Storm

Chapter Seventy-One

The moss-covered brick was slippery to the touch.

My fingers slipped off as I tried to grab onto the ledge again. Nope.

Emma stood behind me, arms crossed and head cocked. She stared at my fruitless attempts to get up the side of the building.

"Dude, this feels dumb," she blurted out.

I aggressively rubbed my palms against my cotton pants, panting from exertion. Emma couldn't be right.

I dug my nails deep into the moss and tried pulling myself up again. My muscles shook, and my fingers ached in their tight hold. My breath came out in a heavy gasp as I exerted force with my arm muscles, and yet...

I dropped back to the grass. A light drizzle of rain pattered around the two of us, the drops sticking to my frizzy hair.

"Why are we doing this again?" Emma inquired. She took a solemn step up to the dirty wall and placed her palm in the moss. Her hand came away soaked in water. "I don't think this is going to work."

I kicked the wall a bit pointlessly and my boot bounced back. A bit of dirt showered down into the grass.

"I just need to get inside, okay?" I responded. I clenched my fists.

We had already jumped the fence to the judicial building and were standing on one of the smaller ledges at the edge of the place. When I'd  asked Emma why they didn't have more security, she had just shrugged and said that nobody had really tried. It wasn't looking too good for me, though. Why have so little security if you were holding actual prisoners here?

I was still going to try getting in. I needed to be absolutely certain.

"Maybe we should try going around or something?" Emma suggested, peeking around the edge of the ledge. It wrapped around behind the building where ivy climbed up the side of the building and piled at the top.

The light drizzle picked up, plastering my red hair to my pale skin. I tried to grab the moss covered edge one last time. My hand easily slipped off.

"Fine," I relented. "Follow me." A fence bordered the back ledge of the building. I gripped it with my dirty fingers as Emma folowed at my heels. Her dark hair had been tied back in a wet ponytail.

The ground was covered in even more moss here. My sneakers had trouble getting a grip as I balanced with the help of the metal fence and the dark wall to the right of me.

Everything on this side of the building looked nearly identical to the side of the building except...

Was that...?

I hurried my pace. My steps were reckless as I pushed along the fence. The metal rattled with each new grip. Emma frantically copied me.

"Woah, why are we going so fast?" Emma complained. "Can you slow down?!"

"Shh!" I whispered. Emma had pointed out there weren't many guards, but that didn't mean the few that were there couldn't hear us.

A few feet later, I stopped in front of the miraculous object in front of me: a window.

"Oh," Emma muttered as she caught up. Before I could stop her, Emma smashed her boot into the glass. It shattered all over the floor below it. The window pane thumped to the concrete ten feet below. "Whoops."

I sent her a sharp glare. Too late now. We would need to hurry, though. Thankfully, the night remained quiet. No red lights and blaring alarms like I was used to seeing in movies.

Two large shelves bordered the opening inside of the room. A large desk sat in the middle with books strewn around it. The room looked eerily familiar - was it the same as the one I'd been brought to when I'd nearly lost my body the first time?