Chosen One

by Katie Holland

  “They’re human,” Alix said.

  “Hmm,” the female said. “Oh well, just take them with you,” she said to Ben. “Go!”

  Logan and Jack picked up her mom and Kris and Rick got her dad. They carried them out the door and upstairs. Natalie, Shelley, James, Ruth, Karin, Mike and the four Warriors followed them out. Ben was the last to leave the room.

  “Ben, you have to go. I’ll be fine. Tell everyone what happened and please take care of them for me.” Alix didn’t have to tell Ben who ‘them’ was.

  Ben nodded. “I will. And I will find you Al …Ashley.”

  “GO!” the female yelled.

  Ben left, and Alix had never felt so alone. At least she knew that everyone was going to be okay. She didn’t know what the Sleep of Death would do to her parents, but she hoped Shelley would be able to heal them.

  The female closed the door and locked it. She slowly walked over to Alix. “It’s sweet that you think that your friends are going to get out of here alive. There’s a small army waiting for them when they leave this building. There’s not going to be anyone left to look for you. And even if any of them manage to survive they’ll never find you where you’re going.”

  Alix wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth or not. Victor had said much the same thing, but he was lying. She wanted to scream and yell and make the woman in front of her disappear, but instead she stayed silent and tried not to let her face show what she was feeling.

  “And now I’ll take care of you,” she said right in her face. She touched Alix’s head, and everything went black.

  Chapter 35

  The first thing Alix noticed was that everything hurt. Then she remembered what happened with the Grynn. She wondered where she was and if everyone had made it out of the building. She knew Shay and her parents were going to be furious with her but at the time she didn’t see another way to guarantee their safety.

  She decided to open her eyes. She was sitting in a chair with her hands still tied behind her back. She had no idea how long it had been since the Grynn had taken her, but she was hungry and extremely thirsty. She highly doubted that she could expect food and water from her captors.

  The room they had her in was small, maybe six feet across by ten feet long. There was a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling and a door directly in front of her. The only other thing in the room was another chair which she assumed was for the person that was going to interrogate or torture her.

  She did not plan on being tortured and as for being interrogated she had no idea what they could possibly want to know, it’s not like she knew all the secrets of the Nykara yet.

  The biggest thing on Alix’s mind was her magic. She wondered if she could access it. The problem was she was pretty sure that if she tried they would know. She decided it was worth the risk and attempted to bring just the tiniest amount to her hands. It worked, she could feel it and she knew that if she needed free of the ropes she could do it in an instant.

  With as little effort as she could manage she searched inwards to see if she could tell how much energy she had left. It had been a long time since she had to replace any of her energy since it seemed to just always be there. She was surprised to find that all of her energy was still there. They probably assumed that keeping her in an urban setting would diminish her energy like a normal Nykara. She was never so glad to be different in her life than at that moment. She was pretty sure that if the Grynn did anything to her she would be able to gain some more energy from them.

  Her plan was to escape and find a way back to Fox Hollow. But she also wanted to find out what the Grynn were planning. She decided to just stay where she was for the moment and not use her magic until it became absolutely necessary. The moment they tried anything she was putting up her shield and finding a way out.

  They must have known she was awake because it wasn’t long before the door was opening, and a man entered that she’d never seen before. He looked old to Alix. He had white hair and lots of wrinkles on his face. He closed the door, got the empty chair and sat down in front of Alix. She tried to stay calm and not let her face show what she was feeling. She didn’t want to appear weak in front of any Grynn ever again.

  He sat there for a minute just staring at her. Alix assumed he was trying to intimidate her, but she wasn’t going to let him. Eventually he spoke.

  “Ashley, it is Ashley correct?” he asked.

  Alix nodded. It sounded like he had a French accent.

  “My name is François,” he said.

  Yes, definitely French Alix thought to herself. She didn’t have anything to say to him, so she continued to stay silent.

  “I want to start by apologizing for the deaths of your friends. It would seem that my associate was a little too eager but she’s young, and you young people these days seem to act before thinking. It was unnecessary once she had you but what’s done is done.”

  Alix refused to believe that everyone she loved was dead, she was sure she would have felt it. It was the same tactic Victor had used. She decided right then and there not to believe anything he said about her friends and family. She would listen to what he had to say hoping that she could get some vital information for the Nykara, but she still didn’t intend to believe everything he said unless it could be proven.

  “Nothing to say?” he asked her.

  Alix shook her head.

  “This will be a long day for you if you sit there silently,” he told her.

  “I’m sure it will be a long day regardless if I talk or not,” she said.

  “You’re probably very right in that. You see, now that we have you in our hands it’s extremely unlikely you’ll ever see the light of day again.”

  “You can think whatever you like, and I can think whatever I like,” she told him.

  He smiled at her. “To have the confidence of youth,” he said. “You are deep underground surrounded by hundreds of Grynn in the middle of Paris. There’s no way you can escape, and no one will ever find you here.”

  “Paris,” she said, and let the surprise show on her face. “How long have I been here?”

  “Three days,” he told her.

  “I see,” she said. She wasn’t sure if that was true, but it would explain her hunger, thirst and pain. “What do you want from me?”

  “You’re the most powerful Nykara to ever exist, we can’t have you running around and ruining our plans. Yes, it’s much too dangerous to have you out in the world. We plan to bring you over to our way of thinking, and if that doesn’t work we’ll simply kill you.”

  He talked about her death as if it was nothing. She would never become what they wanted, and she would do anything in her power to stop those who got in her way. The world needed her. The Grynn couldn’t be allowed to take over, she wouldn’t let that happen.

  “What?” he asked. “Nothing to say.”

  Alix just shook her head.

  “That’s fine for now. I’m sure you’ll have plenty to say before I’m done with you.” He got up to leave. “Oh, just one more thing for right now. We need to know where Victor is and what you’ve done with him.”

  She somehow managed to keep a straight face and spoke in a normal voice. “Who’s Victor?”

  “Don’t play dumb Ashley. We sent him to find you and he never returned. Now, what have you done to him?” he said louder.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He walked over to her and slapped her on the face. She’d never been hit before, and tears automatically formed in her eyes. She did her best to stop them from falling but they fell anyway.

  François got right in her face and yelled. “Where is Victor! I want my son back, you stupid little girl!”

  Despite the pain in her face Alix found that news very interesting, and even though he’d hit her she wasn’t going to give away anything. She did not want the Grynn anywhere close to Sunset Creek.

  Through her tears sh
e managed to say, “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  She thought he was going to hit her again but instead he stormed to the door and said to someone outside. “Let’s see how she does with no food or water for two days.”

  The door slammed shut. She let more tears fall for a minute before she regained her composure. She was pretty sure François was serious about the two days with no food or water. She had to find a way out of there and fast.

  Alix used her magic to untie her wrists, lucky that they’d used something that wasn’t man made. They probably assumed that like other Nykara when she was away from nature that her magic stopped working. She was glad that wasn’t the case for her.

  It hurt to stand up. She assumed she’d been in the chair for a long time. François had said that she’d been there for three days, but she didn’t believe him. She was positive if she really had been there for that long she’d feel sick with hunger and not just hungry.

  She slowly started walking around the room. It took a few minutes for her joints and limbs to start working properly. The more she walked the less pain she was in. She wondered if they had really taken her to Paris. Just because François was French didn’t mean they were actually in France. She did feel like she was deep underground though, the air just felt different.

  Alix had to come up with a plan to get herself out of there and far away from the Grynn that held her. She paced back and forth trying to come up with something. Sure, she could cloak herself but that didn’t help her open the locked door.

  She went to the door and listened. She could hear muffled voices. It sounded like two people carrying on a normal conversation. She guessed they were the Grynn that were guarding her. She had to find a way to open the door. She pressed her tattoo on the door to see if she could figure out what it was made of. Steel. That was something she could manipulate with magic.

  Alix kept her ear to the door and placed her tattoo over the lock. She sent out a small amount of magic and was able to feel how the lock worked. She waited until the guards were talking and opened the lock. It made a little click, she hoped they didn’t hear it. She continued to listen. They kept on talking so she guessed they didn’t hear anything.

  She turned the door handle very slowly hoping she could open the door just a bit, so she could take in her surroundings. Alix opened the door just a sliver. The guards were talking about some kind of sports and didn’t seem to notice anything was amiss.

  Alix could see into the room beyond hers. It was a large brightly lit room that could belong to any warehouse in the world. There were boxes and crates scattered around. From her view she couldn’t see any other doors, but she knew there had to be something. She silently closed the door and re-locked it.

  Alix knew that magic was going to be her only way out, but she had no idea what she was up against. There could be five Grynn or five hundred. She paced and thought, paced and thought. She figured her best bet was going to be to sneak out. She would have to shield and cloak and move slowly and silently.

  She came up with a plan. She would open the door just enough again and use her magic to make one of the boxes topple over. She hoped this would distract her guards long enough that she could open the door wide enough to slip out. If that part of the plan didn’t work, she wasn’t sure what she would do from there.

  Alix took off her shoes as she would be quieter in only her socks. She went back over to the door and unlocked it. She opened it just the smallest amount and focused on a pile of boxes she could see. She made a few boxes from the top fall to the ground. As she hoped her two guards went over to investigate. She quickly cloaked and shielded. She slipped out of the door as fast as she could and locked it behind her.

  She moved along the wall away from the door. Finding there was nothing out of place with the boxes her guards put them back and resumed their positions near her door. They didn’t seem to notice that anything had happened. Alix was very glad there wasn’t a window in the door, so no one should notice that she was gone.

