Maude stands, staring at the crying mess in front of her, unsure of what to do or how to react.
‘What happened? Tell me if you’re hurt,’ Ari asks Kaley again, this time giving a judging look towards Maude.
Kaley shakes her head as she removes her gloves and sits on the gym floor.
‘I was just thinking. What if we had learnt this stuff earlier? We wouldn’t be in this situation. We would have been able to defend ourselves. I wouldn’t have been attacked by that horrible man.’
Ari sits down next to her, placing an arm across her shoulders.
‘I know it’s hard. But we cannot go back in time. We can’t think about the past and how things may have changed. We are here now, found by The Underground.’
She looks up to Maude standing awkwardly nearby.
‘And now is our chance to fight. Now is our chance to make a difference.’
She stands and extends a hand towards her sister, ‘What do you say?’
Kaley looks at her sister’s hand for a few seconds, contemplating, before taking it in her own and standing too, ‘Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s fight back and make a difference. Let’s change the world.’
‘Great,’ Maude says, clapping her hands together. ‘And with that amazing pep talk by my girl,’ she winks at Ari, ‘I say it’s time for lunch. I’m famished.’
◆◆◆
The rest of the day involved learning how to escape an attackers grasp. Maude played the attacker, holding the Healers by the neck, the arms behind their backs, on the floor of the gym. Ari and Kaley, now with genuine interest in the activities, found the many ways to distract, injure and escape from the various holds.
Lying in her bunk at the end of the day, Ari stares up at the bottom of the bunk above. Most of the girls in the Quarters had already gone to bed before they had even finished in the gym. Despite feeling exhausted, Ari was finding it hard to sleep. Thoughts swirled around her mind – thoughts of her parents, the town that Kaley and she had come from, whether they had other family, and what was going to happen in the future. Drifting off to sleep, Ari is restless as images of shadows; waxed-faces and bloodied corpses fill her dreams.
She walks through a cave, towards a light flickering in the distance. Slowly, she approaches the light in the distance and enters the large recess of the underground cave. She stifles a scream as she looks down to find the ground covered in bloodied corpses.
But the faces of these bodies do not belong to any Elites.
The faces, instead, belong to her sister, Kaley, and her new friends, Maude, Xavier, even Guy and to her horror, Justin. His hazel-green eyes stare straight ahead, lifeless, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
‘No, no, no,’ Ari cries to herself, as her heart pounds in her chest, threatening to break free of her ribcage.
She turns to look for the exit of the cave recess only to find a towering figure with grey-black hair, blue suit and orange tie.
Chancellor Chvostek stands in her way, eyes wide and crazed, daggers dripping with blood in both hands.
‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ he says softly to Ari.
He lunges forwards but Ari ducks out of the way and before the dagger could hit its mark, she wakes with a start.
Heart pounding, covered in a cold sweat, Ari looks frantically around in the dark of her bunk, finding her bed sheets in a mess around her. Sighing heavily, she lies back down and stares into the blackness, trying to fall back to sleep. But sleep eludes her. After that nightmare, Ari cannot seem to will herself to sleep.
She gets out of her bunk and changes out of her bedclothes and into the grey-green jumpsuit and decides to go for a walk to clear her mind.
◆◆◆
Ari makes her way away from the women’s quarters and not paying attention to where she is walking, finds herself in a vast room. The walls and ceilings remind her of Madame Trousseau’s brothel in its beautiful baroque style, gilded with gold leaf and painted in white and green. The floors are wooden panels, placed in a zigzag pattern. The dim lights cast an eerie glow on the contents of the room.
Set in the centre, on a wooden pedestal is a large animal, which Ari had never seen before. Towering above her its grey hide, reflecting in the light, long snout and teeth extending from either side, ears splayed outwards from its enormous head, Ari looks up into the unblinking eyes of the animal. She reaches out a hand to touch the creature, wondering how such amazing creatures once roamed the earth with humans.
