Chapter One
This wasn't where she wanted to be. It wasn’t where she
ever wanted to be. The scent of lavender was overpowering. She swallowed as the
door before her was flung open by two guards. Ms. Foster stood with her hands
on her hips. It was the stance Marcia had seen her take on several occasions.
She was in trouble there was no doubt about that, but for what she wasn’t quite
sure.
“Ms.
Darden.” Ms. Foster stopped and just watched her for a long moment. Marcia
wouldn’t give in and met her eyes with pride. Suddenly Ms. Foster slapped her
hands on the table in front of her causing the whole room to jump. Lifting her
hand she rubbed her temples. “It has come to my attention that someone, has
been setting loose the hicklebee kids on underground level 23.”
Marcia
choked down a smile keeping her face neutral. “That’s horrible.”
Foster
watched her glaring, “I think we are coming close to figuring out who is doing
it. And when we catch who it is that will be getting caged for a month.” She
again stopped to watch her, finally saying, “Dismissed!”
She
left the room and made it to the end of the hall before she broke out into a
sprint. She took the stairs two at a time, climbing floor after floor. She
stopped on the top floor, catching her breath. She pushed into the hallway and
into one of the empty rooms. They had evacuated these floors years ago when the
dieses became airborne. They bored up the way out of the huge underground
building trapping everyone inside, but the dieses never made it inside.
Marcia
had long ago removed the boards and plastic from the small basement window. She
picked up the knife she had stolen from the cafeteria and continued her quest
of cutting the plaster away from the window.
The
door open and she froze afraid to make a sound. She slipped the knife down her
sleeve. “Think fast,” Gordan called snapping a flash of a camera around the
door. The knife was in her hand in seconds.
“Delete
it now!” She chucked the knife across the room sticking it in the door.
She glared at him as he entered
the room his hands up, the camera dangling from his wrist, “Fine. Fine. No need
to get testy.”
“You know I hate pictures.” She
crossed the room and grabbed the knife. Ignoring him she went back to chipping
at the plaster.
“So what did the ol’ bat want?
She didn’t ask about me did she?”
She rolled her eyes. “Gordan,
what would she ever want with you?”
He walked to her, leaning up
against the wall, “Well I am devilishly handsome. Whatever could she want
without me?”
“Whatever. She just wanted to
ask about the hicklebees we keep setting free. She says she’s getting close to
figuring out who’s doing it.”
“Are you almost done with that
window? I’m getting bored.”
She slipped the knife back in
her sleeve. “Here help me.” She dug her manicured nails under the bottom left
edge and he grabbed the right edge and the handle. The window didn’t budge.
With an angry sigh she slid down the wall and sat. “We’re never going to get
out of her are we?”
“Maybe it’s for the best. The
dieses could still be out there. And I’m too beautiful to die.”
She looked over at him, “There’s
no way the dieses could still be alive out there. It’s been ten years. If
everyone out there died the virus would also have died and if there’s still
people out there, then they must have come up with a cure.” She pushed her
blonde curl out of her face, showing her pointed ears.
