whatsoever!

A sickening pool spread in her gut and her knees shook. She didn’t think she’d ever been so frightened in all her life. Not even finding her mother’s unconscious body halfway up the hill as she returned from the town’s well in the middle of summer could best this, and that had been a hard day for both her and her father.

Tied up with nothing else but her nightgown, jacket, and brown slippers on, she felt... defenceless. How was she supposed to fight against two armed men? The one holding the torchseemed to have crazed eyes, the colour of them a piercing, cruel blue.

Her gaze kept slipping to the front door of her home, and she desperately wished her father would come out to save her. Her heart nearly leapt with hope when it opened, only for it to clench tightly when the last man exited through the doorway.

Okay, so three armed men, two of which wore leather armour.

“Should we burn it?” he asked, lifting the flames of his light source towards the hay roofing above their porch.

“Don’t be a cunt, Mathews,” the one who bound her wrists spat out. “Leave them be. They’ve got enough problems to worry about.”

He eyed Lindi, meaningher, before he shook his head and turned away.

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