Lost in Alpha's eyes

5 - Village of protectors

“Done staring?” He asked me with his eyebrows lifted in a comically weird angle.

    “I wasn’t!” I looked away immediately as he said it and clenched the stick tightly. “Which way do we need to go?” I asked him while slowly taking one step at a time towards him, leaning on the stick. He wasn’t saying anything at all. He was probably scanning my movements. I stopped next to him. That’s when he finally decided to talk to me again.

    “It will be quite a stroll, though. It takes a healthy person over a couple of hours. Let alone… you. We’ll get there maybe tomorrow.” He gazed down at me. I looked back up at him, right into his eyes, mine filled with stubbornness: “I am walking alone. No one is going to touch me.” I said while taking another step with the stick behind him. I heard him sigh.

    “Alright. Up to you.” He shrugged it off and paced in front of me to at least hold the branches away from my face. He was quiet while we were struggling through the shrubs. My legs were in pain, my stomach was squeezed from the pain I was feeling in my abdomen. The branches were scratching my already painful arms and bruises, sometimes leaving tiny bloody scratch marks. I was trying to keep the groans and whimpering to myself, not making any sounds. But as we were getting out of the bushes, he stopped. I nearly bumped into him as I was trying to walk even through my pain.

    “Why did you stop?” I asked, panting. He didn’t turn towards me, just his broad back was blocking the way. He decided to talk to me: “We won’t get anywhere like this.” Now he turned. He forced the stick out of my hand. It wasn’t hard to do that as my hands were weak already. He picked me up with my painful scream and started walking with me in his arms.

    “I need to get you to a doctor. ASAP.” He added and started walking faster. I whimpered as he started running not long after. I put my arms around his neck to at least somehow hold myself onto him to not jump up and down with his every step. He took the steep hill at full speed without even slowing down. He stopped at the peak. Hours passed as he was running without taking a break or even breaking sweat.

    “Hey, open your eyes. You should see this.” He talked to me and shook me gently as I was falling asleep from exhaustion. I opened my eyes and saw the landscape in front of us. The sharp rocks with pine trees growing on them, the valley with a tiny brook zigzagging around the stone walls. Sun was setting behind the rock far from us, casting warm orange light all over the place. Sudden howl made me snap out of my calm mind.

    “What…” I didn’t finish as the guy holding me shoved me down to my feet. I screamed in pain as all the wounds reminded me of what happened about a day ago. The throbbing pain was spreading through my whole body.

    A howl again. But this time, it was next to me. I looked at him. He was standing there, looking far at the horizon with the setting sun and howling to the sky. Other howls were responding in the far.

    “Who…” I opened my mouth in shock while trying to ask him.

    “My name’s Theseus. But call me Theo. Friends do that.” He turned to me after he realized I was standing there, completely dumbfounded.

    “Theo.” I repeated after him. I gulped loudly.

    “Yes?” He picked up one of his eyebrows. His hazelnut eyes looking at me while the last minutes of light were touching his beefed-up body.

    “Why…” I took a breath. It couldn’t be. He didn’t howl. I had to imagine things. I had to be crazy. I was going crazy. I’m hallucinating. That’s it. I haven’t slept over a day, I didn’t eat, drink, my body is in a desolate shape… Hallucinations.

    “Why are you helping me?” I finished the sentence in one shallow breath. He seemed surprised by the sudden question. Well, after he’s been helping and carrying me for a couple of hours already, such a question would shock anyone.

    “Because it was an order.” He answered.

    “Order?” I gave him an empty questioning look.

    “Yes, that’s right. We need to get going.” He took a step closer to me. “If you don’t mind…” He picked me up again in his arms and started walking alongside the cliff we were standing at. “We should arrive in a couple of hours. Get your beauty sleep.” He didn’t even look down at me as he started running, pressing me closer to his body. It was getting cold. Even though the days were scorching hot, nights in this area were always cold. The forest humidity always made it even colder with the breeze blowing through the trees.

    Beauty sleep? What does he mean by beauty sleep? As if all the bruises would go away just in a few hours. I was looking in front of us, which way he was running. We were missing all the trees, he was jumping over all the old tree roots and branches fallen on the ground. Sometimes even took a big leap to jump over a trunk rotting on the forest ground. My eyes were closing and my head was slowly swaying down and up as I was snoozing.

    I started coming to when I heard low voices around me. I slowly opened my eyes to see the ceiling in a dimly lit room. It was night. I was lying on a bed. I tried lifting my arms. The pain was so strong I couldn’t even move them. I was frantically looking around me to see, what was going on. There were a few people at a small round table in the corner near the door. It seemed like they were discussing something.

    “Where… am I?” I asked, staring into the ceiling. Sweat was breaking on my forehead as I started feeling the pain more and more. The adrenaline was long gone and it wasn’t suppressing the pain anymore.

    “She’s awake.” Someone at the table said and I could hear the chairs moving away from the table and footsteps coming closer towards me.

    “You’re in our village. Theo brought you here,” the man explained.

    “Let me through to her, what good will it do if you don’t tell her anything.” Another guy elbowed his way in front of him, put his hands on the edge of the bed, and looked at me: “I’m the chief of the village. My name’s David. So call me that way. I am sorry to be seeing you in this state, miss Ariadne.” He concluded his longer introduction.

    “How do you know my name?” I asked, looking at him with fear in my eyes.

    “No need to be scared, for we are the protectors of your family…” David said in a calming voice, while the rest of the men cleared the space for him to take at my bed, still standing. “We got a doctor to have a look at you. We’ll make sure you eat your medicine and recover.” He added, his voice sounding very peaceful. It didn’t sound worried; it was very reassuring. The same kind of voice that my grandma used to tell me stories in before I slept.

    “Is there anything we can do for you right now?” David asked, not moving from his initial position. I slowly nodded, my jaw hurting while doing it.

    “Find my brother,” I said without hesitation. Icarus had to be found. I couldn’t leave him in the hands of that monster that called itself James.