Freezing Wings

Chapter 10

All eyes turned to me and I took a step back, not expecting them to pay attention to me. I took a deep breath and steeled my nerves, spitting out my thoughts.

"When I broke out of my cage that one time, I was able to find the exit, and I was almost able to leave, but I got captured first..."

Lucas looked at me, incredulous. "Why didn't you tell us earlier?"

I hung my head slightly, not meeting his gaze, and half-mumbled my answer under my breath.

He leaned down, his ear perking up, "What?"

I smacked down the butterflies in my stomach and look up, staring him directly in the eye, "Because I failed. I got all the way until I could see the sun, and I was taken down."

The crowd was watching our exchange like hawks, the dust still falling like rain. A chunk of ceiling fell and I had to jump out of it's way as to not get hit.

Sarah stepped forward, interrupting our little moment, "We don't have enough to time to chit-chat. Sherlock, where did you go to find it?"

I felt my stomach tightened slightly at my nickname - I hadn't heard it in months. I recited the directions that I knew by heart, memorized after hours of mulling over them. I had them all the way to how many steps you had to take to get there.

The looked at me, their faces getting progressively more surprised as I prattled it off, stunned at the fact that I knew it as well as I did. It took me a good five minutes to say it all, I knew it that well.

After I was done the only sound was the trembling of the earth and shifting of rock. I swatted down the butterflies that respawned in my gut and walked forward, leaving Lucas' side.

The crowd parted for me and created an aisle for me to walk down, like a scene out of a cheap movie. I practically ran forward, flinching away from the attention. I'd never liked being the center of attention, but now was not the time to be shy.

I walked to the front and pointed forward, "Just go forward about two hundred feet and you'll meet a dead end, turn right and take the first left, hang another left and then the second right, you'll come to an intersection, I'll say where to go after that," I looked back, "If we stay here any longer we'll get buried alive. We seriously need to get moving, so come on."

They all looked at me for a moment before a collective shrug rippled through our ranks. One of the males in the back muttered, "We might as well, there aren't really any other options."

I started off, trotting forward. My body didn't really want to concede with my demands but I tried to ignore the burn. I began to regret my lack of a diet. 'I really need to work out and eat something... being made of bones isn't really going to help anybody.'