The Sleeper Cells: A Terrorism Story

Chapter 9: Rock Bottom

Titus slowly raises his hand, holding his gun.

"Stop!" The man pulls the knife closer to her neck, "she will die if you make one more move."

"We all walk out alive if we give you everything?" Kris asks. I don't know if Kris is serious or not. Would he really go out without a fight? They might kill us anyway.

Titus jerks his head over to Kris. I know exactly what Titus is thinking: Why? Are you serious? You can't be serious! Then, Titus notices another gun sticking out the back of Kris' trousers. He knows we won't give up.

Titus looks back at the new group, "we walk away free, with Lindsey, right?"

The man, shaking and wide-eyed, screams, "Yes! Just give us what you have!"

Suddenly, I notice the girl in the shadowed corner of the pantry raising her hand. She looks at me, shaking her head. "It's okay. It's okay," she keeps mouthing at me. She opens her palms at me, showing she won't hurt us. This mystery girl has our attention. Kris continues to talk to Lindsey's attacker, trying to buy time.

The girl reaches down and grabs another knife that came from the kitchen. She points it at the man holding Lindsey then looks back at us. She swipes a tear away before it could get too far down her face. Her hand begins to shake, wobbling the knife in the air.

Within her group of five, two more raise a knife. They're about to take care of them for us. I can tell they don't want to, but they have to. Lindsey and the man still have no idea what's happening behind them. This group has had something go on. They don't trust each other. Thankfully, they don't agree with each other either.

"Now!" the girl in the corner screams.

She lunges forward and stabs the man in the back. Unexpectedly, the group falls apart, right in front of our eyes. The group self-destructs. The mystery girl and her two friends kill the others. Leaving four survivors: The young mystery girl. An older, pale woman. An older man. And Lindsey.

Lindsey gasps for air and desperately crawls back to our group. The three, two young girls and one older man, throw their hands up and sit in the growing pool of blood.

"Please. We couldn't be with them. They were evil. We promise we will help you. We were not a part of that!" The girl with long black hair tells us.

Everyone looks around at each other, confused and still trying to figure out what just happened. Kris loosens his grip on his gun. Titus drops his shoulders and puts his gun away. Lindsey crawled her way to the far left corner of the room. She's sobbing and aggressively scrubbing at the blood on her arms. Owen steps towards Lindsey to comfort her.

"No!" she screams, flaring her arms and pointing at him.

She's more intimidating than I've ever seen. This is a whole new Lindsey... She's more than broken.

Owen turns and rubs his fingers through his blonde hair. He searches the bloody room, trying to understand.

Kennedy leans forward and grabs the youngest girl's hands, pulling her from the ground. She throws her bloody knife behind her.

And just like that, our group went from six to nine.

"How long have you been here?" Kris asks them.

The older man, around my uncle's age, speaks up as he rises from the ground, "close to four days. We heard you all coming in and thought you were one of them," he says with a scratching, deep voice. The bass in his voice vibrates every word. Everything about him is violently sharp. The man has a dusty-gray, unshaven face. His eyes are a haunting gray. He's muscular and doesn't smile like other people would.