“Bold words,” the woman’s voice said, her tone musing and unimpressed all at once. “We’ll see if we have to put them to the test.” She paused, and he could almost see her nodding to their captors in his mind’s eye, though he was still dazzled, blinded by whatever trick they’d used. “Bring them.”
Thom momentarily calculated the odds of all four of them escaping if one of them made a move and dismissed the idea almost immediately. Blinded with no hope of coordination, they didn’t have a chance—one of them might make it away, maybe two, but not all four of them.
Their captors frog-marched them deeper into the camp. Thom’s vision began to clear around the time he was shoved roughly into a small, half-burned building with holes in its roof large enough that he could see the sky through the blur of his tears.
“Thought you’d be friendly,” Cameron said as he was shoved down into a chair. The former soldier was looking around, now, clearly able to see but apparently content to let their captors keep the upper hand for now. It made sense. There wasn’t much reason to antagonize them much more than they already had been by sheer presence of the four men. “Thought you’d be glad to see another living, breathing, friendly face coming in peace.”
“Once burned, twice shy,” the woman said. She was a small thing with ice-blue eyes and short-cropped white blonde hair. “We gave a man shelter briefly and then things came.”
“What kind of things?” Seamus asked, his voice hoarse.
“Monsters,” the woman said. “Monsters came. Monsters wearing the skins of men. We know better now than to trust what we see with our eyes. We’ve learned our lesson and learned it well.”
Oh damn. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all.
I wonder what man they sheltered that had “monsters” on his tail? This is another interesting meeting they have fallen in to.
Well done.