The alarm I set on my phone went off quietly the next morning and I quickly turned it off so I wouldn’t wake up Sam and Natalie, both were still fast asleep. Stretching out my various aches and pains from my adventure through the dumbwaiter shaft, I climbed slowly out of bed and went into the bathroom to take a quick shower; some of this dust was starting to irritate my skin.
While I used the hotel soap to scrub my skin raw I started thinking; the door to my room was still locked so there was no way I would be able to get in from there. I mean I could probably go downstairs and ask the person at the front desk for another room key but if he tells Ms. Robin that I needed another one and was out at this time in the morning; well it was probably more likely of me winning the most popular student award at school.
I stepped out of the shower drying off and slipping back into Sam’s nightgown when I suddenly remembered something. Right before we started playing truth or dare, Ashley opened up our window a little bit because it was too stuffy in the room. The chances are even if she shut the window before they went to bed she probably forgot to lock it back up.
Quick walking to the window in this room I opened it up slowly and stuck my head out looking down. We were about four stories high so the people walking around on the sidewalks looked like ants. Ripping my gaze away from that I stared down at the wall looking for any good hand holds; luck must have been on my side because the building design created bricks that stuck out a good few inches from the wall.
Opening the window wider I crawled up on the ledge then slowly lowered myself until my feet hit the bricks that were sticking out. Lowering my hands to the edge of the ledge I took another slow step down making sure the bricks would hold my weight before I decided to move down further. As I slowly scaled the side of the building I thanked any god who was listening that it wasn’t even dawn yet; there were less people around to see me and even the ones awake couldn’t possible see me in the dim light.
When I reached the third floor windows I paused when I realized I didn’t know which one was mine. “Tricky, tricky, tricky,” I muttered under my breath before I started peeking into windows to try and see if I could find my room. The first window belonged to an old couple, the second was this punk rock guy who was fast asleep at the kitchen table surrounded by beer cans, then the third window showed me a couple making out; I quickly moved on before that heated up any faster.
After two more dunce windows I finally saw Crystal’s blonde head underneath the bed sheets; and the window was still open a little. Jamming my fingers between the window and ledge, I slowly opened it up making sure I wouldn’t make any noise. After a minute there was a gap big enough for me to squeeze through; I did and then slowly shut the window behind me making it look like I never came in that way. Once my tracks were covered I went over to my bag to find some clothes for the day to get changed in to.
Even in the middle of the woods two hours later, the prep squad was still staring at me like I was some sort of monster. Let’s just say that I couldn’t help but cover myself in ketchup and lay half in the doorway when I saw them waking up; the results were absolutely hilarious. I managed to get Vanessa to drop away in a dead faint for ten minutes.
Nick squeezed my hand back into reality and I tried vainly to listen to Ms. Robin explain different plants and animals. The animal facts I found interesting but I already knew everything about plants thanks to my assassin training, so in case I’m ever dying in the middle of the woods I knew which plants would help me and which could kill me in under a minute.
We must have been about a mile or two into these woods already; I’m surprised that Crystal wasn’t complaining too much yet. I mean she was wearing freaking heels, in the middle of the woods, and kept tripping over every single stray blade of grass. As I kept watching her I had to smile when I saw her stumble for the thousandth time in the past hour; she glared up at me before stomping towards the front of the group closer to the teacher.
A half hour later I was looking at some pine trees considering taking my sketchbook out of my backpack when there was a twig snap a few yards into the woods off of the path. Pausing, I took a small step forward and saw a black shadow dart behind a tree. I glanced back over my shoulder at the group and saw that no one was watching me; making a quick decision I walked deeper into the woods looking around for the shadow. I mean maybe if I bring back a runaway student to Ms. Robin she’ll let me out of that room tonight.
