Red River Blue

Chapter 50

As she watched Rick march up the metal steps into the train car, Harley cursed under her breath. She couldn't believe how stupid they had been. Even her. She had been so eager to believe in something. Anything. To believe hat there were still a few good people out there. Now look what was happening. They had walked right into a trap.

Rick looked back once at Carl before he stepped inside the train car. His face was a mix of emotions with his fear and concern for his son finally winning out over the anger and hatred for the people that had bested him. The dark shadows inside the car swallowed him. Daryl went next. When he glanced back at Harley he looked ashamed of himself. That hurt her heart. None of this was her uncle's fault.

Michonne went next. The man that was yelling at them from above called her the samurai. But at the moment she didn't look like one. She looked small and lost with only an empty sheath on her back instead of her sword.

Carl went in next, leaving Harley standing alone outside the traincar that was now going to serve as their prison cell. How long their imprisonment was going to last was yet to be determined.

Barbie. They called Carl a kid and they called her Barbie Doll. Harley was tall, blonde and she had a large chest. It wasn't the first time someone had made the comparison. The last boy that called Harley a doll had chipped a tooth on her knuckle when she punched him in his stupid smiling mouth. Harley clenched her fists. If she ever got ahold of the man that was hollering at her now he was going to lose a lot more than a tooth.

Harley lifted one foot and placed it on the bottom step. It was bright outside the traincar, so even though she squinted her eyes she had no idea what sort of fresh new horror waited for her inside. Men with guns approached her from behind. Harley assumed they were only planning to snap shut the metal door behind her. It took her by surprise when one of them grabbed her by the waist and pulled her down from the steps. Her damaged ribs sung as a thick cloth pressed down over her mouth, smothering her with the sickly sweet smell of whatever it was soaked in. Harley twisted and thrashed in the man's arms. She tried her best to get away but she could already feel herself fading in and out of conciousness. People were screaming her name from inside the train car. The voices were all blending and bleeding together but Harley could have sworn one of them was her mother's. No one else ever called her by her full name.

Time passed in a strange fog. Harley remembered being cold and wet. Then being warm again. She dreamed about her sister and how they used to fall asleep on the couch together watching old black and white movies on their crummy little television set waiting for their mother to get home from working at the club and tuck them both into bed. Her mom would come shuffling through the door in her bare feet, her high heeled shoes dangling from one hand. Her purse would be hanging over the other shoulder, crammed with cash that they would count out together the next morning while she and Wren drank cups of juice or hot cocoa and her mother sipped on a strong cup of coffee. Half of the money always went into a shoebox in the closet. That was the bakery fund.

When Harley woke up the first thing she noticed was that her face itched. The second thing she noticed was that she couldn't itch her face since her hand was cuffed to the frame of the bed that she was lying in. The feeling of being restrained caused instant panic. Harley started thrashing and yanking at the cuffs. Only one of her hands was bound, leaving the other one free. She twisted and pulled her wrist, trying to see if she could slip it out of the cuffs. The metal bit into her flesh painfully.

"Stop," a voice ordered, "You're going to hurt yourself doing that."

Harley turned towards the voice. A woman was speaking to her and for a moment Harley felt a small glimmer of hope rise up inside her. Maybe this woman had come to help her. She looked motherly, her soft brown hair fell forward over her shoulder in a long braid and she had a friendly smile on her face. But the woman only handed her a glass of water to drink before she sat down on the edge of the bed.

"My son is a handsome boy," the woman announced, "ever since he was little the girls used to chase after him. You're going to like him. I can tell."

Harley gulped down her water and forced herself to swallow all the insulting things she wanted to say to this woman along with it. Being rude was not going to get her released from the cuffs that were holding her prisoner. Even if this woman had fallen right out of the loony tree and hit every branch on the way down. Harley assumed that keeping her from the traincar and cuffing her to the bed must be the woman's sick way of playing matchmaker.

"I'd love to meet him," Harley lied. When she saw this woman's son the only thing he was going to be meeting was the business end of her knife. She yanked at the cuffs so that they rattled against the metal frame of the cheap bed. "Why don't you take these off and you can take me to meet him right now?," Harley suggested. She even smiled in her attempt to look as sweet and innocent as possible.

"Do I look stupid?," the woman asked. Harley shrugged and assumed the woman would rather not hear the answer to that question. "You will stay right here and I will bring him in to meet you," the woman informed her, "You're not getting set free until we are sure that we can trust you." Harley sighed. She figured getting lose wasn't going to be that easy but it had been worth a try. "I already got you ready so you don't need to worry about that," the woman added.

