Through a Slave's Eyes, Alice Arbuthnot [world of reading txt] 📗

Days came and went and finally the kids holiday was almost over. Simon and his siblings had given up on asking me what had happened to the ring and how I got it back in the jewelry box. They went back to their normal schedule of making my life miserable with tough mornings, tougher nights, and sprinkled and dashed with a rough day in between.
"Georgia!" Mrs. Welch continued her usual morning cry, "Let's go child!" After giving an overview of the days plans she sent me to 'fetch' the children. I banged once on each one of their doors, "Walter! Mildred! Simon!" I called. They all came out eventually with bad hair days and worse breath. "Alright" I said stifling a cough, "Walter, you’re going to town with your father in an hour." "Yes!" he said running back into his room as fast as his nine year old legs could take him. "Mildred, violin lessons in the park at noon." "Hm" she said sticking her nose a tad-bit higher than usual. "And Simon" I said looking at him, "Make-out session in fifteen?" he said it like I might as well won a car. "Uh, no (as usual). Riding lessons within the next half-hour" I said with a smile knowing how much he hated horses, or stables, or well anything pertaining to the idea. "Fine" he said grumpily.
******
I went with Simon to the stables, partially by Mrs. Welch's request and partially because seeing him fall on his butt a couple times couldn't hurt... me. We met Ky at the stables, I had forgotten this was where he had been placed. "Ugh, look at Mr. Know it All" Simon said as we got close. "Your just jealous" I said back, feeling the need to defend Ky. "Why would I be jealous?" he asked as if he couldn't find a single flaw with himself, "Because" I responded, waving at Ky as we got close, "he does know it all."
Ky and I leaned against the stables, breathing in the cool morning as Simon complained about things like 'the sun being too bright' and 'the horse was too tall' and yelling at us to fix them. Ky chuckled, "And how would you like me to darken the sun?" he asked humorously. "I don't know! You're the one who 'knows it all.'" he said mimicking me. Ky raised an eyebrow and looked at me, but I just shrugged my shoulders and looked back at Simon as I tried not to blush.
I swear if I had never heard Chase's attempt at singing, then Simon riding a horse would definitely be the funniest thing I've ever seen. His head bobbled up and down as the horse practically rode him. "Are you going to help him?" I mumbled to Ky, "I'll let him go a little bit longer" he said as a mischievous smile snuck across his face and he winked at me. I suppressed a laugh, but a little bit slipped out. "What’s so funny!?" Simon asked. "Oh nothing just a few birds we saw" there were no birds, but he turned to look anyway, almost falling from the mare in the process.
"Alright he's endured enough" Ky said to me after a few more moments. He jumped on another horse, Lilly, with ease and grace and walked her over to Simon. I watched as he showed him how to hold the reigns and couldn't help but think of how different they were. Though both were sixteen, a year older then I, they were totally different. Ky had broad shoulders and strong arms and sat as if royalty, where Simon was short, a little chunky, and sat like an old man. I wouldn't be surprised to find both their pictures in a magazine, only difference: Simon's the before picture, and Ky the after.

After watching Simon fall off the horse a couple dozen times Ky decided to call it a day. Ky walked with us back to the house since he was done for the day. A smile pulled at the edges of his lips as Simon complained about his sore 'bum.'
Back at the house Simon went straight to his room to rest before dinner, leaving Ky and me some rare downtime. He struck up a conversation about his old home. As he talked about wide grass plains and the snow crested mountains I realized I didn’t know where he was from. But I told him about Kolo to be polite, our tall oaks and the strings of floating magnetic light called the Asurda Bond or 'Physical light.' “It’s really cool,” I said, “we’d take these poles, made of a metal called Lanomium, and gather the strands of light on them like cotton candy. We’d use as torches and stuff, but we couldn’t touch em, they’d dissipate if we did.”
We talked for about an hour, covering practically everything about our past lives; from his stallion Jasper to my friends Amelia and Chase. My voice trailed off when I started talking about the night of the capture...