Behind this animal is another creature, slightly smaller with a larger head, and tiny ears, tough grey hide, and cone-like shape extending from its snout. Ari cannot think how an animal that looks as strange as this could also look so beautiful.
Sitting behind glass panels are smaller creatures, some of which Ari knows the name of, thinking she must have come across them some time ago, before they were wiped off the Earth.
The row above is of winged animals with feathers and beaks of all shapes and sizes. Ari is mesmerised by the colourful plumes of the birds in front of her. Their feathers remind her of The Republique’s Elites’ fashion.
Below, are creatures she has never seen before. All stand on four legs, some with long fur, and others with short, spotted and striped fur. Crouching down to see the lowest row of water creatures, Ari looks upon large animals with leather hides, sharp claws and rows of chilling teeth.
Suddenly, Ari sees movement out of the corner of her eye. Before she could look up, she feels the electricity of the discharging phaser at her back, and she falls forwards, forehead hitting the glass cabinet with a clang.
Finding herself face down and unable to move, Ari curses Maude in her mind, about not learning how to escape from someone with a petrifying phaser. Her eyes are bound and mouth gagged, and Ari feels this is all getting a little old. Something sharp pierces through the right side of her neck and she feels a cold sensation seeping from the area, moving under her skin.
She finds herself feeling groggy and mind clouded, as she hears muffled voices nearby. Before she can make out what the voices are saying, her mind turns to blackness.
ChapteR THIRTEEN
Head throbbing, Ari wakes to find her blindfold and gag have been removed.
She stands upright, arms and legs bound by an invisible force, a blue light surrounding her frame. Ari tries to move her head to see where she is but finds she is still paralysed. No, not paralysed, she realises, but bound by this blue light, which keeps her head, arms and legs from moving. Moving her eyes from side to side, she can see she sits in a dimly lit chamber, floors, wall and ceiling all white. For a second, her heart skips a beat, as she guesses she has been taken back to The Holly-Oaks Centre to be destroyed.
Remembering The Centre, did not have the money for this type of technology, Ari realises she must be elsewhere. As if reading her mind, a door slides open and short figure enters in a floating chair. Wires emerging from his balding skull, plug into the chair, allowing the figure to control the chair with his mind. As the figure approaches, Ari glimpses his face – almost child-like but wrinkled with age, eyes black and beady and his mouth in a small tight smile.
‘Hello dear,’ he says, looking up towards his hostage floatingin the blue beam of light. Ari looking down upon the figure in front of her, tries to speak, to move but nothing. ‘Do not waste your energy,’ he says, ‘That is a plasma binder. You cannot escape it unless I give you the say-so.’ His smile grows wider as he clasps his hands together, looking upon Ari like a beast with a smaller creature in its grasp. ‘I am Eli,’ he explains, ‘Son of the first Founding Family.’
Before he could continue, a young woman wearing a uniform of black and white interrupts Eli. Like Ari, she appears to be a commoner, working for the Elite family. Unlike Ari, she has long black glossy hair, tied in a tight bun atop her head. Her almond shaped eyes look upon Ari with sympathy, before they return to the man in the floating chair. ‘You are not allowed in here, Master Eli,’ she says quietly, ‘Your Mother would be
most upset.’
‘But I wanted to see The Healer,’ Eli whines.
The girl gestures to Eli to leave the room and as he does, she follows after him, without a glance back at Ari.
◆◆◆
‘Where’s Ari? Where is she? Where’s Ari?’ Kaley runs from room to room, down the halls and to the gym of The Underground headquarters, searching for her sister. She enters the mess hall to find The Assassins seated together a table at the far end of the room. Panting, she asks them if they’ve seen her sister.
‘What do you mean she’s missing?’ asks Justin.
‘She’s nowhere to be found. I’ve searched the whole headquarters’ grounds,’ Kaley explains, exasperated.
Maude stands, ‘When did you see her last?’
