Just Tourists ✔️

Chapter 12

"We need to lose the shoes," Mac said her voice firm and to be honest somewhat intimidating. The first time I met her she was barely able to introduce herself without hiding behind the book she had been reading. Now a few hours later she was instructing us on how to escape from some guys who just tried to kill us as we crawled through a ventilation system.

I'm telling you theres nothing like a near death experience that brings teenage spies together. Easiest way to make friends, guaranteed.

"They're way too loud," Mac reasoned and we both nodded our heads as we stopped to untie our shoes.

"We can toss them into the opposite direction," Lavender suggested pointing to a fork in the ventilation system. We knew for sure neither of the guys could make it into the ventilation system but the woman was small enough to fit. If she came after us this would throw her off our trail.

We tossed our shoes into that side of the ventilation system and kept crawling.

"If someone turns on the A/C we could freeze up here," Lavender muttered coming into realization.

"We won't be in here that long plus the embassy is under attack at the moment. I doubt the first thing on their minds right now is to turn on the A/C and get a nice breeze going for the intruders," I pointed out.

"The ventilation system will be reaching an end in a few feet. We're going to land directly above the boy's bathroom," Mac said and Lavender stopped dead in her tracks.

"The boys bathroom??" she whispered.

"Yes I believe thats what I said. It's not like anyone will be there. After that we need to exit the dorm area altogether and make our way to the study where the secret door is that leads to the bunkers," Mac explained.

"Why was I not informed of this secret door?? Cafeteria yes, a library of course, dorms sure, but a life saving bunker that apparently all students need to go to in case of an emergency hmm no I don't believe that was on my tour!" I whisper yelled in frustration.

"Shh who knows who might hear you," Lavender reminded me and I shut my mouth. I will be sending a lengthy letter of complaint to the embassy later. Once we get out of this dilemma of course.

"Alright Charlee, do you have that screw driver?" Mac asked once we reached the end of the ventilation system.

"Yeah but how are you supposed to unscrew it from the inside?" I asked her as I handed it to her confused.

"Damn thats true," Mac muttered. We remained in silent for a few seconds before Mac shrugged her shoulders and kicked the end of the ventilation system with so much force that she fell backwards and the metal trap door of the ventilation system went flying down with a loud splash into the toilet.

"Well that took a shitty turn for the worse," I quietly laughed at my own pun but then shut up when Lavender glared at me. OK not the time for jokes.

We carefully made our way down and just as we'd hoped the bathroom was empty. Guys are usually clueless but I'm pretty sure even they heard the sirens go off and made their way safely to the bunkers instead of stopping by the bathroom to take a whiz...

"Alright so the study then?" I asked once we were all on the ground.

"Well there are different rooms that lead to the bunker room. We might go through somewhere else because the study is pretty far and we have no idea where these people might be lurking. There could be more of them in the embassy," Mac shook her head.

"Ok then where to?" Lavender asked.

"There's a book shelf just at the bottom of the staircase, there's a door behind that," Mac said. I nodded my head even though I felt nervous about leaving the familiarity of the dorms section.

Things were harder this time since we'd lost our flash light when we got captured and thrown into the bathroom. We linked arms and Mac felt her way down the hall of the boys dorm by running her hand on the wall.

"The book shelf should be on the right side," Mac informed us and Lavender nodded her head leaning towards the right so she could feel the book shelf.

"Ok, how do we open it?" Lavender whispered.

"You have to pull out the fifth volume of the encyclopedia, Hamlet by Shakespeare, and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen," Mac instructed.

"I can't see anything though," Lavender complained. Even though our eyes were getting adjusted to the darkness it was hard to make out which book was which.

"Count five books down in the middle shelf, that should be the encyclopedia. Then on the first shelf-" Mac stopped abruptly when all the lights suddenly came back on.

"Do you think its safe now?" Lavender whispered unsure. As if to answer her question a figure dressed in all black began running down the stairs coming from the dorm.

"NOPE OPEN THE FREAKING BOOK SHELF DAMMIT!" I urged Lavender and she was able to pull all the books out causing the library door to slide open.

"Get in," Mac pulled us both through the dark opening. She closed it shut causing the books to go back in place just as the guy was about to get to us.

"So this is the bunker huh?" I asked looking around in the darkness.

"Yeah," Mac responded.

"Lovely," I said as we continued to walk.

"Up ahead is a padlocked door, technically thats where the bunkers begin," she explained as we carefully made out way down several flights of stairs until we reached the padlocked metal door. Mac entered a combination (another thing my tour didnt include).

Inside were all the students sitting on simple green bunk beds. There were numbers above the bunk beds and I realized that they were the numbers to our rooms. The students were chatting nervously amongst each other and I noticed that there were no adults around.

"Thats our bunk," Lavender pointed to the far end of the wall. I noticed next to the bunk was a smile credit card like ID tag with our picture on it.

"You have to slide it on the side of the bunk bed. Its to keep count of who made it safely and when they arrived," I heard a familiar voice explain and I turned around to see Akio.

"You're ok!" I hugged him lightly happy to see my friend made it safe. He hugged me back and then proceeded to hug Lavender as well.

"Are the other girls ok?" I asked Akio as I did what he instructed. I slid the card on a tiny machine next to the bed and it beeped flashing a green color.

"Yeah I've seen all of them," Akio confirmed and I sighed in relief. I sat up on my bed and then realized Bianca was already asleep in the one across from me. She didn't look at all guilty for leaving us behind.

Akio stayed to talk a while as more students piled into the bunker from different sides. I was just beginning to drift off to sleep when Akio frantically tapped my shoulder.

"Ladies and gentlemen, now that you have all officially arrived we can continue," a booming voice announced and I sat up in fear when I saw that the lady who had captured us was standing in the middle of the bunker room with a slight smirk.

~~~

Thoughts??

Also if you had some trouble picturing the bunker, I posted a picture of the bunkers from Mockingjay which is kind of how I pictured them :)

~Lorna~