Jeffie and The Lonely Boys (boyxboy)

Chapter 9: Seeing is deceiving

----------Next chapter may or may not be the last =)----------

~Jeffie's POV~ 

I crept along the hallway, my tongue poking out of the corner of my mouth in concentration. I had the feeling Maddox knew exactly what I was doing and where I was, but I couldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. If the door is open, I am going out of that shit.

The palace didn't have marble floors like I expected, but carpet throughout instead. The design was actually quite random, but I guess that made sense since he decorated it when he was a kid. Some of it was obviously done as he got older, but the palace was so huge he couldn't have gotten to every corner and remodeled every inch. 

In one hallway, flames decorated the walls so realistically, that even though I felt no heat coming off of them, I had to cautiously touch it to make sure they weren't real.

Then, in the next hall, the carpet was a royal blue shade, the walls looking like galaxies. That hallway was my favorite; I felt like I was walking through space and time. 

Eventually I got tired, and a bit more panicky than I had been before. The rooms and halls seemed endless, and the more I walked the more I felt I would never get out of there. I started to run, and the walls beside me became a blur of colors, indistinguishable. 

I stopped when I ran out  of breath, leaning forward and resting my hands on my knees. "Let me out!" I shouted, to anyone and no one. 

I heard a ghostly laugh, and shivered as Maddox's voice echoed around me. 

"I could make you run forever, you know." He said. I grit my teeth. 

"You selfish bastard," I said. "You can't keep me here forever. They'll find me." Even as I said this, I had little confidence in my words. I knew very well if he didn't want them to find this palace, they wouldn't. 

Maddox chuckled, but said nothing else. After hearing nothing for a while and not seeing him anywhere, I leaned against a satin soft wall and slid down it, my head in my hands. How the hell am I gonna get out of here? 

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~Elijah's POV~ 

Lance was going nuts with worry. While we climbed the trees, he kept mumbling to himself, but when any of us cast him a worried look he smiled and tried to make it seem like everything was okay. We all knew better, though. 

To be honest, we were all pretty worried about Jeffie. I could tell we were all feeling similar things. From the moment we arrived here, we had all pretty much deduced there was more to it than a random kidnapping of six guys. 

I felt like I knew all of them. It was an odd sense of deja vu whenever I looked at any of them, I mean really looked. There was something there that none of us could quite put our fingers on. But I suspected that Jeffie had somehow managed to put his finger on it, and was now paying the price for it somewhere. 

I managed to get to the top of one of the trees, and sighed in relief. Breathing heavily, I looked around me. The tops of trees went so far, they almost became a blur. Birds of all types flew about the sky, and the breeze felt nice after such hard work. 

"Haha! It's beautiful up here! You guys are missing out!" Elliot said, whooping. Keaton and Felix stayed below, to keep watch from down there. 

"Pay attention you idiot." I scolded, and he pouted back. Knowing him, he would spread his arms wide like he was on the Titanic and fall to his death. 

I focused back on the scenery, when I heard Lance gasp beside me. 

"What is it?" I asked. He was staring intently off in the distance. 

"Something over there...it shimmered. Like, when the image on the TV screen flickers, just for a moment." He pointed, and I looked in that direction and sure enough-a slight flicker. Just to be seen if you were really looking, and boy was I. 

"Do you think..." Elliot started, "Do you think we should head for it? What do you think it is?" 

 "Just wait." I said, focusing on the spot. It shimmered again, and I could swear I caught a glimpse of some sort of palace! 

"There! Did you see that?" I exclaimed, pointing. 

"Yes, it looked like the friggin' Taj Mahal!" Lance said, his eyes wide. 

"That's got to be like, headquarters for this place or something! Do you think we can get there?" Elliot asked, staring at the spot where we had seen it intensely. 

"I don't know. But we have to try," I said, determined. 

"It's a rough guess, but i'd say it looked to be about a mile away from here. We should be able to get there fairly quickly, but the problem is keeping a pinpoint on exactly where it is," Lance pointed out, his intense gaze still fixed on the spot he saw the palace.

"You can say that again. It looks like it's flickering in and out of existence like my social life," Elliot said, squinting. 

I rolled my eyes. "While I agree, you're still an idiot," I replied to my twin, who again pouted at me. "I think we can get there, seeing as we have the general direction. It's straining to see, but it is there. Which means we'll run into it-literally-at some point, even if we can only see glimpses of it." 

Lance finally looked away to beam a hopeful grin at me. "That's what I wanted to hear. Now, let's get out of these stupid ass trees and go save Jeffie!" He said with a fist pump and began climbing back down the tree at alarming speeds. 

"Yeah, huzzah and all that, but please go back down carefu-Elliot! You too, go slowly!" I called out at them, sighing as I followed suit at a safer pace. 

I had no idea if that place was actually where Jeffie was taken, but it would be idiotic to ignore something that large and out of place right before your eyes. Seeing as my name is Elijah and not Elliot, i'm opting to be smart and not ignore it. 

But I had a feeling that while I thought that's exactly where we should be going, I also felt like it was the last place any of us should be. 

With conflicting feelings and a furrowed brow, I followed the others in the direction of the palace. 

----------I AM SO SORRY I HAVEN'T UPDATED THIS IN 80 YEARS SOMEONE FLOG ME FOR MY INSUBORDINATE BEHAVIOR----------