Killing Softly ✞ (gxg)

4 | captivity

"Lily, look, there's honeysuckles!"

With the turn of her head, her platinum hair whipped across her torso in shimmering waves. She looked across the field where Jasmine stood at a brush of trees where specks of white and yellow were sprinkled across the middle of it like glitter.

Holding the wicker basket full of wild blackberries she had been picking, she wiped her purple-stained fingers on her jeans before making her way across the overgrown patch of land. She hissed as she stepped past a thicket of briar, the sharp thorns scraping her even through her denim pants. She made sure to keep a lookout for snakes, especially the expertly camouflaged copperheads, as she neared Jasmine who was bent in front of the brush of honeysuckle.

"They came late this year," Lily said as she bent down next to the girl, setting the basket down on the ground next to her. "I was beginning to think the storms killed them."

"They're fresh," Jasmine told her as she let the dewy end of the honeysuckle calyx rest on her tongue, closing her eyes at its sweetness.

"Mother would kill me if she knew we were eating honeysuckles," Lily said as she carefully picked a yellow one from a branch. "She always thinks they're poisoned."

"They're a gift from Mother Nature," Jasmine chuckled as she turned to sit on her bottom on the grass, facing the blonde. "Being out picking wild berries in the middle of summer is exhausting."

Lily sat down on her bottom, focused on gently pulling the calyx out from the stem of the flower. She watched in delight as the calyx was extra packed with liquid, bringing it to her mouth as soon as she freed it from its stem so that none of it would drip away. Her eyelids fluttered closed as she rested the end of the calyx on her tongue, the sweet nectar invading her taste buds. "Mm," she hummed, licking the end before tossing it to the grass. "Imagine being a bird and doing nothing but eating sugar all day."

Jasmine laughed as she put another honeysuckle in her mouth, the evening sun lowering in the sky and cooling the little meadow they sat in.

Lily watched her, the way she stole a berry or two between every honeysuckle, the way she would chuckle every time the blonde cracked a joke, and she would slowly lean into Lily's shoulder as she did so. It felt like she had the weight of everything good in the world resting upon her shoulder, but she could endure it. It was worth getting a whiff of her sweet scent and hearing her velvety laughter right in her ear.

✞

Chains rattled, but they did not wake her from her dreamlike slumber. Pain struck in her throbbing and nearly numb wrists, but her eyelids stayed shut like a clam unwilling to give up its pearl. Hands grabbed her elbows and more hands grabbed her ankles, but she did not and could not awaken. She was stuck, whether by force or by choice, in that dream where it was just her and Jasmine. She wanted to stay there forever—she assumed that's what heaven would be. It would be her and her love in a field of golden and pink wildflowers, popping berries and honeysuckles in their mouths, bathing in the sun until they could watch the sunset together. She missed that feeling of admiring the way the sky burned orange and magenta and then a brilliant violet, all while she laid her head in Jasmine's lap and felt her gentle fingers stroke through her soft blonde hair.

Soon enough she was brought out of that state. As much as she wanted to stay sedated and unaware of the horror that would soon be inflicted on her, she felt herself being carried and felt the cold humidity of that dark dungeon leave her. There was a brilliance of light seeping through her eyelids, and as consciousness enveloped her more tightly, she could feel the sway of the people carrying her and their thudding footsteps on the ground on which they walked. The aroma of dried blood and body odor left her nostrils and was replaced with a cleaner smell, and she knew she was no longer in that dungeon.