Since dusk was coming upon the two squadrons and night travel was dangerous, they decided to spend the night in a Guardia Civil outpost near the town. It was downstream from the main town at Ibayo, near the road leading to the Camino Real in the East.

In reality, it wasn't an outpost, as it was more like a safehouse. The deed of the house was under the name of a certain Tiniente Antonio Garcia, but in fact it was just a dummy name so they could have houses they could use for more clandestine operations. Tonight, they just needed a place to rest until the sun rose, and not special treatment on prisoners. For now.

The house itself was unassuming. Built from stone and wood, as all Spanish houses were, it was small enough to be unrecognizable, but big enough so they could fit a bunch of people comfortably. There were four rooms in total: the living room, a communal bedroom, a kitchen and a cellar. This and enough space for ration storage and an armory, in case they needed it for a war, which seemed more and more likely every passing day.

When they arrived, Commander Soliven knocked on the door, and waited a few moments before unlocking it. Originally a playful ruse officers concocted to avoid suspicion from people with unsavory aspirations against them, now it is mostly just a tradition they do. He was greeted by a quiet living room, floored with hardwood and decked with some chairs and a coffee table. He summoned for the squadron to come in, along with the recently arrested.

When they all entered, the prisoners were sat on one of the benches, with the rope tied to its wooden arms. For the first time in the past hour, the Guards finally set aside their rifles and had a chance to relax. The officers, Soliven and Losange, too sat on the benches, gathering their senses and thoughts together.

Soliven realized in hindsight that the entirety of the plan was risky from the beginning. It originated from a tip of a trustworthy, yet indio informant, with slim approval from an ill-prepared ad hoc committee of generals and captains and organized in a way unacceptable if it was a battle situation. Still, regardless of such recklessness, they were able to produce two suspects with enough evidence of papers and documents they gathered from the house.

Jose was reading the documents, which he found were unintelligible to him due to it being written in a sort of code. Still, he could recognize some Baybayin letters, symbols and even a few words scattered on the ream of pages. From what he could deduce, whatever group the two were a part of it was a nativist, probably nationalist movement.

He relayed his thoughts to the Commander, who concurred with him that, indeed, it was a independence movement. Word has been going around between officials about seemingly isolated incidents in and around Manila, which seem to be connected by an organization hidden from the colonial government.

Soliven leaned closer to Losange: "I truly believe something sinister is afoot, but since we were not able to find any evidence, all of this is just speculation... unless we can do something about it the way only we can."

Jose, who knew exactly what the Commander was about to propose, when he dissented. "Sir, with all due respect, I don't think we should perform our tactics on the two prisoners. We got nowhere last time and I bel-", Jose replied before being cut off by Soliven.

"With all due respect to you Corporal, I don't care about the repercussions you'll state and philosophical bullshit you are about to spew out. I want information immediately to quash this threat immediately.".

His voice was severe, and so Jose had to back down. He knew what was going to happen next. He witnessed it many times since he joined the Guardia Civil last year. The organization has done it since they were founded, and even before then, colonial government sanctioned the use of it to instill discipline, fear and order. Now, it was time to do it again, time to relive a horror he detested and abhorred, but came to bear.

"Shall I open the cellar, Señor?" he asked, his voice monotonous

Soliven just nodded.

~~~

While the eight other riflemen were resting and the two officers quietly conversed on the other side of the room, Juvena and her fellow Katipunero and Fiscal, Fulano de Tal were still tied to a bench. Both of them sat quietly, while their heartbeats were thumping faster and louder than ever before.

Juvena's plan was sidetracked by his recent development. Originally, they were to both get arrested and would then to proceed to break out from the carriage they were held in at a secluded area during the dead of the night. Now that they stopped in a safehouse, escape became more complicated than they anticipated.

Although, Juvena and Fulano has had their share of arrests, nothing is comparable to the horror of safehouses. Stories go that during the night time, prisoners would be put inside a cellar or backroom and be tortured. Outside, people would hear muffled screams of agony  and cries of mercy, unable to do anything about it at the expense of their own safety.

Now, they were all assembled at the back of the room, unlocking a sort of backroom or cellar. They watched quietly as the door was opened, which revealed an empty, windowless room with just a small stool and a lamp stand. Although it looked clean, a certain overtone of human excrement and gunpowder filled the air as the door stayed open. One of them started moving towards the two, and began untying their ropes, but held their grip on them.

Instead of being brought to the room, as they were expecting, they were brought to the kitchen table, where Commander Soliven, Corporal Losange and one other was seated. They all flanked one side of the table, leaving the other side's seats to be filled by the two prisoners. As they were being seated, the Commander served them steaming tea, smiling as he pushed the cups to the two of them.

As expected, they both didn't touch it. They didn't even look at it, just straight into the eyes of the Commander. Jose looked at the other soldiers uncomfortably. He knew that if the Commander's patience ran out, he would lash out and release hell for the prisoners under him. It has happened too many times before, and he fears it would happen again. As the sugar cube melted in the cup, the optical stand-off continued, with both sides not backing down.  

Frustration started to creep on the face of the Commander, slowly his arrogant smirk turned into an infuriated stare. He was about to call on to the soldiers for them to lock the two up in the backroom when suddenly they heard a loud splash outside, apparently coming from the river. A few of the Constables ran, and so did Losange and Soliven, to see what the ruckus was about.

In all the haste of the situation, the two prisoners were left unattended. So they did what all desperate arrested people did when the situation was presented to them. They ran. They ran out the door and out onto the street, nearly tumbling over the doorstep and on dirty rocks. 

Juvena ran like he never did before, fueled by adrenaline and fear. However, she was stopped in her tracks by screams from the river. The voices echoed through the quiet, moonlit hamlet, punctuating the silence with fear and horror. Whoever was screaming was being brought by the strong nightly flow of the river. The cries of "Saklolo! Saklolo! [Help, help!]" filled her ears, familiar cries of helplessness and sadness. 

Right now, she didn't care about her safety and her freedom. She needed to help those in need, as she promised herself when she brought to the forlorn shores of these islands. 

She turned left and back to the outpost and to the river, following the voices of the drowning.