Free Elysium. Part One. by Kelvin James Roper Page B

Betty.
     ‘Please, Priya,’ she whispered as the scuffing footfall advanced again and started up the steps.
     Priya quickly moved back to her crate, and pulled the binds around her wrists. She tugged at them with her teeth, though they didn’t look as taut as they had done the night before.
     Keys sounded in the lock once more and Semilion entered the corridor of the cell-block.
      ‘Morning, Mr. Tupper.’ Priya said. ‘We haven’t tried to escape, as you can see. We’ve kept our end of the bargain. Can you untie us now and we’ll talk like modern humans?’
     Semilion looked troubled, his bald head was fraught with lines and he looked as though he hadn’t slept all night. He stood by the door, looking between them as he addressed them.
     ‘I’m not going to release you,’ he said. Before Priya had a chance to flare into response, he pressed his palms towards her, saying, ‘until... until I’m satisfied with whom you are. To do this I’m going to have to separate you.’
     He then turned to the door, shouting, ‘Baron?’
      Baron came to the doorway. He wore a grey vest and some dirty looking, baggy green trousers.
     ‘Baron, could you give me a hand taking Miss…?’
      ‘Ravens.’ Selina said.
      ‘Would you mind taking Miss. Raven’s outside? Just to the bench.’
     Baron nodded and unlocked Selina’s cell; his eyes were on her as he rattled the key in the lock, as though he wasn’t ashamed of showing her his blatantly obscene ambitions. His unashamed desire and air of condescension made her feel uneasy; knowing that he was judging the quality of her flesh as he took her by the elbow and pulled her to her feet. He grasped her tightly, his thumb smoothing her skin as though the situation were an intimate one. As they stepped from the cell she could feel him behind her, the heat of his breath on her neck, and his heavy grip on her shoulder.
      She shielded her face from the bright light as they stepped into the sun, and Baron roughly thrust her in the direction of a wrought-iron bench in the shade of a bulbous sycamore tree.
      She sat, scowling at him while he prowled to and fro, kicking up dust with his dirty boots. Before them was a road – almost consumed by grass and a century of creeping foliage; it wound beside the steep cliff and disappeared beyond the summit. They had walked it the previous day, and hadn’t suspected that the little square building swathed in ivy could possibly be a prison cell. It seemed hollow and untouched for generations, as did everything.
      Ahead of them were the rooftops of an empty hotel complex they had searched the previous day, and then an expanse of sea cluttered with toppled wind turbines and the remnants of an old oil rig collapsed in the shallow waters like a foundered steamer.
      Baron saw her gazing at the wreckage and offered her a cigarette. She declined and he lit a match and drew heavily whilst pointing to the oil platform. ‘Only happened a few years back,’ he said, ‘we’d been out to it for ages to take bits we needed, but pa said it were getting unsafe… he were right too cause there were a storm that sent it over. You should have heard the noise it made when it fell in on itself. Brought a few of the blackeye's sniffin’ around when it went, I can tell you.’
      Selina said nothing, though thought of the black sphere they had seen scouring the beach the previous day. She made a mental note of the word blackeye, mildly amused by the simplicity of it.
      Betty milled around the cell-block, seemingly employed to keep an eye on Selina and to be at Semilion’s summons should he need her. She picked at leaves and sat on the steps, looking over to Selina every once in a while in cautious scrutiny. After long minutes there came a muted call from within the cell-block and Betty disappeared for a moment, before taking her leave and trudging lethargically up the road toward Mortehoe.
      ‘What’s it like, outside?’ Baron said