Trial X6

Rise of a Nation

  "Fall back! Cover the door! Anyone else hit?" Max shouted before laying Cici down to check on her.

  "No."

  "No." Responses came from different sides of the room. Logan rushed over to Max and looked for a pulse on Cici, but I could already tell there wasn't one.

  "All right, get down! I want everyone on the floor right now! Get down!" Mole ordered. "Stay there! Stay down!"

  "Why did they do this?" Joshua questioned, clearly upset. "We did everything they wanted." Max didn't answer because even she didn't know.

  "This is on you." Mole held his cigar while pointing at Max. "I told you not to trust the cops."

  "It wasn't the cops. It was White." Logan stated.

  "White is out there?"

  "Yeah. White's guys did this. They killed Cici." Logan's answer made a growl build in Joshua's chest.

  "They screwed up this whole thing on purpose to escalate the situation."

  "Yeah, well, it worked." Alec popped off.

  "What difference does it make who fired? They all want to see us dead!" Mole raised his voice.

  "Everyone needs to calm down." Logan raised his hand, and Mole threw down his cigar.

  "I'm not gonna wait around for them to try again." Mole then snatched up Sketchy by the front of his shirt and yanked him to his feet.

  "Woah, what are you doing?!"

  "Until we get safe passage, we kill one hostage every hour. Starting now."

  "Let him go." Logan ordered.

  "I don't take orders from your kind." Mole said bitterly.

  "No, but you take orders from me. Now let him go." Max had an authoritative tone, but it didn't work.

  "No! We gotta show them we mean business or we're dead!"

  "Now that's a good idea. Start shooting people, 'cause that's what White wants, and then you can prove you're the monster people think you are."

  "Shut up! You're not one of us!" Mole yelled at Logan, clearly not willing to listen to either of them.

  Standing between Mole and the door, a low, warning growl rumbled deep in my chest. Mole's gaze shot to me, and he hesitated for a second.

  "You think I'm scared of you, runt? I'm not like the others." He looked down at me while having a challenging tone. My growl got louder as my lip twitched up in a snarl. With my ears at attention and only the tip of my tail swaying, I showed all signs I was willing to attack.

  Flexing my fingers, Mole caught the movement as his eyes glanced down to quickly check if I still had my claws or not. Despite his words, he was on edge.

  "Move it." His voice was gruff, but I took one step forward, and he took a quick step back. I didn't even bother to say anything, Mole could tell fully well what the aggressive growling and body language meant. I was putting all of his instincts on high alert, and I could smell it.

  The air nearly shook from my growling as I got closer, slowly lowering my center of gravity with each step to get ready to pounce. Mole kept going backward to keep his distance to the point he even pushed Sketchy back and never took his eyes off me.

  "Okay. Okay." His voice was quiet when he finally let go of Sketchy. I could feel all eyes on Mole and I, watching with bated breaths to see what would happen next. Sketchy himself looked scared and confused, no doubt because of Mole being twice my size in every way while covered in tough scales looking clearly afraid of me.