Chapter 62: A childish dream (3)
Amelia remebered that particularly cold day of early winter as one of the two worst of her life.
It had begun as a fairly ordinary one. So she'd thought at the time at least but looking back things had been strange from the beginning.
William had been absent from their usual meeting place and word from the other kids was that he was ill and refused company by anyone.
Thoughout the day there were also whispers of strange men in the town's square though she hadn't paid it any mind at the time since the square was by far the best place to go for her purposes.
Things had gone well in the beginning of the day. After she'd realised that the frigid cold made the adult's particularly unreceptive to her begging she'd resorted to reaching into the pockets of the well dressed instead.
Everything had indeed been well, until she had spotted the men from the whispers. They were armed and clad in armor adorned by a noble crest that Amelia hadn't recognised. But the thing that had made her stomach drop was not the swords on their hips but rather the picture that they showed to passersby. A picture of William.
She'd done her best to conceal her shock and to sneak away without being noticed. If she hadn't failed at this perhaps William would still have been alive. Or if she hadn't gone to the square at all.
Amelia tried to keep her walk as natural as possible, fighting the urge to blatantly turn her head to see if she was being followed. Her racing pulse screamed for her to run as fast as she could and she could only fight it by reasoning that William was already aware of the danger. It couldn't be a coincidence that he was gone only today while he had seemed perfectly fine the day before.
Amelia only picked up her pace when she'd reached a safe distance away from the men. Only after turning the corner onto a narrow and less populated street where she was completely out of their line of sight did she start to run.
She really thought that she'd gotten away when a large hand caught her upper arm in a firm grip. The sudden pull almost made her fall backwards.
She quickly spun her head around and was met by the face of an armed man that she hadn't noticed in the square, realising that he must have followed her.
Despite her struggles to escape his grip it was of no use.
"Not so fast, rat. You recognise the kid in the picture don't you? Tell me what you know and I'll let you be on your way. Quick and easy, no?"
"I'm sorry Sir knight, I only ran 'cause I saw your swords. I will return the money I stole, everything I took. See?"
As she started empying the contents of her pockets she thought that her act of a mere frightened thief seemed fairly believable. Appearantly she wasn't convincing enough though. The man grabbed her by the hair and pulled hard, forcing her head to face his way.
"Perhaps I didn't make it clear just now. You will tell me what you know if you don't want to get hurt. Bad."
Amelia let out an involontary cry from the pain. With a look of dread she silently pleaded to the scattered passersby for help, however they all averted their eyes.
"A-alright I'll tell you." She finally said, realising that there was no other way out of the situation than to give the man information.
Not accurate information of course.
"The boy in the picture, I've seen him. He passed through town over a week ago. I remeber 'cause he stole from me and threatened me not to tell anyone that I'd seen him. I swear I know nothing else!"
"Didn't I just warn you rat?"
The hit in her stomach that followed knocked the air out of her and she sunk to her knees.
"It doesn't matter whether you believe me or not, I have nothing else to tell you" she breathed with a cracked voice.
No matter what there was no way she'd fold since the men obviously didn't search for William with good intentions. At the memory of his empty eyes when they'd first met she became angry and without thinking she spit on his boot.
"Beat me all you want 'cause you'll only waste your time" she sneered.
The following hit landed on her temple and her vision went blurry.
Amelias memories of the events that had followed the first two hits were a haze. There had probably been more hits that followed the first two judging by the marks that had been left on her body after the fact, and through the ringning in her ears she had vague recollections of hearing the sound of voices and a sword being pulled from its sheath.
The one thing Amelia still remebered clearly to this day was the sensation of warm blood on her face that had not been her own. Only after her vision partly returned had she seen who the blood belonged to.
A sword had been thrust through the man's stomach and holding it was William. His face had worn a frightening expression that she'd never seen on him before.
In that moment she'd been scared both for and of him. One part of her had wanted to take his hand and run to keep him from the inevitable consequenses of murder. However the other part of her overcome with fear for the drastic actions that he'd just taken had made her unable to move.
Even as she had met his eyes that reflected overwhelming shock hadn't she been able to hide her terror. He'd taken a step towards her and in turn, she'd recoiled.
The very last she ever saw of William was his back as he had pushed through the crowd that had gathered around them.
***
Amelia had no memories of how she'd made her way home after that. Perhaps the shock made her move on pure instinct.
As she had stumbled through the door however, bruised and her clothes covered in splattered blood, her mother's horrified face was still fresh in her memory.
After she'd changed out of the stained clothes and cleaned up she'd quickly fallen asleep, with her frail mother right next to her holding her hand.
She woke up again only when it had become dark outside. Her wounds had been bandaged while she slept and her mother seemed to have left for work.
Only then had Amelia truly felt the pain. It was present through her entire body however most prominent in her head like a crushing steel helmet.
With her mind cleared after the deep sleep she'd immeadiatly thought of him. The fact that William had such a side to him did not completely erase the boy she'd come to know and rely on in her mind and she resented the fact that she'd caused him to leave like that.
Wearing only a coat as well as a worn stretched out hat on top of her bandages she'd left home to look for him.
She hadn't been deterred by the frigid wind nor by the sketchy men that completely filled the streets at nighttime.
Even though she'd quickly realised that she wouldn't find him she'd still waited for him in the alley until the cold had become impossible to bear.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone