Our Sanctuary

Chapter 3

We all left Wyatt behind and followed Zack out of the room, making our way down the hall toward the cafeteria in silence. Willow was in between Matteo and I, and we were all a few steps behind Zack. At the edge of my eye and around Willow, I could see Matteo trying his best to flatten out his hair, not doing the best job and he eventually gave up.

Zack kept his head straight, not bothering to look over his shoulder, as he turned into the cafeteria and led us over to the food covered tables. The cafeteria was pretty much empty with a few people milling about. My eyebrows furrowed as I stared at the back of Zack's head.

What were we doing here? Where was the rest of our group?

Once we had come to the table, Zack turned around and spoke to us for the second time this morning, his eyes everywhere except on us.

"More will be explained after, but for right now I want you all to get some food into yourselves and then meet with me in fifteen. Alright?"

I nodded along with Willow and Matteo and then watched as Zack's eyes skipped over mine, –a strange look in them– and then he looked quickly away, walking past us and heading to where Alex was sitting on the other side of the room.

I hadn't realized that my breath was being held and I quickly took in a few deep inhales, giving my lungs the oxygen that it was begging for, before grabbing a plate of food and then following Matteo and Willow to our regular spot opposite of where Zack went.

"What do you think we're doing today?" Willow asked us as she sat down next to Matteo.

I sat with my back to Zack and Alex, Matteo and Willow were across from me at the almost empty table. There were a few teens –that I didn't know– near the other end and I could see a few other people finally entering the cafeteria and heading toward the delicious smelling food.

"I don't know..." I said, looking up from my plate of eggs, bacon, and toast and answering Willow's question after seeing that Matteo wasn't going to answer with his mouth full of food. "Did he say anything yesterday? About the other teens, or anything at all about what we might be doing today?"

They both knew exactly who I was talking about and Matteo shook his head while swallowing. "No, he didn't say anything. He kinda just ended things, told us to get some food, and then left. I assume he went straight to see if you were alright." His eyes shifted from my own for a split second, to over my shoulder, before looking back at me. "Somethings up though. Your boyfriend's acting very weird."

I wanted to turn around and see what Zack was doing now, but I just nodded and chewed on the inside of my cheek as I stared down at my fork that was playing with the warm scrambled eggs on the edge of my plate. Matteo was right, something definitely was up.

Matteo resumed eating his breakfast, his fork scraping across the bottom of his plate, and I could feel Willow's worried eyes on me. I ignored the look and shovelled a forkful of the eggs into my mouth, waiting patiently for the fifteen minutes to tick down.

Once we were all done, we put our dirty dishes on a different table where the other dishes were located and then headed over to where Zack and Alex were discussing something. Zack immediately looked up as we grew closer and Alex followed his gaze, dropping his hand from Zack's shoulder once his eyes landed on us.

Alex quickly muttered something to Zack, to which Zack replied, "I'll see you later," and then he stood up, motioning for us to follow him with one of his hands.

I could feel Alex's eyes on all four of us as we made our way to the doors of the cafeteria and exited the room, passing a few teens, and turning to the left. We walked silently for a few minutes until we made the left turn down the last hallway and Matteo opened his mouth.

"Where are we going?"

Zack looked over his shoulder in Matteo's direction and ran a hand through his hair. "You'll see. My mom will be there to explain everything."

"Explain what?" Willow blurted out.

Zack smiled and nodded toward two older people as they passed, before dropping the expression and turning around to walk backwards as he spoke to us.

"I really don't want to be the one to tell you guys," he said, his eyes landing on all of ours. "Besides, you'll find out very soon."

He turned back round and shoved his balled up fists into the pockets of his dark pants, trying to be subtle, but I noticed and I could tell Willow and Matteo could too.

Obviously something was about to happen that he didn't quite agree with, but I couldn't place exactly what it was.

We then came to a door on the right side of the hall which Zack opened and held the door for the three of us to enter. Once we had made it onto the room, he stepped inside and closed the door behind himself.

The room was a decent size with a table in the middle and a closed door to the far left of the space. It was completely filled with brightness from all the lights that ran from one wall to the other and I noticed there was a clock on the far wall, indicating that it was almost eight-thirty. I then looked at the person in white sitting at the six seat table and I was momentarily surprised.

Joan didn't look any better than Zack.

Her blonde hair was a mess that cascaded down the sides of her face and her eyes looked very tired, causing the wrinkles around them to look more prominent than before. I could see the tension in her shoulders and the way her eyes would twitch every so often to the empty spaces in the room.

As soon as Zack had closed the door, he moved closer to the table and gestured for us to follow.

Matteo, Willow, and I all shared a quick look between ourselves before sitting to the sides of where Joan was at the head of the table. The seat next to me remained empty as Zack sat down across from his mother.

We all looked at each other, wondering if Joan was ever going to speak, until she finally broke the growing silence.

"Ace is dead," she said, after clearing her throat. "He, along with his... friends, passed away yesterday."

Joan ended it like that and looked around the table for our reactions, out of the corner of my eye I could see Zack doing the same.

"What happened?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

Joan's hands that were on the table, clasped together and she stared down at them as she replied. "There was a Feymon attack, and they were killed."

"Killed" seemed like an understatement. A better word would have probably been tortured. It sounded as though his skin had been peeled off of his body, his flesh ripped from his bones. I can still recall the sound of his shrieks, still loud inside my head.

Matteo looked confused as he looked back and forth between everyone at the table. "Okay, cool. Why does that matter? What does that have to do with us?"

Joan sighed and glanced at her son who's face was unreadable before looking back at Matteo's raised eyebrow.

"Because... I need you three to go back there and report back to us what's left."