Fire

Chapter Seven

Recap: "There is no escape now!" Orla crows victoriously. 
                   I am caught.

"I never thought this day would come!" she smirks, sauntering around me. "In fact, I began to think I would never have the guts to do this."

She reaches for the bag, and my stomach lurches. 

I am going to die. 

By the hand of my best friend. 

"P-please Orla!!!" I cry. "Don't do this! You don't want to-I promise!"

"Of course, I want to do this!" she laughs. "I've been waiting  my whole life here to do this to you."

All her life here? She's wanted to kill me all her life here?

I shut my eyes, submitting as she withdraws a long, narrow tube from the bag and brings it towards me. 

A cold tip drags itself over my eyelid, just above my eyelashes. 

Huh?

My eyes jerk open, sending eyeliner all over my face.

"Ara!!" Orla groans. "Now I have to do it all over again!"

"Wait... you attacked me in the hallway, locked me in the bathroom, stuck me to a chair just to do my makeup???" 

I am stunned, and more than a little embarrassed. I thought she was gonna kill me, but instead.. she is putting makeup on me?!

"Uhhh yeah. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get makeup on you?? Last time I tried you locked me in the bedroom, and hid in the bathroom of the cafeteria! So I decided to take drastic measures," she says. "Desperate times call for desperate measures, and my ends justified my means."

"Uh, no it didn't!" I exclaim. "Besides, that's not how it works. Even if you got the outcome you wanted, the way you got there was not proper."

"If I'd asked you, what would you have done?" she points out dryly. 

"Hid."

"Yeah. Now you wonder why?"

"Fine whatever," I concede. "Just let me go now. I seriously thought you were trying to kill me and Viel was using you to talk to me again."

"Nope!" she says cheerfully and ties me to the chair with a towel.

How....?

When she is finished, she shoves a shirt, leggings, tall boots, and a leather jacket in my arms. All black.

"I'll leave you to it!" she chirps and walks out the door, closing in behind her. 

I shall never understand the ways of Orla.

I dress reluctantly, wishing for my teeshirt and jeans. I finish and scowl darkly at my reflection in the mirror. 

I look like every single spy stereotype ever.

"You. Look. AMAZING!!!" Orla squeals and grabbing my hand drags me to the front where the Five are waiting for me.

Well, this is embarrassing. 

I am late. I am dressed in... spy clothes. I am wearing makeup. And clearly, they have been waiting for me.

I am afraid, suddenly, very afraid of leaving the impenetrable safety of our underground refuge. 

~~~

"Is everyone ready?" Kimberly calls out. We nod. "You will be split up. Two with each of us. Bern and Jaziel, you're with me. Boaz and Raina, you're with Andrea. Kyle and Mariel, with Darren, Kent, and Caleb, with Drew, and Cora and Ara, you are with Eval."

I see Cora rejoicing. 

"We are going to a city. For security purposes, it will remain nameless. I will go west, Darren south, Drew, north, Eval, east, and Andrea, you will be in the center." 

Kimberly passes out watches to everyone. She tells us they will go off in exactly an hour, and we must meet where we started. 

I feel far away. 

Like I am in a dream. 

She blindfolds us and leads us away. When she removes the blindfolds, we are still blinded, but this time by the light. 

Light floods my senses, overwhelming them. 

Then sun!

But I cannot see. 

"It will be difficult," Kimberly says, "to see at first. But soon the sun will set. It is evening."

"But it is morning," I protest.

"No. It's evening. But we say it is morning down underground, for reasons that shall not be made public," she explains. 

"Oh." My eyes finally begin to adjust. Underground, they made us go through light training so that the first time we stepped Above, we were not permanently damaged, but even that training, though intense, has not prepared me for the abundance of light here.

Colors! I marvel at the colors. Plants, and trees, and dirt! There is very little color underground, though there is dirt. 

Cora, Eval, and I head east. 

"What exactly are we looking for?" I ask. 

"Anyone who needs help or hates Viel," he responds quietly. "Be quiet now. Evil lurks here."

My chest tightens at the words. 

Breathe, I tell myself. 

They are just words.

But I cannot make myself believe that.

All of a sudden, under a pile of rocks, I see a child. She is whimpering. And in the distance, I see some of Them, Viel's men, coming toward us. 

They will not spare any of us, nor the child. 

I run toward the girl as they come closer.