‘Just before bed,’ says Kaley, feeling desperate, ‘I don’t know how she could just disappear.’
‘We’ll check the security footage,’ Justin reassures her, also getting to his feet, ‘There are cameras everywhere – we’ll find her, don’t worry.’
Kaley nods, feeling slightly hopeful, as she follows the group out of the mess hall.
◆◆◆
Ari wakes with a start, and realises what she thought was a bad dream, was in fact, reality. As she floats, bound in the blue beam of light, she stares into the empty space before her. How long has she been here? Do the others know she’s missing?
Straining against the invisible bounds she struggles and struggles to move her arms and legs. Feeling exhausted after trying to escape for what seems like an hour, she finally gives up. The girl with the black and white uniform returns to the chamber. In her hand she holds a small syringe. Without a word, she approaches the blue beam holding Ari in place and places a thumb on the small keypad by her feet. Gradually, Ari starts to descend down the beam and suddenly she is face to face with the girl. Ari looks into the black almond eyes before her, imploring with her own for some empathy - to help her escape. The girl looks away, brows furrowed and instead, takes the syringe and plunges it into Ari’s neck. Unable to let out the scream building in her throat, tears stream down her pink cheeks, silently.
‘Nutrients,’ the girl explains flatly, before leaving the chamber, without a glance back at the Founding Family’s captive.
◆◆◆
Peering over Justin’s shoulder, Kaley’s slight inkling of hope from before, has all but faded. Justin sits in the security room at a screen, rapidly screening the hours of footage from the last 16 hours. The screen reflects a blue glow over Justin, as he inches closer and closer to the video, eyebrows knotted together.
Kaley stands behind, foot tapping as she feels she might jump out of her own skin, frustrated with waiting and wishing she could help find her sister in some way. Maude, Xavier and Guy are scattered around the room, pouring over hours of footage from around the Underground Headquarters. Seated at other screens are the Underground security officers, keeping track of the occurrences within and outside the compound – cameras pointed towards the entrance to the Headquarters and The Abandoned Caves. Kaley notices a screen with images of The Eastern Graveyard, realising they were all being watched since they arrived in The Morgue van. For some reason, unbeknownst to Kaley, she feels slightly unsettled by this.
‘I think I found something,’ Guy utters in his dulcet tones. The others rush over to him and Kaley’s heart sinks at what she sees.
Ari walks into a vast room, decorated in the Old World style and filled with various creatures that once roamed the Earth. She pauses at the two beasts in the centre before moving to the glass cabinet of smaller animals at the back of the room. A figure enters – face covered by a black balaclava – and pauses momentarily in the camera’s line of sight. The figure slowly turns its head towards the camera before pointing a hand in its direction and the footage is lost. Static now fills the screen.
‘What? What happened?’ Kaley asks, desperate.
Without answering, Justin leans over Guy and moves the mouse, rewinding the video back to when Ari enters. They all watch the footage again, in silence. ‘The Zoo,’ Justin finally answers, ‘She was taken from The Zoo.’
Starting to tremble, Kaley can barely get out, ‘By whom? How is this possible? How could anyone have gotten in here?’ Her voice getting louder, ‘Isn’t this place protected? Aren’t we meant to be safe here?’ Maude places a reassuring hand on her shoulder but Kaley shakes it off, ‘How could you let them take my sister?!’
‘We will find her,’ Justin says quietly, ‘I promise.’
Chapter FOURTEEN
Colonel Duff is pacing in his office when Justin and the other assassins arrive with Kaley in tow.
Standing nearby is Julie Emdur, chewing on the arm of her purple-rimmed glasses, as she watches on.
‘Sir,’ Justin interrupts, saluting the Colonel, ‘We’ve had a security breach.’
Colonel Duff stops dead in his tracks, ‘At ease. Security breach where?’
‘The Healer, Ari – Arielle, has been kidnapped,’ Justin continues, ‘last night. The cameras in The Zoo were tampered with and all footage from any camera leading from there to the exit has been scrambled.’
