Chapter 43

Watching Claire from the shadows of the catwalk, Darren believed he was starting to clue into what the girl was intending to do. At least he hoped - it did feel like that the entire setup was grasping at straws. What she was doing and what she was trying to get HIM to do had to make some sort of sense on some level... right?

Part of him still feared that she intended to bring down the catwalk, but he did take solace in the fact that neither one of them probably had the power to do so, and it was doubtful they could even do it if they combined their powers. At least since Claire's warning had sent him scurrying backwards, he was now closer to one of the supporting wooden beams of the storehouse. If worst came to worst, he could climb on to that and figure out a way to get down from there.

It was when he saw Claire intentionally hammer a fist onto a nearby crate to produce a low *thump* that he understood that she was attempting to create a distraction of some sort. The new sound that she had created wasn't enough to get the guards to move, but it did cause them to bring their hands towards their weapons and scan the building with suspicion.

"Hopefully you know what you're doing Claire," Darren thought as he brought down a foot heavily on the metal catwalk.

"There, the catwalk! There's something up there!" he heard one of the guards say. They spoke with raised voices now. At this, he froze and remained as still as he could, hoping that his shadow was still blending into the surrounding. They had an general idea of where he was now, but he didn't want to purposefully give them his exact location in case they carried some some of ranged weapon that he was unable to see from this vantage point.

He could see one guard giving the other directions to search the catwalk, or at least that's what he presumed. After the initial verbal outburst, the two started to whisper to each other, so he could only make out snippets of what transpired between the two.

His presumption was confirmed when he saw one guard moving along the very same path he had used to get to the catwalk. As he started walking through the narrow pathway of crates and boxes, the roving guard produced a long and wicked looking knife which he held in his right hand. The moving guard kept his left hand free and used it for support and balance as he inched along the littered storehouse floor.

The other guard had positioned himself between Hida and the alleyway door. This guard produced a small crossbow that was small enough to be wielded in a single hand. With the crossbow, Hida's guard scanned the area of catwalk where Darren had blended into the shadows.

"They know something is up here for sure," Darren thought. "I really hope I did the right thing."

The roving guard was inching closer and closer to Claire's location. He watched as she buried herself underneath what looked like a pile of clothes or rags. Darren wasn't super religious, but he prayed that it would be enough concealment for the approaching guard to pass her by.

He felt his body grow tense and his heart quicken with each step that the roving guard took towards Claire's hiding spot. The next thing he knew, the guard was right by the ragpile and had stopped to look around.

"Please don't see her! Please don't see her!" Became the mantra that ran through Darren's head.

He felt the tension release a little as the guard turned to move away. He had just started to formulate a plan to escape from the catwalk when he saw Claire's hand shoot out from the ragpile and grab on to the guard's foot. What happen next would haunt him for the rest of his days.

***

Breathing under the pile of sacks had been more difficult than what Claire had initially thought. She had done her best to bury herself down into the pile and arrange it so her hiding spot didn't look like a very visible human outline, but her time had been limited. The heavy dusty air of the storehouse and the material of the sacks seemed to cause her lungs to close a little, making her breathing somewhat labored. A lot of her plan banked on the storehouse being poorly lit, but no matter how dark is was, the guard might get clued into her location if she made too much noise. She hoped the sacks that covered her head were enough to muffle the noise.

She heard the guard round the corner and slowly make his way up the "alleyway" in the maze of crates. Although there were probably other routes the guard could take towards the ladder to the catwalk, this was probably the most open and easy to navigate. She was sure that he would pass her.

Closer and closer she heard the heavy booted footsteps approach. As the guard drew closer to her hiding spot, she listened for some sort of telltale metal on metal *click* or *clank*, but there was nothing definite.

Suddenly the footsteps were right next to her... and had stopped.

Claire tensed every muscle in her body that she could and got ready to spring. She wouldn't be able to get very far, so she had to throw everything that she could physically muster.

She waited a couple of heartbeats to see if the guard would try and search the pile that she inhabited, but she heard the scuff of his boots turning on the cracked and dusty concrete floor.

"Now or never," she thought.

To anyone watching the next few moments, they would be over with in a flash, but to Claire, they felt like an eternity.

Claire sprung a hand out, catching the guard by the foot. As she did so, she looked over the guard for any bit of metal that she could. To her dismay, he wore no armor and while he did carry a very nasty looking knife, it appeared to be made out of some sort of black carved stone.

She saw the guard's mouth start to open to shout when a thought came to her. Every time she designed a lock, she was able to "see" the location of the mechanism in the door just through touch. Could she find some sort of metal stashed on the guard in the same way?

She closed her eyes, hoping to "see" some metallic object stashed somewhere on the body of the guard, but to her surprise, all she could visualize were tiny little pinpricks of metal that flowed all through out the man's body.

"There's iron in the blood," she heard a voice from her past say in her mind. She wasn't exactly sure who had said it, but it seemed to ring true.

Before she knew what had happened, the man before her started screaming. Her hand was still clamped down on his foot and she could feel the iron in the man's blood starting to make its way towards her palm, ripping through every piece of flesh that stood in its way. Before she could stop it, the iron merged into tiny pellets and began to leave larger and larger holes through the man's body as it coalesced to gather in the guard's limb. Claire pulled her hand away from the foot in horror, pulling a small round iron ball out of the mans ankle in the process.

The guard screamed a final breath, and his swiss-cheesed flesh collapsed onto the dusty ground. The sloppy plop of bloody flesh hitting the floor that followed haunted Claire for the rest of her life.