Remember... Ch. 06

Ponytail took a look behind him, and shook his head. "You don't want to do that," he said as he started the water. "My guys upstairs are busy fucking your slut of a friend there. You'll get pulled into that orgy and I'll tell you now, it's not going to be pleasant."

Amanda froze and looked at him angrily. He paid no attention to her, washing himself with the water. On the ground, amidst a pile of discarded clothes, Amanda saw the hilt of a dagger that he carelessly dropped when he stripped. The opportunity was too good to be missed. She made a run for it.

Pausing only to grab the dagger, she charged at the ponytailed man, who's back still faced her, and lunged.

To Amanda's astonishment, the man sidestepped her at the last moment and at the same time tripped her. The last thing she saw was a wall of wooden crates approaching her at high speed as she fell.

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"City guards! Open up!" The man shouted as he pounded on the warehouse doors.

Lena folded her arms and looked at Mark, annoyed. If it wasn't for the fact that King Andrew's fiancée had also come with him to the barracks this time, she would've completely brushed aside his attempt to recruit her to lead some guards on another aimless search. Finally rousing half a dozen men from their sleep, they once again left for the warehouse. When they had first arrived, despite it being around three o'clock in the morning, they had definitely heard some shouts and noises from what seemed like a party on the inside.

"We'll be right there!" Someone from within called out.

"Open this door right now!" the guard shouted back.

Almost a minute later, someone gingerly opened the door. "How may I help you gentlemen?"

Lena pushed in without a word, followed by Mark and Mari, and the rest of her men. As she stepped in, something strange happened: Mari's hair slowly turned from a light aqua blue to a bright scarlet red.

Mark noticed as well, but he said nothing of it. "Do you hear it?" Mark asked instead.

"Hear what?" The man who opened the door asked. He looked like a mess, as if he had tossed on his clothes in a hurry, and smelled like he was literally drenched in beer.

"Yeah, of course! There's definitely an anti-magic field here," Mari replied as she inspected a lock of her hair. She looked at the messy man with narrowed eyes. "Where is the control device?"

A wide eyed look appeared on his face. "What? What are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb," Mari said coolly.

The panicked look remained on the man's face, but he did not move.

Lena patted the man's shoulder roughly. "You might want to consider your answers carefully. This lady here is a sorceress. If she says there's a control device here, then there is one here. Now, would you care to point it out for us?"

The man swallowed, but stayed rooted on the floor.

"Fine. If this is how you want to do this..." Mari's voice trailed off as she walked down the corridor. "Mark, come with me. We'll find it ourselves."

The man tried to hurry along with them, but Lena held him by his shoulder. "You! Stay here. If those two find this control thing... it will not go well for you."

---

Amanda groaned as the dull ache that pulsed from her forehead roused her from her unconsciousness. Slowly opening her eyes, what she saw made her instantly wish that she hadn't. The ponytailed man loomed over her with a malicious smirk, his intentions for her entirely too clear. In a panic, Amanda tried to push him away, only to realize that her ankles and right wrist had already been bound to a leg of the table that she currently laid on. Ponytail held down her left arm with ease, and began to wrap a length of rope around it and the remaining table leg.

"I was worried that you weren't going to be awake for this," he said as he smiled.

Suddenly, there was a knocking at the door. Before Ponytail could even respond, a tall man charged in. "Boss! We have a problem!"

"What?" The ponytailed man shouted in surprise, angered by the sudden intrusion. He swiftly stood, and marched over to his underling who, despite his height, wilted under the ponytailed man's gaze.

"Um. A couple of the visitors we had in the morning are back, including that woman," he stuttered out.

Ponytail audibly sighed and, taking a look back over his shoulder at the bound elf girl, pulled the tall man outside.

As soon as they were out of sight, Amanda tugged at the as yet untied rope around her left wrist. In seconds, it was free. Her right hand, however, was tied securely to the table. With one hand, and without much leverage, she struggled against the knot that just didn't want to budge. Occasionally glancing at the door, she tried to keep an ear out for when the ponytailed man returned. Fortunately, while the two men spoke quietly, Amanda still managed to hear their conversation.

"Why are they here again?" ponytail asked.

"There is a sorceress with them this time. She said that there's an anti-magic field here and they want us to turn it off."

