The Land of Dragons

Chapter 4

The day after Chapter 3

Charles was the first to wake up. He felt surprisingly fresh considering he had slept on the rocky ground. He heard noises from the other side of the door, but couldn't make out the words. Pity, he thought. It would be good to know what they're talking about.

Soon, Max woke up too. He nodded to Charles, then they waited for the others to wake up. When finally everyone was awake, they went through the plan for freeing Pierre and Alex.

"So we are going to free Pierre then we distract the Devils while he somehow frees Alex." Charles said.

"We'll have to be careful because they have fighting sticks," Carlos said.

"Yeah. They're pretty hard if they hit you," Max added sourly. He had an experience of this from the previous day when they got caught for the second time.

"Everyone's ready?" Charles asked.

"Yes!" the others chorused, except for Lando, who was a bit scared. Carlos patted him on the shoulder and whispered some calming words to him.

"Let's go!" Charles shout whispered, and Carlos opened the door.

The guards were well and truly surprised but one of them began shouting an alarm. Max kicked the fighting stick from his hand with an accurate movement. Lando repeated the action with the other guard.

"I have a stick! I have a stick!" he said like a child who got a long-wanted present.

"Good idea!" Charles grinned.

Soon all four of them had a stick. The element of surprise was with them and they knew the importance of it. The Devils just didn't have time to react before the young drivers got the sticks out of their hands.

They soon reached a twisting and turning part of the tunnels. Carlos began running with full speed, the other drivers quickly speeding after him. Charles looked at Carlos with a worried look. He hoped he knows where they were going. Fortunately, Carlos' plan was successful and their enemies quickly lost them despite their better knowledge of the place.

Soon Carlos slowed to a walk. Together with Max they showed the way to Pierre. When they got there, Carlos opened the door.

Pierre looked up in suprise.

"How did you get here?" he asked, relief and surprise mixed in his voice. Lando giggled at his face and Carlos also smiled.

"This helped a lot," he showed him the metal piece. Pierre gave him a confused look. Charles decided to speed things up and explained their plan to his friend.

"I suppose we stay in Alex's cell when we get there?" Charles said.

"Yeah, no sense in fighting our way back." Carlos agreed, and he saw the flash of relief on Lando's face. The younger was still afraid of the Devils.

Carlos taught Pierre how to use the piece of metal for lock-picking. The Frenchman quickly got the hang of it. When they were ready, Max told Pierre the directions to Alex's cell.

"When should I go?" the Frenchman asked. Carlos frowned, estimating how much time they needed to get the guards away from Alex.

"Probably five minutes will be enough," he said finally.

"But we don't have a clock nor a watch," Charles objected.

"Don't worry, I'll count to three hundred slowly." Pierre smiled at him.

"Oh... of course." the Monegasque driver now felt really stupid for not thinking about this.

"Okay, so I think it's time to go before they figure out where we are," Max pointed out. Pierre opened the door for them and they set off towards Alex's cell.

The Devil guards looked terrifying but they didn't have much intelligence to pair it with. Once they were surprised, they were around as effective as headless chicken. This made it relatively easy for the youngsters to  draw them away from Alex.

Max used a karate kick to disarm the Devils. In a few minutes, he had more than three fighting sticks in his hands, knocking most of them on other Devils' heads. Charles and Carlos got a stick in each hand and they ran around the guards, delivering well-placed blows with the sticks to annoy and confuse them. Lando finally realised that these men weren't more dangerous than a fly. He made fun of them by sneaking up behind them and suddenly pulling the stick out of their hands, much to the amusement of Carlos, who kept an eye on Lando even in the confusion of the fight. In a few minutes, they managed to draw the guards far enough for Pierre to sneak in.

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When Alex woke up, be had no idea where he was. Then after a minute, his memory came back, the events of the previous day and night crashing over him. The race, the elevator, the Devils and the horrible skeleton face. He quickly looked around and let out a relieved sigh when he saw he was alone.

His relief didn't last long as he heard the door clicking and a guard came in, bringing a plastic plate and some food with him. He put down the plate in a corner of the room and took off the rope from Alex's hands. The youngster rubbed his wrists gratefully, trying to get the blood flowing. He looked up when he heard the door click again and realised that the guard had left, seemingly in a hurry. Yes, he forgot to tie me up! Alex thought.

He reached out for the plate. His ankle was still chained to the wall opposite to the plate.  It meant he could only touch the plate with his fingertips. After a long road of trials and errors, he finally managed to inch it close enough to grab it. He looked at the food, not trusting the Devils. The bread had a slight greenish tone, and the piece of cheese also looked disgusting. Alex put down the plate with a disappointed sigh. That was the moment when he heard the shouting.

At first, it was only a faint sound but it got closer quickly. Alex was confused. What's happening there? Is there finally someone who found us? he thought. Meanwhile, whoever made the sound had gone away because everything was silent again.

The door clicked and Alex looked up curiously. He expected a guard to come and tie him up again, so he was quite surprised when he saw Pierre standing in the doorway.

"Hey Alex! You alright?" he asked cheerfully.

"Ye-es, but how did you get here?" said Alex, stretching the e.

Pierre showed him the metal piece and told him about their plan to rejoin there.

"The others should also be here soon." Pierre finished.

In that exact moment, the door flew open and Charles stormed into the room, the other drivers fast after him. Carlos, the last one, slammed the door shut.

"Hi Alex!" Charles smiled.

"Thanks for coming and trying to help me!" Alex said softly. It meant a lot to him to have them at his side in this difficult situation.

Carlos took the metal from Pierre and opened the lock of the iron ring on Alex's ankle. The Thai smiled gratefully.

"Okay so now we're together, what's next?" Lando looked around.

That was a good question...

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Huge thanks to everyone reading this book, it really means a lot❤ I thought it would get 0 reads, so I'm really happy😊

If you have any ideas, feel free to comment or write me in private, I could use some inspiration!

Edited 13.04.2024.