The Rebellion - Chapter 1 - Kai

Kai knelt down softly by the pallet and tapped the girl gently. She jolted awake and sat up quickly. Too quickly, Kai noticed, because she doubled over in pain, holding her right side, before looking to see who had disturbed her. Uh-oh! Something's wrong, Kai thought.

“Kai! You scared me!” she hissed, but there was relief in her eyes.

“Sorry! I thought you were sleeping,” Kai whispered, looking her over. She had an ugly bruise on her forehead above her right eye, as well as a deep cut on her right side. She was not too badly hurt otherwise. Just some bruising on her arms and legs.

She narrowed her eyes and looked at him coldly. “I was,” she said, “but it's hard to sleep when you're in this kind of situation.”

“Oh?” Kai said, a quizzical expression on his face. He took a deep breath and said, “Well, we’ve got to get you out of here. Connor's waiting.” He held out his hand, but she shook her head and held up her right hand.

"The band, Kai." There was a thin metal band clasped around her wrist, and a weak chain ran from the band to the wall above her, with about a foot of extra chain coiled by the bed. Her hand was red with blood from the wound in her side.

Kai rolled his eyes and said, “Right. The band. you'll have to tell me how to get the chain off.”

"I don't really know how. I wasn't here when you were rescued. I've been looking at the chain, and I think it's just copper. should be relatively easy to break or bend."

"Ok." Kai looked around the grimy dungeon cell. There were no windows, and one heavy wooden door. Dust hung in the hot, still air. Reddish brown straw was strewn about the large cell. Many wounded, bleeding prisoners had used the straw, though not all of it had been from this cell in particular. In fact, Kai realized with a start, only four prisoners, including Hope, had stayed in this cell. The other three people had been Kai's own parents...and Kai himself. He stared at the opposite wall, painful memories flooding his vision.

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Slam!

“TELL ME WHERE THEY ARE!”

“No!” Kai leaned against the hard stone wall. Blood was running from his nose. His little twin brother was bigger than he was, and Kai was terrible at hand-to-hand combat.

“You say that again, and it’ll be the last thing you say!” Flint said, looking down at him. There was a cruel light in his eyes.

He enjoys this, Kai thought, grimacing. He panted out, “Hurt me all you want, but I’ll never give them over to you. We both know that I am the rightful heir to the throne, and while I may not want to be king one day, I would welcome the opportunity to keep you off of the throne. For now, I'll be content with this fact: you can’t find them, you never will, and that’s that. So there.” He braced himself for another blow.

“Pfft. We’ll see about that!” Flint snickered, and kicked his little brother onto the floor. “Last chance. Make the choice. Do I get to be king, or do you get to stay here for the rest of your short, puny life? If I get to be king, it's your choice, and I'll let you go to tell your puny little band of rebellious flies. If you decide to stay here, I just might have to kill you, and I don’t really want to have to do that. You are my brother, after all. Also, if you decide to stay here, I still get to be king, and there won't be anything you can do about it, and that's that! So there!” Flint aimed another punch and waited for his brother to answer.

“Fine,” Kai grunted. Flint’s face brightened, and he dropped his clenched fist. Kai struggled to stand up again and leaned heavily against the wall. He thought for a moment, If Flint lets me go, he'll follow me back to the Caves and everyone else will probably die. Or end up in a dungeon somewhere. If I tell him to keep me here, there's a very good chance I'll die, and he'll still win. But, there is a good chance he'll lose if he never finds the Caves.

That's it then.

Wish I could have said good-bye.

"Kai! Make up your mind already!" Flint yelled.

Kai quickly nodded, wiped the blood away from his mouth, looked his big little brother straight in the eye and said, “Fine! Fine. I'll stay here. I'll stay here! And the Rebellion will win.”

Flint’s face darkened again, and his eyes grew hard. He didn’t say another word as he knocked his little big brother unconscious, dragged him to the pallet and chained him to the wall with an unbreakable metal band.

Well, he made his choice, Flint thought, and walked out of the room, bolting the door shut behind him.

Kai never knew how long he was in that cell unconscious, but he had woken up back at the infirmary in the Caves. Connor single handedly rescued him. Connor was more like a brother to Kai than Flint ever was, or ever would be.