Roses for Rachel

Chapter 26.

I followed Pedro step for step back out into the bottom level of the green house and out into the corridor where the other girls were standing, terror painted onto their faces, and surrounded by guards with actual silver and gold shields.

"What is going on?" I asked again as the guards pulled Pedro and I into the center of the protective circle they were forming around us.

No one answered my question, we just walked briskly in the direction of the elevators, but we took a left at them instead of getting on. Greer shuffled beside me, her face red and tears staining her cheeks. Out of instinct I reached out, holding her hand in my left hand. She clutched it tightly, but when her fingers brushed the ring she glanced down at our hands and her gasp was audible. I shook my head to her frantically, willing her to not say anything, and she turned away like she hadn't seen it. I let her go for a second so that I could spin the ring around, facing the diamond to the inside of my hand so it wouldn't draw as much attention, then grabbed her hand again. "I'm scared." She whispered as the guards in front of us opened a heavy door, leading us into the stairwell.

"Why won't anyone tell us what's happening?" Tessa said shakily behind me.

Pedro shushed her. "We will talk when we get to the bunkers."

Bunkers? I thought to myself. This whole place is a bunker. We wound down the stone stairs, the air becoming more and more humid until we came to a door that led into what looked like an ancient library. The guards were obviously starting to relax as we all packed into the room.

"Someone's coming!" The guard in the back of the group shouted and suddenly all of us girls were being shoved into the back of the room, our backs against a bookshelf, while the 10 guards lined up in front of us, hunkering down slightly behind their shields.

My heart was pounding in my throat as we stood waiting. I looked to Greer on my left and her head was bowed, eyes closed, praying, while on my right Lexton was crying with her eyes frozen on the door on the other side of the guards. Further down, Pedro was comforting a hyperventilating Tessa. The seconds that ticked by felt like an eternity while I looked forward, steadying my breathing for whatever was about to come. I promised myself that I would stay calm. Even my human ears could hear the sounds of footsteps coming down the stairs now, and I quickly reached over to pull Lexton to me, wrapping my arm around her while she buried her face in my hair.

"Oh, pretty girls!" A voice called from the stairs. "Come out now and we'll kill you quickly!" He laughed.

I wasn't sure if it was his words, or the moldy smell down here that made me feel nauseas, but either way, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to keep from getting sick much longer.

"Surrender, or die!" A guard yelled back, laughter coming back from the hallway in response.

The next events happened so quickly my eyes were hardly able to take it all in.

Three men flashed into the room, easily taking down the two guards in the middle of the formation, blood spraying across my blue dress and my face. The guards that were left went on the attack, and they were moving so quickly I couldn't see them until they'd leave a body lying on the ground in pieces. I heard matches struck, and two bodies on the ground went up in flames, the sudden flash of blue light causing Greer and Tessa to scream out. I couldn't hold back my sickness when I saw one of the guard's bodies that was ripped apart begin to move and reattach itself back together. I lurched over, spilling the contents of my stomach in the floor in front of me while Lexton grabbed back my hair.

When I sat back up, there was a man in my face. "You're so stupid you don't even kno-." He'd raised a hand to me, but his movement, and his sentence was cut off when he took a blow to the face by Master Pedro. The man turned his scarred face angrily to Pedro, and swiftly ripped Pedro's arm clear off of his body with a sick cracking sound. The blood squirted out across Lexton and me, drenching our hair in the cold liquid, as Pedro wailed out in pain.