Chapter Six

Annie shivered as the cold seeped through the thin blanket and her clothes. The clothes she was wearing just wasn't enough to protect her from the freezing air around her. The door opened again and Cindy walked in, now as Annie looked at her friend, she could see how different Cindy seemed from when they had been friends. Her physical changes were to be expected, but Annie could see through to Cindy's core and soul. They both seemed different, altered. She wasn't sure what had happened, but she wasn't quite the same person. If Annie was honest with herself she knew she was jealous of the changes Cindy seemed to show because Annie knew she hadn't changed much. Physically, yes, she was different. Her spiritual self hadn't changed. 

"I'm sorry, Alex is such an impulsive twat." Cindy sighed, sitting on the chair that was always left a little away from the cell. Annie stayed silent, she was too cold to risk looking any more body heat. "You must be freezing, I'll call Chris he'll bring you a much warmer blanket and some of my clothes to keep you warm," Cindy said, typing away on her phone. 

"Thank you," Annie whispered, her voice barely made it across the room, but the air was still that the sound seemed to echo towards Cindy and span through her ears. Again the room filled with silence. The pair waited for Chris to arrive bringing clothes that would hopefully provide Annie with some much-needed warmth. 

Chris arrived half an hour later, the whole time the girls were silent. Cindy longed to break the silence but she wasn't sure where to start and feared Annie's response. When Chris arrived Annie flinched at the sound, she didn't notice, but Cindy did. Her heart throbbed, sending a pinch of pain through her, looking at the girl she once thought of as a sister in such a helpless situation hurt and angered her. Cindy's anger was purely directed at Alexander. The amount of anger she held was limited because of their close connection but perhaps the made it worse. It almost felt like a betrayal. He was hurting someone close to her, maybe not physically, but this was sure to scar Annie who was not used to their life, and the danger that constantly surrounded them. 

"Who is this?" Chris asked, handing Cindy the clothes. Cindy's eyes left Annie who had gone back to absently staring at the wall ahead of her. Chris was studying Annie, she didn't look like the usual type they kidnap. She looked too innocent to be caught up in their world, too sweet to do anything that made her worthy to be looked at in a cell-like a criminal. He thought maybe he was misjudging her, he remembered that he could never judge a book by its cover. Still, he couldn't possibly imagine what she had done to end up looking away like she was now. 

"Her name is Annie Hill. She's my friend." Cindy looked towards Annie again, hoping for some sort of reaction. Annie showed none, she feared what would happen if she did. Annie feared showing any sign of emotion would change her unharmed state, she doubted that being someone Cindy considered a friend would stop any harm coming to her. Annie wasn't sure that Cindy would be a high enough rank for that to matter, the thought hadn't occurred to her that Cindy had been born into this life. This life of crime. 

"As in Jack Hill's sister?" Chris asked, now discovering her only 'crime' was being the sister of a gambling addict. She was an innocent caught in the crossfire, not at all what he had expected. Cindy just nodded, while Annie's attention was captured just as she had been. 

"How do you know my brother?" Annie asked softly, she wanted to yell and show much more aggression and protection towards her older brother, but she couldn't. She was just too cold, too tired, too scared to try. 

"You don't know?" Cindy asked, which somehow made it worse. Was it worse to know that her brother trapped her in this life, or was it worse to live unaware of the situation that caused her misery? Either way, Cindy would tell Annie, surely it was the right thing to do. Something Annie was owed. 

Annie shook her head, Chris looked between the two girls. Annie still shivering, her lack of fight to escape and free herself, Cindy's sad sympathetic look. It was too much emotion for him, he was trying to avoid emotion, avoid admitting to himself something that he already knew. 

"Cindy, we should let Annie get changed before anything else. She looks freezing." Chris commented, the emotions he showed were only towards others, those he knew were approved by the society he lived in. Even that felt like too much. 

"Your right, Annie get changed and when I get back we'll discuss your brother." Something in the way Cindy called Jack her brother didn't sit properly with Annie. It made the uneasy feeling return and she felt less and less comfortable by the second.

Annie's cell was left unlocked and Cindy didn't bother locking the main door. Annie wouldn't run, already Annie had shown no signs of being a trouble prisoner. Although Cindy refused to refer to Annie as that, even in her mind. It seemed so final, so hunting, too wrong. Annie still screamed innocents even down to her core. 

