Free Taunt by Claire Farrell

to
do; even if I managed to run, I had a feeling I wouldn’t get
far.
    Two hours later,
I was sick of looking at fields and actually felt happy when the
car finally pulled in to our destination. There were no buildings
around, and for a few minutes I felt certain I was about to be
executed.
    Two Guardians led
me across a field until we reached a mound. One man waved his arm,
and the ground opened up below us. We moved briskly underground and
then through brightly lit white corridors for what seemed like an
hour.
    “ Where
are we going?” I asked, but the men continued to ignore me. I
already hated the Council. My stomach and chest burned; I needed
more rest before walking so far.
    The further we
moved, the less chance I had of escaping. We passed no one, and all
of the white corridors looked exactly the same. None of the doors
were marked, so I had no clue how the Guardians knew where to go.
We could have been walking in an endless loop for all I
knew.
    Finally, we
reached the end of a hallway, and I was pushed into a shower room.
A towel, a bundle of clothes, and some toiletries were neatly laid
out. I showered quickly, removing my bandage gingerly. The wound
was healing well, but it still looked awful. A clean bandage was
amongst the toiletries, and I wondered how they knew to include it.
I did a sloppy job of bandaging my wound, but it had to
do.
    As soon as I
stepped back outside, the Guardians took hold of my arms again. I
was led into another room and pushed past numerous cells, all
containing sleeping forms. The cell walls were almost see-through,
but they shimmered with a distinct magical energy. We stopped at an
empty cell; one of the Guardians freed my arms and snapped a metal
bracelet on my wrist. It hummed with magic and made me feel a
little nauseous.
    “ This
is your tag,” he said. “Don’t try to remove it if you want to keep
your arm.”
    He pushed me
inside, made a sweeping shape in the air, and walked away, leaving
me trapped in a translucent box with a private toilet and no sink.
It looked like there was nothing keeping me inside, but when I
reached out my hand, something shocked me backward.
    “ No
point trying that,” a voice to my right said. “Can’t be opened from
the inside and can’t be used against the Guardians. It’s pretty
perfect, actually.”
    I glanced at the
adjoining cell. A teenage girl sat serenely on a narrow bed with
her legs crossed under her. “It’s almost bedtime,” she
said.
    “ What is this?”
    “ You
should probably lie down now. It hurts to fall.”
    I had no idea
what she was talking about, where I was, or why I was there. Unable
to form a complete thought, I sat on the bed. I heard a hissing
noise, and all of a sudden found it hard to keep my eyes open. As I
succumbed to sleep, I wondered if the spirit had been warning me
against the Guardians, or against telling Peter the truth about
myself.
     
    ***
     
    I woke
blurry-eyed and confused. As soon as my focus cleared, I saw the
young girl staring at me and remembered where I was.
    “ Ah.”
My mouth felt dry and sticky.
    “ You’re awake,” she said, her large blue eyes curiously
flat.
    “ Mmm.”
Words weren’t easy.
    “ You’re different from the rest,” she noted.
    I blinked. She
looked human herself. I tried to close my eyes and search outward,
but something dulled my extra sense. I caught a brief glimpse of
something blue, something human but not, and felt like a wall fell
on me so I stopped in a hurry. I touched my stomach, still padded
by a bandage. The pain was manageable, but I wouldn’t forget it in
a hurry.
    “ Are
you hurt?”
    “ I’m
okay,” I said. “Got into a fight with a sneaky vampire.”
    An alarm sounded,
and I felt the occupants of the other cells stir. None seemed as
awake as the young girl. A shaft in the wall opened and displayed a
tray with a bottle of water and some food, along with a bag of
blood on the side that I did my best to ignore. I drank the water
willingly,