Unworldly (Completed 2016 version)

Chapter 18

A great banging, thudding, and yelling with an abrupt, simultaneous stopping of music made my heart skip in dread. The reek of confusion and alarm gassed out the main room and drifted into the equipment room under the crack in the door.

This is it.

The deafening, heavy silence of doom looming over me suddenly became apparent, and I fully let myself realize what I was in for. My heartbeat picked up its pace, and my palms got sweaty. I was as close to scared as I could get.

Teresa's eyes darted around, scared. "Is that..." she trailed off.

"Yeah. It's them, 9.3 seconds early." I gulped, my mouth dry, and I turned towards the door. As soon as I opened it, my freedom would be gone...and I wasn't looking forward to that.

This is ridiculous. The Morzloan King, afraid of some humans? I can fell armies with the wave of my arm.

Well, they fight dirty, I reminded myself.

I reached behind me and briefly touched Teresa's bare arm, sending her a telepathic message. I could sense her mood change as she read it through.

"But..." she started, "...what are they going to do to you?"

"Questioning...and etcetera," I replied vaguely.

I took a few shaky steps towards the door. I had to open it. I had to go through. I had to surrender. Or they'll back-stab me just like last time.

I could telepathically sense what the voices were saying, no matter how loud they said it.

"It's supposed to be here, where is it?"

"Hiding?"

"It knows better than that." So I was still an 'it.'

Then there was a voice that met mine and Teresa's ears, louder than the others. Angry and vengeful, his title was discernable from his tone.

"Where is it?!"

"We don't know sir, we're looking for it, but..."

"Then look harder!" the man in charge boomed, fully audible from inside the equipment room. "Search every face in this building until you find a pair of gray eyes and head of white hair!" I took a deep breath. 

The teenagers in the room were terrified. Never before could they have guessed a SWAT team would descend on the school hangout. 

Many students began putting two and two together even if they hadn't heard the angry man yelling, and realized they must be looking for me. Their extreme show of force was almost enough to make some of them believe in superpowers.

A few kids hid behind the bleachers — they were yanked out forcefully and triple-checked. A few fled towards the exit in a panic attack — they got tasered and collapsed on the spot. Every teen who reached for their phones to call their parents or someone who could possibly help got their phone smacked out of their hand and collected in a bin. So they do still fight dirty...

Then I heard that angry voice again. "Alpha!" he bellowed, "Give it up! Where are you?!"

The sound of my name being shouted so loudly by that human made my stomach twist. I was stalling, standing in silence in the janitor's equipment room, just behind the door, leaning against it...admittedly shaking like a leaf. 

The longer I waited, the worse things got; the harder it was for me to put my trembling hand on that doorknob...my hands almost too jittery to bend something as precise as a lock right then.