Within Two Prisons

      It being a perfect intersection to exact homicide provoked her to shelter her body with her arms.  Any innocent bystander would have conjectured that the action’s corresponding explanation was due to the fault of the frigid gales.  If that was a true assumption, the slender ebony-haired girl rushing across the two lane street might have received a considerable amount of balm to her spirit.  Exiting Dr. Tiriad’s building had been no simple feat.  Jada had fallen into a deeper abyss of depression, as if such a thing were even possible.
      “I spoke with your protector.”  Jada had knitted her brow up at Dr. Tiriad.  Just mere moments ago, she’d surfaced from induced hypnosis, a performance rendered necessary for her psychologist to communicate with her other personality.  Yet, as Xanatine had established in a most unceremonious voice heard through the recorded conversation, there was a third being.  As Dr. Tiriad had explained, Jada’s protector was the supreme personality, the one that rose to her defense, to her “protection”.  Alicorinth, whom Xanatine had granted the Doctor’s request to speak to permissible today, was a rather cheerful, ditzy female, who pronounced Jada much too gloomy nowadays, and Xanatine too bossy. 
      “Gee thanks”, Jada sarcastically thought, and a queer sort of fright had been internally evinced upon experiencing something stir within.  If Xanatine scrupulously protected her, and Alicorinth was a mere talkative one, from whence were the thoughts of their stretching out their hands to deal her ill originating?  Whatever the face of deception possessed, it was why Jada clutched herself tightly as she stepped down upon the road, for fear she might suddenly emerge and run havoc into a semi or whatnot in the dimming hues of light. 

      The journey home was not made in the simple fashion of vehicular travel and the cold.  Jada mused endlessly upon the intelligence she’d received, so much so that she observed nothing of her environment, until the environment came to her not eleven feet from the corner of the house, its stealth arrival made known by the vice imposed upon her limbs.  They’d waited long enough, endured the unkind cold, and suffered the easily startled senses excited from wary precautions to conceal their temporary criminal stakeout.  The girl‘s exotic beauty would turn a high reward for sure. 
      “You just have to remember to sing”.  S-I-N-G was a four step process in defeating an assailant, something Jada had been meticulously taught, and its remembrance rushed up to the foremost portion of her mind.  Yet before any such motion of her limbs executed anything by way of that art, something else felt imposed to relieve her of her station, but for all valiant efforts, it was overcome.  The fair head it shared snapped back as it slipped from consciousness, the single crushing blow liberating blood from the monotonous path it’d always run.  Had it tarried a while longer than it did, the horrendous ache of the brain its charge would be subject to might have been diminished by consequence of time.  But Xanatine did not, and all Jada knew was of being in a vertical position within view of a house, whereupon in the consecutive instant, she suddenly existed in the position’s antonym, immersed in darkness.  The initial rush of extreme bewilderment gave way to the aforementioned pending pain.  The comprehension of a filthy article of cloth between her jaws, with arms and legs stripped of motion, compounded her most confused senses.  She realized that her inanimateness was by service of the classic rope, and did not belong to her primary panicking notion of paralysis.
      As composedly as humanly reasonable, Jada resigned herself to not knowing what had precisely occurred, and began exploring her whereabouts, as much as was physically possible.  Her forearms and the length of her legs were restricted by knotted rope, and the gagging rag was of a most putrid taste.  Jada conceived that she lay in some sort of very large rectangular box with a hard bottom.  A tarp concealed vision of immediate surroundings, but the freezing cold told her something of being out under a sky.  Her severe headache urged her into a fitful sleep for some time, interrupted ungraciously by hostile voices and the jostling of her rectangular prison.  The tarp was thrown back, and a brilliancy of light affronted her eyes.  The same eyes could not have possibly widened more in fright, as a looming shadow bent down and hoisted her roughly up into a sitting position on what Jada now saw was the back of a truck.  The shadow’s possessor then proceeded to thrust her harshly back upon the floor, and returned the tarp. In this manner so want of chivalry the girl was jerkily borne a very long ways to a dilapidated mobile residence, its tires sunk fatigued into the ground. 
   