"What? No, we can't let them do that." There was a pause. "How many of them are there?"

"Eight, including the sorceress."

"Only? Fine. Kill them. Don't let any escape. We'll need to leave tomorrow morning before they're missed, but pushing our plans ahead by two days shouldn't be a problem."

With the sound of the man ascending the stairs signaling the end of their discussion, Amanda redoubled her efforts to untie the knot around her right wrist. Finally, after what seemed like forever, the knot loosened and, seconds later, her wrist was free. She sat up on the table.

"Huh, I guess I should've tied that tighter," the seemingly sudden appearance of the ponytailed man next to the table caused Amanda to yelp in surprise. Frozen by a tumultuous sense of fear and anger, Amanda could only stare at him as he took one of her wrists and brought it to his face, rubbing the back of her hand against his cheek.

"Your guardian was getting boring, but I'm really glad that you've still got that fight in you," he said with a laugh. "I prefer more lively prey."

"No!" Amanda said sharply as she lashed out with her free hand. The punch, though poorly wound up, cut him right across the jaw. A brief look of surprise appeared on his face before it was replaced by another laugh. He quickly grabbed her free hand as well, and brought them to his chest. With a push, he forced her back down into a lying position, slamming the back of her head against the table with enough force to make her see stars.

"I hope you'll continue to struggle like this when I start fucking you. I wanna hear you scream. I wanna taste your tears. I want to feel your despair," Ponytail whispered into Amanda's ear, licking her cheek. She shuddered with revulsion, which only seemed to further her captor's amusement. With a smile, he began licking her neck, then down to her shoulder, collar bone, and finally her breast.

"No!" unable to maintain her composure any longer, Amanda cried out weakly as tears trickled from her tightly shut eyes.

The sudden arrival of the sound of battle brought them out of the trance.

The ponytailed man looked back at the still open door in annoyance. He sighed as he got up, not even bothering to secure Amanda's hands again, and walked over to the still open door. "Keep it down up there! Some of us are trying to fuck!" He shouted with a laugh, and slammed the door shut.

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"It's in this room. I can feel it," the crimson haired sorceress nodded to Mark.

The pair was in a long, seemingly empty room of the warehouse. The only things of interest were a dozen or so barrels filled with fruit and a plain looking wooden table in the center. A couple of coils of rope were strewn about, but other than the untidiness, nothing really appeared out of place.

"Is it in one of these barrels?"

"Must be. Let's check."

"What should we be looking for?" Mark asked.

"Something that's not a fruit?" She answered rhetorically as she carefully dug through a barrel towards the back of the room. "They can look like just about anything."

Mark shrugged and knocked over the only barrel near him, spilling its contents all over the floor. They were all pears.

"Hey!" A tall man shouted from the doorway. "Be careful what you do to other people's stuff!"

Mark looked up and frowned. There were maybe ten or so people standing around the double doorway. All of them were noticeably armed with swords and other weapons that didn't belong to simple warehouse workers.

"Mark?" Mari said with alarm as the men drew their weapons and walked in with ill intent written all over their faces.

"Keep looking, Mari. I got this," Mark said to her as he drew his own sword. "Don't look back until I say so. This isn't going to be pretty." Mari nodded and went back to the barrels, knocking another one over.

Turning back to the armed men, Mark smiled at them. "I guess this is too late to ask you fine gentlemen to drop your weapons and surrender," he said, more as a statement than a question.

The men looked at him strangely. "What? Why would we do that? You're right that this isn't going to be pretty: none of you are getting out of here alive tonight," the first man said as they approached Mark. "Guys, careful with the sorceress. Maybe we can keep-"

His sentence was cut short by a pear kicked unerringly into his adam's apple.

As the man stumbled backwards, clutching his throat, Mark charged forward.

Mari cringed and shuddered as she listened to the clash of metal and screams of men behind her, but willed herself to focus on her task of finding the controller device. She knew it was close. It has to be in one of these barrels.Is it in this one? No... Or maybe this one?As she pushed over a barrel of limes, something that definitely did not belong fell out. "Got it!" She exclaimed as she held up a red octagonal prism.

"Great! Now turn the thing off."

She pressed one of the faces of the prism and, over a few seconds, the prism changed colors, fading from red to a simple grey tone.

