Our Sanctuary

Chapter 6

"Are you sure there are going to be no survivors there? I mean, should we bring a first aid kit, or something?"

We walked through the door to see Xian bent down, sticking a knife in the pocket of his right calf, while Ezekiel was placing a gun to the holsters at his hips.

The room was a whole lot larger than the last with a spiral staircase on the far side of the room that disappeared downward, and a door to the left and one to the right. Each of the grey walls were completely covered in all sorts of weapons of different shapes and sizes, along with the few metal tables that ran down the walls.

My eyes wandered from the two boys and the walls toward Zack who was standing in the middle of the room with his arms crossed over his chest.

Zack shook his head and shrugged at Xian's question. "We're not a hundred percent sure if they left anyone still breathing, but it sounded as though they had killed everyone." His grey eyes then landed on us by the door and he nodded toward the three tables in front of us that were covered in our weapons. "Matteo, yours is the one on the right. Willow, on the left, and Zoe, yours is over here."

I kept my eyes down as I passed Matteo and Willow and made my way slowly over to Zack and the table that was near him. Knives and daggers were all laid out along the table and I could also see a couple swords.

"Xian, Ezekiel," Zack nodded to Willow and Matteo who looked unsure of where everything went, "can you...?"

The boys nodded their heads and dropped what they were doing before walking over to them to help. I returned my attention back to my table and picked up one of the larger daggers from it. I watched as the light bounced off of its reflection and showed across the wall before Zack took a step closer to me and gently took the weapon out of my grasp.

"Here," Zack took another step closer and reached around my body, picking up one of the smaller knives and handing it to me while placing the larger one back, "this one should fit in your boot."

I kept my eyes averted from his own and watched as he dropped the larger knife back down on the table. I then bent down and placed the knife in the platform part of my boot, the handle just sticking out enough from my heel that I could easily grab it. I stood back up and took the other knife from Zack, identical to the one previously, and placed it in my other boot before returning to my full height.

The next few minutes were completely silent as I let Zack help me get everything on. The only noises were the sharp sounds of the blades against the table and my heart beat as my heart hammered away against the inside of my chest.

My eyes remained everywhere except on Zack's. They wandered to the walls, studying each of the large guns and swords, and all the way to Willow and Matteo who were almost done getting ready.

I could see Xian had helped Willow get a few different handguns attached to her clothes and belt along with many magazine's filled with different sized bullets for each of her guns. Xian was now pointing to each weapon with one of his hands and explaining which goes with which as Willow nodded along, her face full of concentration.

Matteo on the other hand had a bow in his hands with a quiver filled with arrows strapped down on his back. I could see that Ezekiel was getting Matteo to change the positioning of his quiver to find a spot that's more comfortable before I looked away.

My eyes then made their way to Zack's as I realized he had stopped moving. His hand was near my shoulder, just hovering over the area in which he had just placed my final knife, and his emotionless expression changed.

Many different feelings displayed across his face that made my heart ache. Sadness, guilt, anger. I wanted to reach out, tell him everything was going to be okay, I was going to be okay. But all I did was look away, down at the table toward my reflection that was showcased in one of the blades.

I could see, with the knife's help, Zack's hand come up to the side of my face and I could feel his fingers carefully tuck a few strands of hair that had fallen out of my ponytail before I watched him drop his hand back down by his side. Just as fast as his face had changed, it immediately returned back to the blank expression.

He cleared his throat and looked away from me, and toward the other people in the room.

"Are you all done?" he asked.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek as I crossed my arms over my chest and turned around to see the four of them all nodding their heads as they stared at Zack.

Zack nodded as well and gestured to the staircase. "Alright, then let's go."