The upside of this is that my arms will be back down where they belong, where gravity commands them, and blood will pump back through them.
That numb, dull throbbing will be gone soon, in three, two, one—my arms drop. The weighted thud of them hitting my lap is loud, but louder above me is the screech of the rope he tugs out of the metal hook.
I loosen a breath and sink into the cart.
Pins and needles are quick to dance through my arms. My mouth twists, braced, for the onslaught.
I don’t get the chance to let my blood flow, to fight through the tingling sensations, to even recover, not before my wrists are snatched from my lap, and—
My face falls.
Don’t know what I was expecting, really. It shouldn’t be a surprise that he’s fastening the rope around my wrists now that it’s free from the hook.
He was never releasing me, he was only removing the hook from the equation.
Once my wrists are tied, nice and tight, he drops his frosty stare to me.
He gives the rope a slight tug.
Up.
Plain and simple.
Stand or suffer.
I lean my weight onto my boots—and the groan that comes from me is instant.
Thepainis instant.
It’s an explosion that erupts through me, spreads over my back like lava, sears into the meat of my shoulder, thumps in my skull like my heart has burrowed in there and it beats and beats and beats—
My groan lifts into a shout.
The warrior stands and yanks the rope with him. It stumbles me, and my boots slip over the cold earth.
Before I can fall, his hands grab my arms and steady me, but there’s nothing kind about it, his impatience, or the faint hiss crawling up his throat.
I plant my boots—and rise uneasily with my legs trembling beneath me.
My chest aches with the trapped moan in there, the one I don’t dare release, not with his cold stare spearing down at me.
I fight the moan, the whimper, the sobs.
The warrior’s hand moves in my downcast gaze, fingers threading through the rope. He fastens it to his weapons belt, a tether dangling between us.
Guess I’m walking with him, not with the other humans.
I don’t know if that’s good or bad, or it’s just bad because everything is, and there’s no fucking silver lining in anything, not anymore.
The metre of rope sags between us, and I think back to skipping ropes and songs on the playground, trying to jump in and skip with a partner, or mess them up if we didn’t like them.
I was a pro at that.
Skipping.
I competed in it… at school, primary school, but still. I won.
Should’ve stuck with it. I enjoyed it, it made me happy—and the stamina would probably come in handy these days.
