Refinement: A War of Europe

Chapter Fourty-Eight: West: Revenge

Eloise~ West (England)

Large stone walls towered above us as we were lead into the depths of the Base. My arm burned where the artificially-red haired girl clasped my arm. She looked straight ahead, undeterred by my starings. Grayson inched up beside me, and I could see that his forehead was bleeding. Our footsteps were a wimper that echoed in that large chamber. The hallway was lined with fading torches, that only illuminated our path enough to see where our feet stood. I could feel Lex breathing heavely beside me, each breath catching at the end. Blood seeped through his grey clothing at his ribcage. We were stripped of everything except our vest. We still had the hidden knife, and the bomb.

The hallway suddenly yawned into a large, round room that was lined with iron bars. The soldier escorting me took a sharp left, and scanned her hand on a silver slab, which blinked bright green as the bars slid open. Carelessly, she threw me behind the bars. My body slammed hard against the cement wall. The width of the prison was just large enough to hold two prisoners side by side, but it stretch along the whole room. It smelled like severed flesh and dried blood. I slid down the concrete wall, and sat, my knees pulled to my chest. Grayson who hit the wall beside me, looked down, and started yelling frantically.

"I NEED TO SEE ANYA. I NEED TO SEE HER. SEND ME ANYA. PLEASE," He was very convincing. He was slung his body against the bars. "I NEED TO SEE HER I NEED TO SEE HER I NEED TO SEE HER." HIs voice echoed through the cavernous room.

"Shut the heck up, will you?" Saphire almost screamed. Startled, I snapped my head toward her. She clutched her stomach, and her eyes were squeezed shut. I rushed over to her.

"What happened?!" She laughed, but the laugh was slow, slurred.

"Some idiot soldier had a shaky aim." I let out a gasp that is shakier than it should be. Blood pools around her rapidly. Arielle glances at me, her eyes large and filled with tears.

"Saphire, everything is going to be okay. We will get help." She looked past Arielle, knowing what she said not to be true, and stared at me with a long, steady, and agry gaze.

"You are so much like your dad you annoy me." Saphire let out a struggled sigh.

"What do you mean?" The last word in my sentence is severed by oncoming tears.

"I can't hate you. Your dad, when he took me in, I couldn't hate him either," She takes short breaths between each word, "You need to take revenge on- him. The man who killed him." The concrete bit into my knees as I fell onto the ground beside her. The air was thick, and I suddenly felt my lungs tense together as if I were about to break down and stop working that instant. She knew that I wouldn't stop for anything to kill the people who took my dad from me. What she didn't know was that I had a list of people that I was going to avenge.

And her name was being scribbled onto that list that instant.

"Saphire," Lex whispered, "I am so sorry, I was right beside the guy who shot, and-"

"Oh, shut up, teddy bear. It wasn't your fault," Her eyes softened as she glanced to and from Arielle and Lex, "Be good to eachother- I, he, we wanted it to work out." Saphire's blue eyes now hold mine in a steady gaze. I knew immediately that she was talking about Carlton, and that I was to tell him what happened, and that she-

"I loved him." I watched as her features hardened, and her eyes still. The blood stopped running, and my heart stopped beating. I gnashed my teeth together because Saphire had been through thick and thin with me. Though we did not enjoy each other's company, there was always this unspoken respect that neither of us had the audacity to utter. Now, she was dead. She was dead, and my heart burned with only the anger that could come with such a desire to shoot the author of this fake war in the throat. I stand, and walk as far away from Saphire's body as I could. I felt Grayson's eyes follow me, but he stood his ground. Knowing that he could not help me, and I did not want my time wasted. Arielle started to weep loudly into Lex's shoulder, and I desperately wanted to join her, but I was to be strong. Because they expected me to be.