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The trance was broken by the sound of battle. Biting her bottom lip, Amanda willed herself to stop crying. She pulled herself up to a sitting position on the table again to look at the ponytailed man. He wanted her like this. He wanted her to cry and to struggle before he raped her. She shook her head. Even if he did take her against her will, she would not give him the satisfaction.

"Keep it down up there! Some of us are trying to fuck!" He shouted to some unseen people upstairs, and slammed the door shut.

"No. I will not." Amanda said as calmly as she could manage.

The ponytailed man looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "What? You will not what?"

"I will not scream, or cry, or do anything for you," she said as she steeled her heart against oncoming ordeal.

The ponytailed man narrowed his eyes. "We'll see about that," he said as he retrieved a long bullwhip from a dark corner of the room. "We'll see how long you can keep this brave face up after you have a taste of this."

He stopped a distance away from the table, twirled the whip around to test its weight and balance and, with a flick of the wrist, snapped it in the air. Amanda shivered at the loud crack. She had never felt the sting of the whip before, but had seen the cuts and welts it could cause. It did not look pleasant. She wordlessly prayed to the goddess to give her strength to withstand the impending pain, but deep inside, she knew better.

"If you start begging me now not to whip you, I will still consider it," he offered with a smile.

Amanda clenched her jaw in response. She knew she would probably not be able to hold out for too long, but even so, she'd try for as long as she could.

"Alright. Suit yourself," he shrugged, cracking the whip.

Just then, Amanda felt something change in the air around her. She looked down at her hands. A sensation that she had not felt in days suddenly washed over her. "Magic..." she said quietly. She didn't know how it had happened, and in that moment, she didn't care. Forcing herself to ignore the man swishing the whip before her, she concentrated and spoke the incantations.

"What?" The ponytailed man said with a frown. The girl's sudden change in composure, from barely contained fear to obvious distraction surprised him. He raised his whip. "Look at me!"

Before the whip even reached the apex of the stroke, a white ball of force exploded forth from Amanda's hand, striking the man squarely in the chest. He only responded with a half-scream as his body flew backwards at high speed before colliding with the stack of wooden crates that lined the back wall, producing a loud wet crunch.

Amanda stared at the debris briefly, shocked by her own power, before quickly untying the rope that bound her legs. Not having thought past what she'd do after she had dealt with the ponytailed man, Amanda quickly devised a haphazard plan for her escape. She knew that the noise would have alerted anyone nearby upstairs, so as quickly as she could, she found the dagger that she had dropped earlier, crouched near the door, and waited.

It was perhaps two or three minutes later before she heard the rush of footsteps down the stairs on the other side of the door. Focusing her mind Amanda spoke the incantations of the spell, putting into it all of her strength. She waited for the perfect moment.

---

"What the hell happened here?" Lena asked in shock. The two guards with her didn't look any better. Before her were nine bodies lying in pools of their own blood. Mark held the tip of his sword at the throat of a man kneeling on the ground, clutching his own throat and wheezing, apparently having difficulty breathing.

Mark ignored her question. "Where is Amanda?" he asked the kneeling man.

The man shakily pointed a finger in a direction.

In a heartbeat, he was off. "Keep an eye on him," Mark said to Lena as he ran past her, down the hallway.

"Wait, Mark!" Mari shouted, chasing after him, but he had already turned a corner.

"Damn it. What the hell?" Lena cursed, turning to the two guards at her side. "Karlson, go to the nearest guard station and get some back up; Tam, watch this guy here," she said before running after the two as well.

Once again, she heard sounds of fighting up ahead, but by the time she had reached the source, it seemed to have been over already. Mark stood between two bodies, looking at a third man, who stood with his back against a pillar and one foot stepping on a bound and naked elven woman. Lena recognized her as Ellisa, one of Amanda's guardians. Mari looked at the man in disgust as she hid behind Mark.

"Drop your sword!" The man said. He pointed his sword down at a bound figure on the ground. "Drop it, or the elf dies!"

"Mr. Raven!" Ellisa shouted, "My lady is-"

"Shut up, bitch!" The man cut her words short, pressing his foot into her throat.

"It's ok, Ellisa, I'm here to get you and Amanda," Mark said evenly, taking a slow step towards the cornered man.

"Stop! Stop right there!" He shouted, nervously watching Mark's every move. "I'm really going to kill her!"