The Colonel looks over to Julie, ‘We’ll resume our meeting later.’
Nodding, she takes her leave, passing the assassins without so much as a glance but giving Kaley a small sympathetic smile, before exiting.
‘Activate the Lock-Down Protocol; no one gets in or out. Have the security and IT officers analyse the footage. You two will go back to The Republique to continue the mission to disarm the Founding Family.’
He points to Guy and Xavier, ‘you two will continue with searching for clues on the girl’s disappearance.’
Kaley and the assassins leave and The Colonel begins pacing once more.
◆◆◆
Ari’s eyes flicker open and she finds she is no longer bound in the blue beam of the white chamber.
Instead, she lays in a soft, plush bed, dressed in a light pink sleeveless nightie with a high lace neck, instead of the jumpsuit. The matching bottoms with lace cuffs finish at her calves. She sits bolt upright, realising she is still a captive and has no idea where she is. The golden silk covers fall to the floor as she climbs out of the bed and stares at the room surrounding her.
A green ornate door sits opposite the bed, carved of wood with images of winged creatures and curling leaves. The tarnished gold knob is reflective of an era long ago. On the adjacent wall sits a dark, wooden dresser, no ornaments or trinkets sitting on top. Above, a small, dusty mirror with golden frame, paint peeling in areas, reflects Ari’s petite frame back at her.
The floor is covered in a thick loop carpet of royal blue with small golden motifs throughout. As Ari peers closer to the motifs, noticing the insignia of the Founding Family, it dawns on her where she must be. Somehow, the Founding Family knew she had been taken to The Underground Headquarters and was able to get her out without being seen.
Perhaps they were followed from The Republique graveyard.
Or, Ari shakes her head with the next thought; perhaps someone in The Underground works with The Founding Family.
Before she could contemplate further how she ended up The Founding Family’s captive, there is a loud knock at the door, followed by a quiet voice.
‘You are requested to join Master Eli for dinner. You will be collected at six. There are dinner-clothes in the wardrobe.’
Ari rushes forward and bangs on the green door.
‘Wait!’ she calls after the girl with the sleek black hair. ‘Don’t leave me in here! Help me!’
She slides to the carpet and stares blankly at her bare feet.
How could she have let this happen?
What about Kaley? Has she also been taken?
Determined to escape, Ari rises to her feet and decides to comply with her captors’ requests.
She will gain their trust and scope out the house and when she finds her chance, finally escape.
◆◆◆
‘What about me?’ Kaley asks, standing by the weapons wall in the gym. ‘What am I going to do? I can’t just sit here, doing nothing.’
‘You need to stay safe,’ Maude states. ‘And not get captured like your sister. If she has been taken by The Founding Family, last thing we need is them getting a hold of you too.’
Frustrated, but understanding Maude’s argument, Kaley nods; folding her arms across her chest and decides not to push the point.
‘Whilst we’re gone,’ Maude continues, ‘I want you to practice what you learnt the other day.’
‘Fine. Just promise me you’ll find my sister.’
‘I promise,’ the redhead says quietly, face softening.
Kaley picks up a small dagger and stares at it before moving towards the combat dummy to let out her frustrations on.
◆◆◆
6 p.m.
Knock! Knock!
Ari feels the formality of knocking is overkill, given she has no choice in whether she answers or not. She decides not to answer and see whether the person on the other side knocks again or simply enters.
Knock! Knock!
Ari stays silent.
‘I’m sorry Miss Arielle,’ a small voice from behind the door, ‘but it is time for dinner.’
Before she could answer, the doorknob turns and the door opens, revealing the girl with the sleek black hair, tied up high on her crown. She still wears the black and white uniform.
‘This way.’
She guides Ari from the room, along a vast hall with a high curved ceiling, covered in various paintings.
Elite Nation: Book One Page 7