Capture My Heart

I cringed away as Poppy crushed a gigantic bug under her foot.

She was one of the only ones whose grimy prison boots had survived, but that still didn’t keep me from being disgusted as she stomped on something that had only a second ago been swarming around her hair.

The thing was done the second she swatted it out of the air.

One long leg and an opposite wing twitched as she ground a still-conscious body into the mud and I thought I might be sick.

“You should see your face,” Violet murmured, smiling only a small smile. I rolled my eyes at her and tried to keep the small contents of my breakfast inside my stomach.

I wasn’t usually so weak, but a lot had changed in the time since I’d been taken, and my tolerance of things wasn’t what it used to be.

Plus, the bugs in the amazon were huge and completely and utterly repulsive.

And Poppy just trampled over then and swatted them away as if they were ten times smaller and not venomous which De’Andre had warned me some of them were.

It was only a few hours into our traveling for the day, and already I was worn out.

I wondered how much longer any of us could keep this up, especially since our trek had broken away from rivers for a while. No water.

My days were blurring together. The past, present and future mixed in a strange collage of faces, conversations, rain, heat and discomfort.

I didn’t even care to ask ‘how much farther’ or ‘how much longer’ anymore. It didn’t matter. The words floated in one ear and out the other the second someone gave me an answer.
It was always too long. Too far.

The miles, days, hours…they meant absolutely nothing. The less we eliminated the more I felt like we hadn’t walked. Like the miles hadn’t disappeared behind me, but were waiting up ahead.

Violet was my best distraction when these fears became unbearable. She could tell when I was losing it, and in those moments her hands always found me.

Found my hand and stroked my arm, rubbing the sore spots on my back. It was the best distraction, and the only problem was what drove her to have to do it. I hated to have her suffer by seeing me suffer.

But I couldn’t help it. There was nothing to do but worry and hope, hope and worry. Whichever came first.

Even Beck stopped complaining.

This was surprising because you’d think that with all that there was to complain about that he’d be getting really whiny, but I guess there was just too much for him to choose from.

Things were tough on everyone. All of us suffering in different ways while also unwilling to go back to suffering the same way, at the camps.

Anything was better than that. Anything was better than being beat and hurt and stepped on.
Than starving in a group of strangers because you were denied food and not because you just didn’t happen to have any.

It was nice to know that in freedom there was always a solution to our problems. If we were hungry we were allowed to eat, although it may not have been much more than we were used to, there was nothing to stop us from eating once we had it.

No vampires telling us what we could and couldn’t do.

Briana started humming to herself, probably trying to tune out her thoughts and the sound was comforting.

It wasn’t a song I was familiar with, but it was nice all the same. It gave a sort of tolerable soundtrack that eliminated the constant repetition of walking the same steps over and over.

Jay and Kyle talked quietly, and when the spoke it gave Briana a new beat to follow.

I smiled for a second and then sighed.

The knots in my back tensed as the breeze rustled overhead. The tiniest sounds sent me off recently and I hated it.

I hated being so tense and alert, but I couldn’t make myself let my guard down. I had been through too much this past few days…months…years…

I couldn’t wait til we got to civilization again. Nice to know the date, and how long I had been gone. How long everyone at home had been suffering?

I hated thinking about what was going on, and I especially hated how when I thought about everyone, I thought of Sam, and that he most likely didn’t escape yet. That I’d never be able to find out what became of him.

…Never be able to tell Emily whether he lived or died…Whether he died fighting, mumbling her name, or if he was put through too much and couldn’t suffer anymore.

That was highly possible.

It’d happened before.

At least I could be certain that he hadn’t gotten shot along with the wolves influenced by the full moon.

“OW!” I heard up ahead, along with a small thud and leaves crackling. That was never a good sign.

I kicked it into high gear and rushed over to where Poppy was crumpled on the ground, a pissed off expression on her face, and a large amount of pain in her eyes that she wouldn’t show.

De’Andre was leaning over her protectively, but I could just barely see the odd angle Poppy’s ankle was twisted. It hurt to look at it.

There was a slight dip in the ground where she must have tripped when she wasn’t paying attention.

Poppy cussed in a few languages I didn’t know. Sounded like there was a new accent; Italian, it sounded like. Beck must’ve been teaching her.

“She fell, I think her ankle is sprained,” De’Andre stated, he was frowning deeply, feeling her leg lightly while Poppy winced at the light contact.

“You okay?” Briana asked, concerned.

Poppy nodded, but it wasn’t necessarily true. I could see her ankle start to change colors and my stomach rolled.

Violet put her small hand on my back and rubbed the sore spots.

De’Andre leaned over Poppy again, cutting off some of my view and brushing hair back from her face. Then before anyone could blink, he lifted her up into his arms. Poppy yelped in surprise and grabbed his shoulders.

Beck growled, but De’Andre only rolled his eyes. “I’ve already got her,” he stated, and it was a challenge. Beck glared but backed down. It was easy to tell which one of them had a greater claim on Poppy.

Without making a scene, or saying another word, De’Andre loped off into the forest with a testy Poppy in his arms. She hated being taken care of; she was like Violet that way.

And life went on.

I sighed and with Violet’s hands dropping from my back, I followed the two as they cleared the way through the forest.

Poppy’s ankle was healing wrong, cause’ no one here was a doctor, and knew the right way to re-break it. No one wanted to cause’ her extra pain, so we had to wait for a while before we could help her.

We walked for hours while De’Andre carried Poppy, and I knew we wouldn’t stop for a long time.

Jay and Kyle got into another discussion and it seemed like we were making progress.

Even the environment seemed to be changing, the trees thinning and undergrowth becoming more contained. We passed a few places where through the trees to the left we could see the familiar river.

About six hours after walking, closer to sunset, we heard De’Andre and Jay call us all forward, where they were ahead of everyone.

We all hurried to see what they had to show, and were surprised to see human tracks, some with and some without shoes. We could tell they were human cause’ they didn’t reek.

We were close.

A buzz went through the air around me as we began moving with much more hope and much more confidence for the rest of our walk.

The tracks worked backwards, so following them and the map were a cake walk. It was only a few more hours, the darkness starting to follow our every step, when we reached out break.

A long sliver of road stretched back into a small, and yet populated from what we could see, Brazilian town.

Civilization at last.