We had a project at school due the next day so Amelia and Chase were over at my house trying to get it done. We had had a fourth partner, Conner, but he never showed, so we started without him. My mom was working late that night and Alva, my little brother, had stayed with her. Jason and Neomi, my older brother and sister, had gone to a concert and I was watching Andrew until my mom got home. It was mid-January and there was a blizzard blowing out side; so when then lights started flickering we didn't think it that weird, just a major annoyance.
After a couple hours of working by candle light Conner came bursting through the front door. His face was too white and his body shaking from cold and fear. "They're coming.. they.. they...they're coming.." he stuttered as he tumbled towards us. The three of us quickly ran to him and encouraged him to explain what on God's green Kolo he was talking about. He slowly lifted his head and looked straight into my eyes, I saw the fear in his brown eyes, just then we heard a crash like someone had accidently knocked over one of our trash cans. "Hide!" Conner yelled, then ran upstairs.
Not knowing what else to do we all followed him upstairs. I and Amelia ran into my room and hid under mine and my sister's beds, and Chase ran into Jason's room, which was across the hall, and hid among some boxes which were cluttering the corner, Conner was nowhere to be seen.
I then heard the sound of the front door creaking open, then a few moments later I heard someone coming up the stairs. When the person got to the top I thought it was Jason at first and was about to get out from my hiding spot when I saw his pant leg come up some and reveal a skin tone that was much too dark to be my brother's. The man walked through Jason's open doorway, and shined a flash light underneath the bed. As he bent down I saw the gun in his hands and the tattoo on his forearm, a three-horned beast in a fiery circle.
I had learned about the marking a couple years ago in school, it was the marking of an gang that had been started in the 7th Quadrant a long time ago and had spread like a forest fire ever since. Their name was the Lodoe, they were feared throughout all the quadrants because they didn't only kill, but they also took captives and no one had lived to tell what they did with them. My mind quickly flashed to Andrew sleeping in his bed and totally un-a where of the danger.
The man looked around Jason's room some more then spotted the boxes, he kicked them but Chase kept quiet. He kicked them again and Chase grunted in pain, the man heard him and started rummaging through the boxes. He bent down and picked up the squirming Chase like he was a puppy. Right as I was about to gasp a hand clamped over my mouth. I was about to spaz out when I saw that it was Conner. Relief surged through my body, but unfortunately no one was with Amelia, and no one silenced her gasp. The man slowly turned and Chase yelled as loud as he could, "Help!! Ladoes!!! It's the Ladoes!! HELP!'' The man clamped his hand over Chase's mouth, but that didn’t stop him, his muffled scream continued and his squirming went on. The man put the gun to Chase's chest then in a gruff voice said, "Stop. I have used this before and I'll use it again." With that he unclamped Chase's mouth and took some liquid in a water bottle from a pouch slung across his back, and forced Chase to drink it. In a matter of seconds Chase's head sunk forward and the man dropped him. He crumpled into a heap onto the floor and had no signs of life other than the small decrease and rising of his chest...

"Georgia?" Ky asked pulling me out of the flash back, "You alright?" I looked back at him, he looked a tad concerned. "Yeah, I'm fine" I said managing a smile. I don't think he believed me, but he moved on, "So, I heard Mrs. Welch got my gift." I looked at him in confusion, "You sent Mrs. Welch a gift?" "Not exactly." he said only continuing after seeing the confusion on my face, "I placed it in her room." "What was it?" I asked, now thoroughly intrigued. "A stolen engagement ring" he said looking at me with a twinkle in his eye and a crooked smile creeping across his face. I straightened my back in shock and looked at him wide-eyed as my mouth fell open. "Wait, you mean...that means...but how!?" Before he could answer Mrs. Welch's yell of my name rung through the air. As I got up to go back to the house he winked at me and said, with a smile, "We'll talk later."