The Hijinks War

26. The Rescue

The good thing about being locked up, was that I didn't have to go to classes and pretend to be doing assignments. I didn't have to witness more of my peers being given yellow slips for laughable offenses that would inevitably lead to them being drugged.

I didn't have the chance to disobey Kellen either. That was a good thing for my standing with both him and the others, but bad because I had no idea what was going on outside this room. Katia had offered me no form of update on that.

As a bonus of my imprisonment, I planned recon missions in my mind. How I would find out what was really going on, and who I would include on the imaginary maneuvers. In the event that nothing had been discovered while I'd been stuck in the Hellhounds' prison, I'd have a semi planned course of action.

I had a strong feeling that I would be conducting one of my imagined missions, if the fact that I was still locked up was any indication. But motivation was clearly not high right now. I rolled over and picked up one of the books left for me on the nightstand. Perhaps I could read to pass the time and remove my annoyances from my mind.

I wondered if this was considered day two or day one, since I'd been taken just before dinner the night before. It was well after dinnertime; Katia hadn't returned and my stomach very much regretted confronting her. I guess it wasn't such a good idea to anger the person who was feeding you.

A scraping noise startled me from my thoughts and I glanced around the room, my eyes settling on the closet door. Oh God, I thought, ducking behind the bed, please tell me it's not some kind of animal. I peered over the top of the bed, pulling the sheets down around me, just in case. Because pretending to be a pile of sheets is a genius defense. 

The door swung into the room and a bright light accosted my eyes. I yelped, pulling the quilt over my head.

"Cole?"

I looked out cautiously, relieved the flashlight beam was now pointed at the ceiling and not into my eyes.

"Are you okay, Hero?" Standing in the middle of the room, peering at me inside my bundle of blankets, was Kellen.

Slowly, I unraveled myself, thankful that he wouldn't be able to see me blush in the dark. "Took you long enough."

"Sorry about that. When Jess told us you were missing, we didn't believe her. We thought you took off to do what I told you not to do. Why would they take you?"

"What?" I asked, bitter sarcasm dripping from my tone, "I'm not important enough to be the flag?"

"No," he stated plainly, launching me up into the attic hatch in the closet. "They knew Jess was the flag. They've been following her for three days." As he pulled himself up behind me, I heard him mutter, "I just don't get why they'd take you."

"I know right! Who the hell would care if I was missing?"

There was an audible cease in his movements. "That's not what I meant, Nicole! I just don't understand what they hoped to get by... Okay, nothing I'm saying sounds good."

I grimaced at his back as he stopped talking and went back to crawling along the attic floor. I followed behind him carefully, having never been up there before. He stopped at another hatch, opened it quietly and jumped down, making only the softest whoosh of a sound. There was a light on in the room he'd dropped into, and it seeped into the closet, so I could just make out his arms outstretched to catch me.

"I'm fine," I muttered, batting his hand away, but he pretended not to hear me and helped me anyway. I expected, when I stepped out into the room, to see other Thunderbirds, or at the very least, Jess.