Chapter Fourteen:

Struggling against a heavy built man in a Space Suit identical to her own, Isla thrashed around in outer space turning her head to try and get the blindfold off her visor and helmet. Swallowing the panic that rose up inside her, Isla elbowed her attacker, which caused him to wrap his arms around her even tighter than before.

"Hey! Stop! Let me go! Right now," Isla screamed, continuing to struggle. She could feel herself being pulled backwards at incredible speed. Something touched her feet and she screamed; later it turned out It was a Whale-dragon coming to see what all the fuss was about. Suddenly, they slammed to the floor of a Space Pod and he took off her blindfold. She stared in amazement as she saw that the man was Mr. Snow.

"Miss me, Sunshine?" he snarled, clapping her on the back and shoving her forwards to the entrance of the unfamiliar ship. Isla fell hard onto the floor, groaning as she did so. The visor cracked in the middle from the impact and her thoughts flew all over the place, real panic now setting in. She decided to lay very still to see if she could somehow outsmart him, but instead of doing that, he became even more angry with her, picking her up by her Space Suit and dragging her across the interlinking passage. Isla stared down at the ground whizzing past, her feet dragging on the floor. She tried struggling once more and turned her head to get a good look at the doors they were passing. This was met with a vice grip on her shoulders as he smashed her head against the floor. Terror filled Isla and she closed her eyes to avoid the shards of glass from the visor, but she wasn't as enough as one piece of glass lodged itself into one of her eyes. The sudden excruciating pain made her scream out and she didn't even notice which room they'd gone into until she was brutally thrown into the corner, hearing loud clang as the doors banged shut and the key turned in the lock. Not being able to see in one eye, Isla started taking off her Space Suit. It was a long and arduous process and Isla couldn't think about anything other than pain. Having been thrown into the room, the shard of glass had cut in deeper and the way she had landed and the shooting in her wrist told her that something was seriously wrong. Once she'd managed to get the suit off completely, she finally took in her surroundings and realised how in trouble she truly was. Isla suddenly couldn't breathe and the room felt as if it was closing in on her. She tried to control her panic and pulled out the piece of glass lodged in her eye. The pain was immense and Isla whimpered, then cursed at herself for being so weak. Still only seeing with one eye, Isla stood up using her hurt wrist to heave herself up and shooting pain sent shockwaves through her.

"Damit!" Isla exclaimed, clutching onto her wrist with her other hand. Now that she was standing she could really take in her surroundings despite her impaired vision. She saw a heavy chain with a massive padlock wrapped around the prison bars. Isla was trapped; she knew that, of course, but that didn't stop her from reaching for the padlock and yanking at it, hurting her further.

"I've tried that. Trust me, don't bother," said a voice. Isla whirled around causing her head to throb in pain. With a gasp, she realised that the three walls out of four were also barred and the girl who'd just spoken sat on the other side in another cell. Isla couldn't quite make her out in the murky darkness.

"Who are you? How long have you been down here? Wherever here' is," Isla whispered, noticing with dread that this person had obviously given up. She promised herself she never would, but wished, yet again that Luca was beside her. He'd know what to do, she was sure of that. He'd already have it all worked out and would manage to save the others, with her help, as well.

"I'd say we've been here for five months, maybe. The days pass incredibly slowly here. We're some of the 'lucky' ones. There are others who've been here for years," she replied in the other room, "Estelle. By the way," She said her name as if it was a bit of an afterthought if it wasn't that important and Isla wondered what had happened to her to make it seem so utterly indifferent about this whole thing.

"I'm Isla," she shouted as she spoke, her words coming out in shudders, "what do they do to us, Estelle?"

"You don't want to know, Isla. Again trust me," she said, turning her back on her, resting against the bars separated from Isla.

"No! Wait, please, I need to know. I need to be prepared. I need to get out of here! Isla replied, her panic rising by the second

Taking pity on her, Estelle turned around again and faced Isla, who was now sitting on the floor rocking back and forth hating herself for not trying to break the door down.

"They take you to another room to perform experiments on you. The experiments hurt," Estelle said, as if she was just telling her the time of day. In reality she was detached from the pain by now and didn't want to frighten Isla even more. Isla realised that it was difficult for Estelle to even look at her so she thought before speaking once again.

"Who is 'we'? How many people are trapped here?" she replied, still rocking herself as she hugged her knees, her wrist and eye hurting now more than ever. She felt that her left eye, the injured one, had started swelling up and as she wiped her cheek she wasn't even sure if the liquid was her tears, her blood or both.

"I don't actually know how many people we are. There is another room full of other little rooms like this one, so I've heard. But there have been a few new people recently though. More than usual,"

Before Isla could answer her, they and everyone else captured in this Space Pod, heard the sound of bolts from the main door into the room, slide open with a thud.

***

Meanwhile, Taylor raced back to the Headquarters, clutching the rope that had sprung back into her face when she'd yanked it back, not knowing, of course, that it had been cut by Mr. Snow. Finding that no one was there she called out frantically, "Rosiee! Rosiee!"

"What? What's wrong?" Rosiee replied from the cafeteria alarmed. Mason and Charlotte were with her and listened intently seeing the panic on her face.