      Dropped painfully and carelessly upon the uncaring wooden floor, Jada experienced a burning shame indeed at her vivid plight.  She was bound hand and foot, upon the ground, and with foreign men hulking above her proximity.  Fright upon a violation of her sense of delicacy supplemented no aid, the former being incurred as yet another figure entered bearing a black revolver.  As Jada’s eyes began to compose themselves under the confusion of lights, she observed that her black masked captors equaled four in sum, and for the exception of one, were by no means in a scrawny state.  Two of the men began to advance toward her, and as they did, so did her nervousness.  Yet they undid and withdrew the material oppressor of her movement, but even if such an act might have been judged kind, the lack of gentleness that accompanied it overrode all entreaties of the sort.  Jada had never really entertained any premonition during the length of her capture that she’d be so easily liberated.  Now she did, though it was only to be extinguished by the sight of hand and ankle cuffs that were produced, which rendered her once again in her original state of helplessness, if not more effectually.
      The two former stood back to admire their work, and turned away, both laughing to the other about the little girl’s mother worried sick.  One shifted his view to observe that their human loot was not indifferent to their jesting, and dealt Jada a kick in her rib as for punishment.  Perchance he had been afraid of her catching on a bit too quickly and rightly so, as her interest was thoroughly awakened.  As if the persons who held her at such mercy wished to distress Mrs. Ellsfort more, such a possibility was advertised in their manner of assuring the benefits of their intention.
      All at once Jada’s slender neck was caught up from behind in the steel clamp of an arm, and her body dragged to the center of the little dismal prison.  An exerting effort it was to attempt battling, which was only hardly silenced from the roused curiosity of a camcorder before her.  Securing the vigorous straining and movement of her lithe self, proved to result with a sound head-on strike against the man who was fighting with her raging shoulders.  If one were to relate to Jada of her physical retort, she would have been in lack of remembrance, yet with a perfect reasoning in concern to the livid slap that came fully cross her face.  She quieted a moment in a dazed manner in which the blow left her.  Scarlet drops of life ran down, and endeavoring to wipe their nuisance-like presence away as best she could with her shoulder, only accomplished in depicting a very pitiable countenance indeed, with all its smeared blood and ugly mark.  A tripod was produced, its reason clear, but whereupon a gleaming machete was next splayed, reason was in need of a fumbling grasp.  Jada’s eyes threatened to dilate clear beyond their orbits, and every prayer she’d ever been acquainted with was now invoked towards the Lord God.  Yet, for all her terror, hers was a disposition in which no retreat would be given without a lusty fight.  The tripod crashed to the ground in her defiance, but it was an odd sort of defiance.  It could not be denied that with every swing of the seriously intimidating weapon, her fright increased, but with every such advancement, a crazed stubbornness, a refusal to inwardly admit her apprehension, prevailed.  Thus was such the uproar within her mind, accumulating every moment, halted primarily by the absolutely furious throttling of her breath. 
      Jada had writhed and warred, but now lay gaspingly still.  All that had been so delayed was now resumed, its meaning transparent, the only thing diminishing her deep and frantic hyperventilation was the press of the broad knife, and every terror drowned moment was received with cold indifference by digital recording.  The device listened attentively to all the front man wielding the arm had to say, turned to the wicked hidden faces of his companions in crime, and above all, watched the blood messed face so seized with certainty of stepping through the pearly gates.  Emotionless and yet with so much viciousness, did the wielder relate with the most nonchalant air of what had befallen their captive, emphasizing that negotiations concerning the asking price of her life would be without their cooperative boundaries. 
        So far, Jada stood for sixty-five thousand. 
    Jada’s larynx was stripped of its service due to the restraint still upon its significant other, but her flaring eyes were the only hint one could garner of her fury.  So!  This was a ransom, and she, Jada Ellsfort, the hostage!  What degradation this!  A man with copper hair faced her and smiled, amused.  No doubt he could thoroughly discern the lividness of his little barter, and the desolation of her present existence helped to increase his mirth.  If she could have wept her heart out she would have, to imagine the incredulous fiscal strain upon her beloved mother, to mention nothing of the sensitive and tender delicacy of her nature.  The last shred of fear now removed, all gave way to her inborn temper.  Jada once again demoted the tripod, and the usefulness of her gag now expired in its loosening, proceeded to scream with all the air her lungs could possibly be of service for. 
      That was it; not one of the four men had bargained for such an obstinate and strong willed child, and as the resonation of her shrieks pierced the leader’s ears, every fear of exposure was duly felt.  The blood that rose up in the path of Jada’s slit throat displayed the torrent of anger he could no longer resist.  Such an obscene threat could do naught but strike the tenderest chord in a mother’s heart, and confirming the expectations of those who’d placed the tape upon Mrs. Ellsfort’s threshold, the same heart, wracked in grief and fright, immediately consented to the captors’ wishes.  Where such an amount could be obtained, she knew not, they cared not.  Pay all, they’d explicitly threatened, or Jada would indeed come home, albeit in rigor mortis.   
      Immediate cries of indignation and shock swept throughout her homeland, and were carried to distances beyond.  All who possessed a heart of empathy, and certainly those who had known her beautiful face, eagerly drew forth from their own storehouses means by way of satisfying dear Jada’s cruel, cruel captors.  That she should actually be a hostage!  When the last meager sum that could afford to be removed from her mother’s account was gone, thirteen thousand were still wanting.  Mrs. Ellsfort could keep no composure over the unpaid money, yet would be overcome by shame of her ingratitude towards the most unselfish souls, and a great many number of them did not know her.  Jada too, would have also been of a most thanksgiving spirit, but bare truth unveiled, the ransom might be achieved within a thousand, and no good would it do her.
      The possessiveness expressed by her daily appointed sentinel was remote from that of a shepherd’s.  Apathy was shown in supplementing her with nourishment and warmth, and this neglect rendered her quite sickly over the course of a month’s confinement.  No scruple restricted them from bruising her body all over in their drunken rages, brought on the more by no news of their demands being answered.  Once her abdomen was repeatedly struck with unmerciful force, the blood collecting in her mouth gagged on and swallowed, restrained from exiting by the retied muzzle.  However starved, abused, and destitute Jada could be, she was not, and every unkind service they did her hostess, the more ill will grew within her abstract body. 

