Hunted

Twenty-Four: Frank Nicholls

"She's awake".

The words penetrated Charlotte's thoughts, before she even had the chance to realise she had fallen asleep. She found herself compelled into a sitting position, blinking furiously in an effort to discern her surroundings. Her mind was swimming, the forced drowsiness withdrawing slowly, as a sterile, white kitchen came into focus. She tried to look about, turn her head, raise her hands to her face in an effort to shield her eyes from the blinding light, but her body would not respond; it was not hers to respond.

Since leaving Daphne's house, her body had refused to answer to her own commands, some outside force controlling her every move. She had hardly hoped that now would be any different. Her mind too, was hardly her own anymore, as emotions that were certainly alien to her current circumstances had been pushed upon her. She knew it could only be the two men that she had first met at Daphne's. These manipulators controlled her, though for now at least control over her own thoughts and emotions still lay with her.

"Good morning, honey," a curvy woman said with a sickly smile, red lipstick plastered across her thin lips. Charlotte clambered to her feet, her body moving of its own accord, or somebody else's at least. The curvy woman's words were, for all intents and purposes, kind, but her tone was mocking, contrived. Charlotte glared at her, her breath shallow with anger. She couldn't speak, couldn't move, only breathe and blink.

"How was the flight?" the woman asked, growing bored of Charlotte and turning to the large, robust man who had taken Charlotte from Daphne's home. Charlotte had quickly come to realise that it was this man who had taken control of her movements; it was this man that held her in this weird state of paralysis. She had mentally dubbed him The Puppeteer, seeing as he could command her to do as he wished, as if she was his marionette.

"It was okay," he grunted, the bright light glistening off his bald head. "We had bad turbulence for a bit, but it passed". Charlotte took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a few seconds, trying to quieten her racing pulse.

"And did our new colleague behave?" the woman asked, reaffixing her attention on Charlotte once more. The woman's dark wiry hair stood out in an unruly fashion and sharply contrasted against her pale, dry skin. Her eyes were a milky brown with a certain deadness to them. She took Charlotte's face in her hands, squeezing her cheeks almost fondly, but for the coldness in her eyes.

"She didn't have much of a choice," The Puppeteer laughed, pouring himself a mug of coffee from the glass coffee pot. "I've had a hold on her since we got our hands on her".

"Has she put up much of a fight?" the woman asked, glancing at the man before turning her milky brown eyes back on Charlotte. She tilted Charlotte's head back and forth, examining her carefully.

"No – though I'm not sure she can with my hold on her," The Puppeteer said, with a loud slurp of coffee.

Their conversation was interrupted as Charlotte's other escort appeared through the door in front of Charlotte, his hazel eyes darting to her for a moment before fixing on his companions.

"Nicholls wants to see her," he breathed dismissively, helping himself to a mug of coffee. Charlotte regarded this ex-soldier of Kingston warily. He was devastatingly handsome, with soft wavy brown hair and carefully sculpted features, but nothing about his looks could disguise the unsettling menace of his alteration. This man, The Charmer, seemed to be able to twist her emotions, making her happy when she wasn't, tired when she wasn't, relaxed when she wasn't. The Puppeteer and The Charmer could manipulate her completely and it scared her more than anything she had met at Kingston.

"You should bring her up then," the woman sighed, pushing Charlotte's hair back from her face. "Only release her when he orders you to," she said with another sickly smile. "I'll mark her as one of us when Nicholls approves". Charlotte's stomach knotted, wondering what the woman could possible mean by those words.