Polite

One

"Have you found her yet?" I hear him ask from my spot under the bed. I haven't moved from here since they came in. Even when I heard the screams of my mother and brother I didn't move from my spot. Even though every cell in my being told me that I needed to, I didn't. And now my family is dead because I was too afraid to do something. But there is something else that makes this so much more worse. The fact that their leader doesn't want me dead, but rather to keep me alive. Now that there is no one else here but them my time is running out before I am found, and after that I don't know what's going to happen.

"No we can't seem to find her" I hear his friend Cooper respond. A laugh is the immediate response.

"It seems as though Little Miss Sandin likes to play hard to get. I guess if anyone is going to be the one to find her, it's going to be me" he replies and I hear footsteps coming towards my room. To stop myself from making any noise I bite on my hand. The footsteps stop once they are inside my room and I see my door close.

"I know you're in here darling and I have to say that I am impressed. You managed to make it through all the excitement without getting caught. But sadly the fun is over and it is about time for us to leave, and luckily you will be coming with us. So you are going to have to come out from wherever you are hiding, or I can come find you myself but I don't think you would like that," he says and I feel my heart twinge. I know that he will most likely hurt me if I don't come out on my own, but I am afraid of what will happen if I do come out. Either way this won't end the way I really want it to. So I take a deep breath before slowly coming out from under my bed. I hear him chuckle and I see him walk over until he is right in front of me. I look up and see him smiling at me, amused at the fact this was my hiding spot the entire time. He squats down and looks over me as though I was the prey he was about to attack. And in reality this probably couldn't be farther from the truth.

"You are even more exquisite in person. I have to say that I am happy that I saw your picture, because if I didn't you probably would be dead" he says and I just look at him. I can feel my heart hammering in my chest and a lump forming in my throat. My eyes prick with tears but I blink them away.

"What are you going to do to me?" I ask him. He smiles at me and takes my arm. He stands up pulling me up with him. His grip is tight and if I even tried to pull my arm away it wouldn't end up well. He begins to lead me out of my room and downstairs.

"I think that we can be something special, which is why that I kept you alive. And speaking of us, I don't think that we have even properly introduced ourselves. I'm Rhys Wakefield and you are," he says and I swallow the lump on my throat.

"Zoey, my name is Zoey" I tell him and he squeezes my arm gently.

"Well Zoey, I am sorry that my friends and I had to purge on your family but you should know that we tried to warn your father. But he didn't listen and while I am sorry for your loss, I'm not sorry that I killed him and the rest of them. If we didn't come in we would have never met" he tells me and I look down. There is a large puddle of blood on the floor and he is leading me through it like it isn't even there. I don't respond to him because I have nothing to say to him, and if I even did it wouldn't be something that he would like to hear. I eventually do look up when I see a bright light and I see that it is of a large truck, and beside it are all of the people I had seen outside. I quickly look away from them since they are covered in blood and it can only belong to my family. I tiptoe over the shards of glass and Rhys sees that I am having trouble and lifts me over them before putting me back down.

"Everyone I want you to meet Zoey, she is the newest member or our group. So I expect that you will treat her with the upmost respect and make her feel welcome. If not, then it is still purge night" he says and everyone nods. He then looks at me.

"Don't worry about them, they just aren't used to me showing mercy to anyone on purge night. But they will eventually warm up to you," he says and I nod like I am interested. He leads me over to the truck and helps me climb in before getting in beside me. I see the one he called Cooper get in the drivers seat after talking to everyone else. I see them walk around to the back where I saw another truck waiting and Cooper pulls out of the driveway. I look straight ahead at my house, the place that I once hated because my parents didn't understand me, is now the one place where I wish I was. But here I am in this position of not knowing what lies ahead for me, and I can't help but think that this is all my fault. As he drives away from the neighborhood that I have lived in for so long I look at the dashboard and see that it is 3:00 in the morning. Rhys no longer has a death grip on my arm since I am in the car, and I would have to get through him or Cooper to get out. So I wring my hands together trying to get a sense of myself again but that is ruined when I feel him take one of my hands in the both of his. I look over at him.

"What happened now?" I ask.

"Well since we have cleansed our souls we are done purging. I'm going to take you home with me and you will meet my parents. I can already tell that my mother is going to be jealous of your beauty, and my father probably will be jealous of the fact that I have such a lovely lady on my arm. After that you will be able to meet everyone in a more formal setting. I think you will really love my home" he says and I feel knots form in my stomach. Any hope that at least his family will try to help me is dashes when he says that.

I guess I'll never get away, and if I do it won't be alive.