      Retiring late one night from the company of liquor, and while it was not to be assumed that the other three were in any particular geniality, the headman himself was in an exceptionally ugly humor.  Reminding one henchman that the main window barring Jada’s view from the world was not serving its purpose, for the pitiful blinds had at last fallen apart, he bid him to do something about it.  Upon the former’s voicing there was no such convenient makeshift covering that the child would not endeavor to knock down in their absence, the latter was then roused from his moody reflections.  Fulminating anathemas, he strode outdoors towards the truck, procured a large, thin wooden board, and after rummaging for a time in the trailer’s closet, slammed down nails and an electric screwdriver beside it.  Jada saw it as the man flung around the myriad of equipment, but saw it in the attitude in which one observes grass.  But before the last observer might misplace the precise location in which it fell, she emerged for an instant, drawing a sly light into those violet eyes, and while any one of the men might have said the girl smiled for witnessing the intended window fixer be so reprimanded by their boss, they could not have been farther from what was correct.
        As was custom, the party quitted their hostage on the next evening to respond to the call of spirits, a space of several hours in which Jada always spent in supplication for some time.  The bedraggled girl shifted her legs to gain as much comfort as her shackles would afford.  The sun was lending over its glory to the moon again, she dreamily thought, the rose and sapphire of the sky flowing together to spread out the most majestic of carpets in which to catch the sprinkling diamonds.  This piece of heaven was a vision that awaited her soul’s delight at the same hour each day, and its entirety was not meanly shielded by the recently erected board. 
      Yet she cared nothing for such frivolity of mind, and was only impatient that the last waning rays of light were not wasted before her plans had been executed.  When the last word of prayer had concluded, she rose to the surface, blinked and looked about in search of it.  Ah, there it was, still lying unheeded in shadows.  Exerting her body mightily, she dragged herself near, and as best she could, snatched it up hastily.  Her violet eyes ran over the fatal blades, contemplating the blood that would undoubtedly be lost. 
      Well, gain would never come with an absence of pain, and she had been confined within two prisons long enough.  In her host it was evident that she would never exercise such means of self-liberation.  A most awkward business it was to switch it into its operative state, and even more difficult to keep it from hitting her opposite hand.  Nevertheless, the circular saw was engaged, and as Xanatine had supposed it would, ripped through flesh as it bit the handcuff.  Yet she kept her screams silent, her agony controlled; nothing in the world was to rise against her will.  The veins had received no severe disaster when the second cut was finished, and she lay gaspingly witnessing her handiwork.  The serrated edges being applied to the other restraint, proved to be of too great a pain beyond pain, and for all the best efforts, a shrieking sob was evinced.  Blood spurted and rained down the slender arm, a sight Xanatine perceived with widening pupils.  Means by way of stanching the flow was only a soiled length of cloth, but it would serve temporarily as a tourniquet.  It was clear that her shredded palms and wrists would not expel its torture too soon, but to this she was resigned, bending to tend to her ankles.  All business transacted, she slumped out upon the ground to recollect her ricocheting thoughts.
        If anyone supposed that what she had just performed was a frightening scene indeed, then it was perchance for the best that they take their sensitive stomachs and leave before any same thing was further enacted.  For indeed, all the loathsome emotions, all the despise that’d been everyday icing her conceptual heart, was now to be spewed forth, and if not in vengeance for the all too forgiving Jada, then certainly in sweet revenge for herself.  Xanatine made very sure to seek out all firearms, and bestowed upon one revolver the honor of being chosen.  In three hours that came and went, she bled and she waited, at long last rewarded. 
        The first astonishment in seeing their hostage absent was instantly wiped away from an unseen shadowy recess, their arms flailing as if to open wide the chest that received the hail of bullets.  Still having lingered in the truck, the last two men were now all that was intense alarm, and if they had ever witnessed a cow indeed leap over the moon, every iota of that past shock was now transcribed one-hundred fold when they came upon the ghastly bodies sprawled in their lives’ liquid.  The first man to run in was not whom she wanted; she dismissed him from the world with one trigger pull.  But when that copper haired headman warily drew near, gentle, friendly, and coaxing, one weapon was exchanged for another.  All the hate and anger was testified in each monstrously sanguine slash and tear of his throat.  Most willingly she ripped the blades over his face, his chest and arms.  When the last signifying hint of life had desisted, her exhilarating revenge did too, overpowered by a sudden sobbing weariness. 
      Xanatine thus withdrew, and Jada was left to sink to her knees, to scream her name thrice and again, and weep bitter tears of a deed done that she would never have it in her power to do away. 

      Although all mortifying emotions had been of recent months soothed many a time over by Dr. Tiriad, Jada could not initially release her extreme depression too easily.   
One lovely spring day, when a breeze floated Jada’s now lustrous hair away from her neck, Mrs. Ellsfort reached out in a motherly pang to caress the scar.  Jada lightly brushed her away and thought of Xanatine.


*This was written as a rhetoric paper for school, hence the somewhat hastily compressed events towards the conclusion, due to page limit*