To Be A Leader

Chapter 33: My Little Runaway

My head pounds. My world is still dark as the sounds of cutlery clinks against glass, and idle, unrecognizable chatter fills me ears. I hear jazz music.

I blink several times, but my world remains dark, empty.

Where am I?

"You know that thing, Five, where you've woken up in bed with your eyes closed, warm and snug, and you have this feeling that not everything is right, but you can't quite remember why? So you want to keep your eyes closed for just a moment longer because when you open them, it's all going to come back to you?" Moonchild asks in the darkness, her voice echiong in my mind as she remains unseen.

I feel softness on my cheek, like a fantom feeling, and I realize she's using my mind to make it seem like she's brushing my cheek. "I'm very sorry. It's all about to come back to you. Five, four, three, two, one."

A scream reaches my ears, following by a zombie growl. A gunshot sounds out, the splatter of blood on the wall, the thud of a body hitting the floor.

"This is taking a very long time," Someone says, and I try to move. My world stays dark, my arms won't budge, the feeling of coarse rope rubbing harshly against my skin.

"We're in this together, Five," Moonchild says, her voice firm but soothing. "Here's what happened: you passed out, and I was in charge of your body for a bit. Sigrid couldn't tell. It was all quite confusing.

"You're tied to a chair. That's not great. You're blindfolded, which is tricky because neither of us can see now, but I took over your eyes when you passed out, so I've seen a bit more than you have. They took your headset, but I grabbed your minutature earpiece from your backpack and dropped it before they took that away from us. Your earpiece is under your right foot. If you reach down slowly, you should be able to touch it, but don't do that yet!"

"For my demonstration to be effective, we'll have to wait," Sigrid says. "Princip and I both ate zombie infected food. I survived. Princip had to be shot. But you might think the virus in my food was a fake. As a second demonstration, you have all seen me inject both Runner Five and my underling with zombie virus with a syringe. My underling will be fine. Runner Five will not."

Every muscle in my body tenses.

No.

No! No! No!

"Oh, yeah. She's infected you with zombie virus. I guess I should have started out with that. But there is a possibility you're immune to it because of what Van Ark did to you... I mean, you are immune to every other way to die. Maybe the zombie virus will not be able to hurt you either."

I don't like how unsure she sounds as she says that.

Suddenly I hear a door swing open.

"Ooh, Minister!" Valmont says, his words  slurring together. "Minister! Minister, am I late for the party? Have you drunk all the champagne? I'm sorry. I was detained with two Swedish... well, needn't go into the details. But... oh. What are you doing here? Saucy fun with the ropes."

"Sit down, Mr. Valmont," Sigrid hisses.

"Oh my God. Is that Runner Five?"

I know exactly why Valmont's doing this. A distraction. I reach down and grab my earpiece, cursing internally as the chair creaks. It's a soft sound, but so loud to my ears. It takes some maneuvering to get the earpiece in, but I manage.

"Five!" Sam yells. "I'm managed to hack into one of the cams into that room. You're going to be okay. Amelia's helping."

"Under duress," Amelia grumbles.