A Deadly Trip (Now Available on Amazon!) (Unedited Version)

Chapter 14

"Finding us a way out of here."

Everyone quickly followed after Archer as he started walking away from the elevator.

Before Dawn started to follow I grabbed her arm.

"Hey, don't mind him. He just gets upset when the whole subway incident is brought up."

Dawn nodded.

"I didn't mean to upset him. I just thought-"

"I know. It's fine, just give him time to cool off."

I gave her a reassuring smile and followed after Archer and the others.

***

It turned out this hotel's basement was a lot bigger than we originally thought.

After only a few turns I was pretty sure we had gotten lost.

It also didn't help that the basement was completely creepy.

The whole basement was outdated and didn't look like they had any intentions of fixing it any time soon.

The walls were painted white and peeling while the floor was made out of crumbling stone. The ceiling held dangling dim lamps and the smell... it smelled like must and old people down here.

We passed a few doors along the way but the longer we walked the more scarce they became until we were walking down bare hallways.

A few times we actually had to climb over small piles of stone where parts of the wall had either caved or been knocked down.

With all the money this hotel had to be making it didn't make much sense for them not to fix up their basement.

"Are we lost?" Becca asked glancing around nervously.

Ever since we left the elevator she kept glancing over her shoulder like she expected to find someone following us and it made me uneasy.

"No we're not lost, we're just momentarily confused about our location." Archer said as he made a left down another hallway.

"Sooo in other words, we're lost." I said looking around.

Archer huffed but said nothing and kept on walking.

After many more lefts and rights and walking down hallways that all looked exactly alike you wouldn't guess where we ended up.

Right back where we started.

As soon as we laid eyes on the elevator doors Dawn groaned and sunk to the floor.

"How are we going to get out of here?" She mumbled into her hands.

"Maybe we should try the elevator again." Becca suggested.

No one seemed to be anxious to try the elevator again so I started towards the elevator.

It was only when I was about to press the button that I noticed the piece of paper tapped to the doors.

I plucked the piece of paper off the door and read the words that had been written messily in red marker.

After reading the paper my heart was thumping harshly against my rib cage and my knees just sort of gave out and I fell to the floor.

"Gemma!"

I heard Archer's voice but it sounded far away in comparison to the blood rushing in my ears.

This couldn't be happening. Not again.

I felt hands gently cup my face before I was looking into Archer's green eyes.

"What's wrong?" Archer asked frantically searching my face.

I opened my mouth to reply but nothing came out, so instead I limply lifted my hand holding the piece of paper.

Archer took the paper from me and I stared blankly ahead as he read it.

"Shit!" Archer threw the paper down and pulled me into his arms.

"I'm not going to let anything happen to you. You're going to be fine. We're not going through this again."

"What's wrong?" Dawn had gotten up from her spot on the floor and walked over to us.

Archer glanced at the paper.

"See for yourself."

Dawn picked up the paper and read it out loud for everybody else to hear.

"You know what they say about payback. It's a bitch, so I hope you're ready to pay up. Are you ready for round 2?"

"What the hell is this?" Dawn demanded.

Cade rushed over and took the note from Dawn and read it himself like he had to make sure what Dawn had just read was true.

"Is this some kind of joke?" Cade asked as he read over the note a second time.

"It has to be. It's probably someone from our class or something."

I suddenly found my voice again and spoke up.

"You guys are asking all the wrong questions."

Everyone turned to look at me.

"What you should be asking is who wrote that note and how many of them are in on it because whoever wrote it... they're still down here with us."