"Isla is gone!" Taylor shouted, "We need everyone here, right now!"

"Gone? What do you mean 'gone'?" asked Charlotte, unaware just yet of the severity of the situation.

Before Taylor had a chance to answer, Elliot came rushing into the cafeteria, for the first time since Finley died and he pushed away his pain as he shouted, "Isla's been taken! We saw it all from the Pilots room!"

"What? She was outside?" Mason asked, glaring at Taylor, who still clutched the rope in her hands. "What were you thinking? This is your fault!" He marched off into the direction of the Pilots room, followed by Elliot and Charlotte unable to even look at Taylor.

"What happened, Taylor?" Rosiee asked as Taylor's tears fell. They ran to catch up with the others who were already in the front room.

"Someone cut the rope. I'm sure of it. It sprung back at me," she whispered back.

James and Aidren called them other to show them all the playback of the Space Pod's video. It showed her kicking and thrashing in the man's arms with the blindfold already covering her face. They watched in horror as he cut her rope and they were both dragged into another Space Ship. It sped away and Elliot looked up from the screen, running his hands through his brunette hair, walking over to Charlotte. She wrapped her good arm around him and he embraced her back, careful not to hurt her.

Please let her be okay. Please let her be okay...

Elliot kept on chanting that in his mind as people spoke around him and he couldn't believe that Taylor had given Isla that Space Suit.

"Well, we might just be able to start the engines and try to follow the ship by using the navigator," James said as Adrien swivelled around in the other chair to bring up the navigator, which popped up as a hologram in front of him. Just that Freya came rushing in asking what the hell was going on and when she heard that Isla was missing, tears of both angst and fury. How could this happen? Who would do that to her?

"Okay, but what can we do?" Taylor asked after a while. Freya and Rosiee had to admit that they were furious with Taylor, they knew, deep down that the only one to blame was the one who actually took Isla.

"You've done enough," Elliot replied coldly, storming out of the room, "Finley, Luca, Dad, Papa, I wish you were here." The tension in the room after that was almost too much to bear and Freya ran out after him.

"Elliot! Wait! I know you're angry. So am I. I could punch something right now! But the only way to find Isla is to work together. Please come back in the room with everyone else," Freya said in a rush. She knew that time was ticking and the man had been anything but gentle.

"Alright," Elliot said as he saw Charlotte coming towards them.

"Don't you want to find her?" Charlotte asked. Elliot stared at her as if she was an idiot, but instead of saying that she just took her brother's hand and pulled him towards the pilots room not saying a word. Freya followed behind them thinking back to the night (check) that she kissed Isla and she actually kissed her back. With a shudder she realised that if Isla didn't come back or if she died...

No! Stop that. She'll be fine

She scolded herself as they entered the pilots room and took in the scene before. Without her even realising it they had risen above the ground and were leaving the dead Whale-dragons behind. James was controlling one of the wheels as Adrien, Taylor and Mason were still looking at the holographic map trying to track down the Space Pod that had Isla in it. The pilot raised his hand and dragged his fingers through the map trying to get a better view on the ship he'd thought he had seen a few moments earlier.

"There it is!" Taylor shouted, pointing to the small dot on the map. James glanced over at Adrien, who had a grim look on his face.

"That is quite far away. It looks much closer on the map and it might take us at least four days to catch up with them; that is if they don't move on," James said eventually. Charlotte felt a shiver up her spine. What if they were hurting her right then?

"Shit, okay, but how did they manage to go so fast?" Mason asked, speaking for the first time after he'd screamed at Taylor a few minutes before.

"No clue. We need all the help we can get, though," Adrien spoke, pointing between him and James.

"Of course! Do we actually know who has taken her though?" Freya whispered, wishing Finley was there. Looking over at the twins, her childhood friends, she saw what she must've looked like as well. They were shaking and their aces had gone pale, their eyes were welling up with tears. Mason came over to stand next to Elliot and Charlotte who were over by the sofa staring at the holographic map while Freya stood alone in the middle of the room looking out of the front window where a pool of dragons and a few jellyfish glided past. Apart from them, the Space Ship they now lived in and some stars in the distance the place seemed utterly deserted. Cosmo flew into the pilot room and sat on Taylor's shoulder making her jump out of her skin.

"What happened to Isla? I heard someone screaming or something!" Cosmo exclaimed, flapping his wings frantically, hitting Taylor in the process.

"Ouch! Stop and I'll tell you everything!" she said. Cosmo listened, first in disgust, then fury and then in horror.

"Okay. I'm going to get Star and we are going to find her together," Cosmo decided, not staying to listen to their protests. Taylor knew that this was all her fault and she was the one who provided the Space Suit in the first place, but she still didn't want to lose Star or Cosmo either. She'd lost count of the number of times Star had told her that she was there when she was born.

"I'll find him. We just can't risk losing anyone else," Charlotte replied and talked out.

"In the answer to your question Freya, we think it might be the Intergalactic Federation. They would be more likely to have the Space Suits and they attacked us pretty well when Finley died," Rosiee said, turning her attention away from the projected map. Dread crept up on them all and no one spoke for a while, each trying to come up with a solution to find Isla alive and well. 

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