  Once she got her heart rate to slow down a little she took a good look at the room she was in now. There were no windows and two doors. She had no idea which door she should try for. She decided on the one that was closer. Very quietly she made her way to the door. There was nothing blocking the view that the guards had of the door. How was she going to open it without them seeing?

  Alix stepped back from the door to think for a minute. She heard a loud squawking sound that scared her, and she almost dropped her shoes. The sound was from a radio that the guards were wearing. Someone on the other end started speaking rapidly in French.

  Guard #1 swore and started talking into the radio. “English, man, speak English.” Then to guard #2 he said, “That idiot always forgets we’re not from here.”

  “I think he does it on purpose just to annoy us,” Guard #2 said.

  The man on the radio came back on. With a heavy French accent, he said, “Your replacements will be there in five minutes.”

  “Roger that,” Guard #1 said.

  “It’s about time,” Guard #2 said. “It feels like we’ve been down here forever.

  Five minutes Alix thought. She was going to wait until the new guards arrived and then as the old ones left she would follow them out the open door. Now the problem was which door were they going to use. If it was the one on the opposite side of the room she’d have to find a way to distract the guards long enough to get over there but without raising suspicion.

  The five minutes seemed to take forever. She heard footsteps on metal stairs and then a door opened. Of course, it was the door she wasn’t close to. Two more guards entered the room speaking French and she wished she could understand them.

  The new guards stopped in front of the old ones and spoke to them, in French.

  “English! How many times do I have to tell you!” Guard #1 yelled.

  Guard #3 smirked and said, “François wants you to go on patrol.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Guard #1 said. “We’ve been watching that stupid girl for four hours and we don’t even get a break?”

  “Just go, now,” Guard #3 said in his face.

  Alix was about to start moving across to the other door when Guard #1 and Guard #2 started walking in her direction. At first, she thought they could see her but soon realized that they were leaving through the door by her. She wasn’t going to get a better opportunity than this. Since she was a lot smaller than them she was hoping that she could just slip in behind them and not have to touch the door. She didn’t know if the other guards were going to be looking in that direction, so she wanted it to look like the door was just closing normally.

  Alix stood just off to the left side of the door. She didn’t want either of them accidentally bumping into her. They were almost at the door and she was ready. Guard #1 opened the door with the other guard following him. She got right on the heels of Guard #2 and just managed to get through the door before it closed.

  Success! But she still had a long way to go. The door had opened into a stairwell that went up. The steps were metal, so she hoped she didn’t make any noise. She decided to follow the guards as quickly as she could since she had no clue what way to go. Their boots were so loud on the stairs that there was no way they could hear her stocking feet following them.

  They had gone up two flights of stairs passing two exit doors along the way. Alix hoped she was doing the right thing by following the guards, but she didn’t know what else to do. Finally, at the top of the third flight of stairs Guard #1 opened the door. Alix was once again able to sneak in behind them.

  “Hey man,” Guard #2 said, “François told us to go on patrol. He’ll kill us if we don’t follow orders.”

  “Relax,” Guard #2 said. “I’m starving. Let’s just take a quick break and then go on patrol. No one will know the difference.”

  “Fine,” Guard #2 said and started walking toward a small room off to the side.

  Al
ix didn’t think following them now would get her anywhere, so she leaned against the wall and took in her surroundings again. It looked like there were in the foyer of an office. There were couches and chairs for people to wait in. There was even a lady behind a desk. She saw a few people coming and going, they were all Grynn.

  Before she could decide what to do she heard the squawking of the radio and someone yelling in French. The only word she could understand was ‘Ashley’. Grynn started running around everywhere. They must have discovered she was missing.

  Alix started to panic. How was she going to get out now? She heard a door bang and looked to her right. François stormed out of the door. He headed straight to the breakroom to the guards that had been guarding her. She’d never heard anyone yell so loud. He was furious at them for letting her escape. Of course, they had no idea what had happened but that wasn’t good enough for François. Then Alix heard sounds unlike any she’d ever heard before. The men were screaming so loud she had to cover her ears. Then it suddenly stopped. She was pretty sure that François had just killed them. She had to find a way out now.

  She looked around the room for the best way out. Once the alarm had been raised Grynn were now everywhere. She was afraid to move for fear of running into someone and giving herself away. She slowly moved along the wall to where the space was bigger. She figured if she kept to the wall no one would accidentally touch her.

  She saw what appeared to be a main door. If she could just get to that she could make it outside. Her heart was beating so fast that she had to take a few deep breaths to try and calm herself down. In order to get to the door, she was going to have to move away from the wall. She stopped to put her shoes on. There was so much noise around her she doubted if anyone would hear her walking.

  Alix fortified her cloak and tried to walk quickly but it was difficult with so many people moving around in unexpected directions. She managed to avoid two Grynn that just about ran into her, but she wasn’t so lucky with the third one. A large Grynn ran right into her sending her flying into one of the chairs knocking it over.