"No, I think not." As Mark said this, a blindingly bright flash suddenly appeared just above his head.

The man instinctively put up his arm to block out the light, but before he had even realized his mistake, Mark had already covered half the distance between them. It was over before the light had faded from the room.

Mark pushed the body from his sword and quickly freed Ellisa from her binds, along with the cursed collar from around her neck. He tried to help her up, but she pushed him away. "Mr. Raven, my lady is held in the basement over there," she pointed towards a corner of the room, where there were several large wooden crates. "The door is disguised as two crates on top of each other. Hurry, these men's leader is down there with her!"

Mark stiffened, and looked up at Mari and Lena. "Take care of her."

"Got it. Be careful!" Mari shouted after him.

Quickly finding the hidden door, Mark flew down the darkened stairs, fearing the worst. As he approached the thick wooden door at the bottom, he felt a strange noise, but in his haste he didn't recognize the signal until it was much too late. He put up his arms and turned his head just as the wooden door in front of him exploded into a shower of splinters, the force of the explosion launching him backwards through the air.

Even before the dust settled, Amanda had already charged out from room, towards the stairs in front of her. She saw a man-shaped shadow lying on the stairs. It stirred, trying to get up.

Not hesitating for even a moment, she dove on top of the figure and raised her knife.

"Amanda!" A hand reached up and grabbed her wrist.

She froze. The last man she had expected to see stared up at her. "Mark?"

"Oh thank the spirits you're safe," he breathed as he visibly relaxed. He let go of her wrist, and wrapped his arms around her. "I finally found you."

Still dumbfounded by the sudden turn of events, Amanda's mind took a moment to reboot itself. "Mark! You're here!" A wide smile appeared on her face, tears of happiness formed in her eyes. "How? Tell me I'm not dreaming!"

Mark smiled too, leaning forward to gently kiss her quivering lips. "You're not dreaming. I'm here," he said, wiping away her tears. "I'm here for you."

Dropping the knife on the ground, Amanda threw her arms around the man beneath her, burying her face into his shoulder. She sobbed quietly as emotions overwhelmed her. Mark smiled as he gently stroked her hair.

"Did you find Ellisa upstairs as well?" She finally said after a moment.

"Yeah, we found her. She's safe. Lena is looking after her."

"Good, good," She nodded. "Lena... Captain Banks is here too?"

"Yeah. She was available when we came."

A flurry of footsteps brought them out of the moment. "Mark! Are you alright?" Mari yelled as she hurried down the stairs.

"Yeah, everything's fine, Mari. I found Amanda."

The elf looked up to see the crimson haired sorceress smile with obvious relief. Quickly taking off her robe, Mari covered Amanda's nakedness and helped her and Mark to their feet. It was only then that she noticed the smattering of wood on the floor and what remained of a thick wooden door, hanging precariously off of its hinges. "What happened to that door?"

"I was trying to knock out the person on the other side," Amanda shrugged as Mark held her hand and lead her up the stairs. "I used the Push spell."

"Let's get Amanda back home first. We can talk about everything else later," Mark said.

Mari frowned, but nodded. Taking one last look at the destruction, she hurried up the stairs to join the others.

Upstairs, Amanda found Lena supporting Ellisa as they walked towards the basement entrance. Her guardian's worried expression quickly turned to relief as she saw Amanda step out from the hidden door.

"Ellisa!" Amanda shouted as she ran into her guardian's arms. Lena smiled, stepping aside for them.

"My lady! Are you alright? Did that man hurt you? I'm so sorry that I couldn't help you," she said, her voice trembling.

"No, I stopped him," Amanda said as she shook her head. "You have nothing to be sorry for. You've done far more for me than I would have ever dared to ask. I have nothing but gratitude for you. Thank you. Thank you Ellisa."

Her guardian smiled softly. "You're welcome, my lady. Let's go home."

Soon, more heavily armed city guards showed up at the scene, arriving by the carriage-full. There was very little left for them to do, but Lena used the opportunity to commandeer a carriage for the two elves. Being the only one who knew the way, Mark took the reins and it wasn't long before they arrived at the familiar elven mansion.

Falalie opened the door almost before Mark had a chance to knock on it. She wore only a pair of simple pants and a long robe, clearly not expecting anyone at this hour in the night.