"What was that about?" Chris saw Annie's innocents. It wasn't hard, a blind person could, yet Cindy had never befriended a prisoner before. He could see no reason why there was a sudden change, and she just had to befriend some gambling addicts sister. Chris' eyes asked every question he wanted to voice. Something Chris had always failed at was keeping his eyes cold and distant, they always betrayed him. 

"She was my friend when we were kids. Hell, she was like a sister to me." Memories of the two girls flashed around Cindy's mind. Forcing her to relive every fight, hug, laugh, tear, sleepover, up until the very last. Distress was written all over Cindy's face. Her eyes screamed for comfort, and as always Chris was more than happy to help, as long as it was somebody else's emotions, never his own. His own were to be locked in a box and pushed down further and further until eventually, they disappeared. That's what he thought anyway, that's how it appeared. 

"What happened Ind?" Chris asked, pulling her close and running his fingers delicately through Cindy's hair. As if she were the most delicate thing in the world, and at that moment she was. 

"Kate," Cindy whispered, her voice barely auditable. Chris hated Kate with every fibre of his being. He had been one of the first people to point out how manipulative and toxic Kate was, while at the time it had caused tension between the two, now they were closer than ever. 

"Toxic bitch." Chris muttered under his breath, "is there anything it didn't fuck up for you?" Cindy allowed herself to shake her head the moment she lost her best friend returning and hurting, Kate's words all these years later didn't have the effect they used to. But they didn't have any. 

A bang came from the other side of the door. Maybe bang was an overstatement. It was a light sound that was barely audible. Annie was too cold and scared to risk any sound louder than that. Chris and Cindy just about heard it and decided it was time to cut their conversation off. 

"I'll go talk to Alex, with both of us on his ass he'll do something," Chris reassured. They both knew he wouldn't let her go. That was out of the question. Maybe make her warmer with a more comfortable bed. That was their hope. 

"He won't let her go." Cindy frowned. Usually, innocents didn't matter to her, however, Annie wasn't any innocent. With the others Cindy hadn't watched them grow, she had no connection with them. Annie was different. At one point Annie was almost her sister. The person she had grown up with, together they had grown and evolved. 

"He'll do something," Chris repeated. It was a small glimmer of hope that allowed Cindy a little bit more confidence. Just enough to walk back into that cell and tell Annie about her gambling-addicted brother who had caused her capture. Although that wouldn't make it easy. As children, Annie idolized her brother. Now that hero, the boy she relied on, had become a man that forced her into the lines of danger. Cindy wouldn't let anything happen to her, she would absorb the role of Annie's protector.

When Cindy walked back in, Annie had the warm blanket over her legs and was wearing Cindy's clothes. They looked too big on her, Cindy wasn't a fat woman, she just had more muscle than Annie making their clothing size different. Cindy moved to sit next to her friend, the hard bed would soon make her butt go numb, the warm blanket just about faught the cold. It would do for now. 

"What does my brother have to do with this?" Annie asked, now looking at Cindy who felt the heavyweight of guilt pull at her soul. The soul she thought had died with Kate. 

"Annie, I need you to promise that you'll believe me," Cindy said softly as if Annie was a timid little animal likely to run away. Annie nodded, Cindy had no reason to lie. They hadn't seen each other in years, and technically her holder Cindy didn't need to tell her anything. "Jack is a gambling addict. You remember Alexander, right?" Annie lightly nodded, though she still refused to accept that Alexander was her capture, she refused to accept the little boy she had loved all these years was not so cold and dangerous. "Well, Jack owes Alex a lot of money. In order to get Jack to pay up Alex threatened you. Obviously he didn't pay." Annie's mind swirled. It twist and turned until it was nothing but a knot of thoughts. A web of something she couldn't even call lies. The day of Jack in her office returned, she tried to find some sign of a confession. Maybe him showing up was his confession. She blamed herself. She should've seen, should've tried. Should've. Would've. Could've. All just hypertheticals that a cannot be tested or changed. 

"Are you sure?" Annie asked softly, a single tear rolling down her face. Cindy nodded. Self blame, self hatred, self reflection, swirled through her. Cindy could almost see it. 

"It's not your fault." Cindy reassures. Another tear fell down Annie's face and then another and another, until they refused to stop. 

"He's my brother. Of course it's my fault." Annie pulled her knees up to her chest and burried her head in her legs. She wanted the world to stop. To pause. This had been what she wanted, wasn't it? Adventure? Danger? Yet, this wasn't a story she could romanticise. This wasn't a story she could pause or put down. She was stuck living inside a movie. A movie she could see no end to.