At the woman's announcement, Harley looked down at herself. She might have barfed if there was anything in her stomach to puke up. Not only was she wearing a dress. She was wearing a pink sundress. The kind of dress that girls wore to church with white sandals and little matching purses. Her feet were bare and when she kicked the thin blanket that had been covering her off, she saw that her toes had been painted with pink polish to match the dress. Not only had these people had the nerve to call her Barbie, this woman had treated her like one as well.

"I'm sure you're hungry," the woman announced cheerfully, ignoring the disgusted look on Harley's face, "Gareth should be due for his lunch break soon. I'll see that he comes up and eats with you."

"Sounds fucking delightful," Harley remarked. Not only was she dressed up like an idiot. Now she had a lunch date with the goblin king from Labyrinth. This day just couldn't get any better.

Harley hadn't really meant to make her last comment out loud. Sometimes she just lost control over her brain to mouth filter. It was a bad habit she had inherited from her father. Once the words were out she realized her mistake. The woman snapped her head in Harley's direction. The forced smile she had been plastering on her face disappeared. She moved faster than Harley would have expected for a woman of her age and body type. Quick as a flash she was on the other side of the bed, grabbing Harley by the face with one hand and brandishing a knife in the other.

Sunlight glinted off the tip of the blade. The way the woman jerked Harley's face made her boy twist with it. She sucked in a whistling breath as pain radiated out from her ribcage.

"Listen up you little bitch," the woman hissed, "you even think about talking to my son like that and you will be back down in the corall with the rest of the cattle." The woman pressed the knife against Harley's cheek hard enough that she could feel how sharp the blade was but not hard enough to cut her. "We are giving you a chance to be one of us. So you had better start showing some gratitude."

Harley nodded her head. She offered the woman up her most sincere apology. It was complete bullshit of course. But it satisfied the woman enough that she put the knife away and left the room.

"Crazy fuckin' bitch," Harley cursed. She wasn't going to wait for this woman's son to show up. Before the door to the room she was being held in even clicked shut Harley was on her knees yanking at the cuffs. The bedframe was metal. It looked cheap. Harley grabbed the cuffs with both hands and yanked back, putting all her weight into the pull to see if she could get the metal frame to bend or give a little. All it did was bruise her wrist more.

She wasn't going to be able to slide out of the cuffs either, they were on too tight and digging into the bones of her wrist. Harley was afraid she might break her wrist if she put anymore force into it so she stopped pulling and started looking for another way out. She was kneeling on the dress that psycho had put on her while she was passed out. The fabric was restricting her movements. Harley yanked the hem up and scooted a little to her right. Now that she was at a better angle, this time she gripped the metal bar she was cuffed to instead of the cuffs themselves.

The bed frame was of the comes in a box and you put it together yourself variety. She gripped hard and twisted, putting so much force behind her tug that when the bar actually twisted Harley's shoulder flung into the frame. The loud clang of metal echoed though the small room. Harley paused a moment and listened, hoping the noise hadn't alerted anyone to her escape attempt. After a few seconds she grabbed the bar and twisted it again. And again. Until finally it was unscrewed from the frame and there was a tiny gap between it and the other metal bar it had been fastened to. It wasn't enough space to get her free. In order to get any more wiggle room she would have had to take the entire bed apart.

Harley braced her bare foot on the bed frame and gripped the handcuffs with both her hands. She pulled back as hard as she could. She knew she only needed to bend the cheap metal a fraction in order to get free. When the edge of the cuffs slipped through the crack it sent her flying backwards head over heal onto the floor. She let out a long colorful string of curse words, her hands moving to brace her injured ribs.

Her clothes were no where to be found. But her boots were sitting by the closed door with a fresh pair of socks on top of them. Harley grabbed for the socks, yanking them onto her feet before she crammed her boots on. The woman left the knife she had been using to threaten Harley, on top of a dresser where she thought it would be out of reach. Harley snatched it up and adjusted her grip on the handle. She flattened herself against the wall and eased the door open, glancing out into the dimly light hallway to make sure no one was outside her door keeping watch.

When she found the hallway empty she slid through the door and shut it behind her. The sound of unfamiliar voices sent her scurrying down the hall and around the corner to avoid being seen. There was a set of stairs that led down. Harley wasn't sure where they led but she took them anyway. As she crept through the large building she racked her brain, trying to think of some way that she was going to be able to free her friends and family without being caught. Because she knew one thing for sure. She wasn't going anywhere without them.