Fifteen yards in I called, “If anyone is out here they better get back to the group before Ms. Robin finds out and has both of our heads, and if I have to drag you back to the group myself two of us are going to be very unhappy.” There was a creak ahead of me; common sense told me that this probably wasn’t someone from our group, but if there was a strange guy wandering the forest while my friends were in here, that is so not going to go over well with me.
The sounds of a person running sounded as they started getting further and further away; well I didn’t have any weapons on me at the moment but I’m pretty good without them. With one last glance over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t being followed I started silently chasing the figure deeper into the woods. Leaves were whacking me in the face and arms but I paid them no heed as I followed the footsteps.
I finally came to a stop at the edge of a creek that gurgled along over rocks happily. The quietness literally was pressing in around me as I scanned the area surrounding myself. I was just letting the tension leave my shoulders when there was a small step from behind me; without a second thought I whirled around about to throw a punch when I saw I recognized the face.
Dropping my arm to my side I snarled, “Why the hell are you out here?” The new boy from about two weeks ago stared back at me; he was actually full out glaring at me.
He crossed his arms over his chest and stated, “Well I could ask you the exact same question here huh Josey?” Okay, so he knew my name, and obviously didn’t trust me for some reason, this doesn’t seem suspicious in my mind at all.
I mirrored his stance and the two of us stood there glaring at each other when I finally remembered that his name was Jason; Sam mentioned it a few days ago. This information didn’t really help me at all but I felt a little better that I knew something about Mr. Dark and Mysterious. Because he was literally dressed in a black shirt, jeans, and shoes with black hair; it was like he was going for some Goth look but was defiantly not Goth.
There was a quick flash right behind Jason and I launched myself against him pushing him to the ground right when a knife flew over us. Even if he hated me and didn’t trust me for some reason I couldn’t just let him die. He gave a surprised shout and I pulled him away from the spot and behind a tree right when another knife pierced the ground where we just were. “What the hell is going on,” he whispered as we peered around the tree looking for the person who was trying to kill us.
“I don’t understand why you expect me to know why I nearly just died to save your freaking life,” I hissed at him staring at the far trees. He muttered angrily under his breath right when a knife came flying at our tree and grazed the trunk right next to my fingers. I gave a startled yelp picking up the knife at my shoe, it was just any old knife, and no poison that I could see, the edge was super sharp though, so somebody was really trying to hurt us.
While I was examining the knife I heard a sharp intake of breath behind me from Jason; glancing up I quickly pushed us back as no less than ten knives came flying at my face. “Shit, someone is dead set on scarring my precious face,” I muttered pushing Jason deeper in the woods; we both started running when there was a snapping sound right behind us.
I spun around quickly when there was a sharp pain in the back of my leg; looking down I saw a gash on my leg with a knife right next to my foot. Ignoring the pain I grabbed Jason’s arm and kept tugging him along with me. After a good ten minutes of running we stopped breathless in a small clearing; I ripped a few leaves from a tree to stench my bleeding leg with.
Suddenly a loud sound filled the air, Jason and I fell to the ground covering our heads until I realized that it was my phone. Fishing it out of my pocket I saw it was my organization; what the hell could they need at one in the afternoon? Clicking the green button I said, “Agent thirty-nine reporting.”
“Agent, your target has been spotted in the surrounding area, have you sighted anything strange,” a women asked me and I laughed hollowly.
“Well there’s the random knives being thrown at me but besides that nothing has really happened too much.”
There was an angered sound at my sarcasm until she managed to say without cursing me out, “Well make sure that no one else is within range of these attacks. We cannot have to clean up any more casualties than we need to so try to get to the bottom of this without getting anyone else hurt.” Before I could flip some serious shit there was a click as the line was disconnected and I cursed quietly at my phone.
Jason just looked at me with a blank expression before looking back into the trees trying to find the person; who just apparently happened to be my target. Damn, I probably picked the worst day to not have any of my weapons on me, all I had was my sketchbook and a few pencils, I doubt I could kill someone fast enough with my dull number two pencil.
Checking my leg quickly I faced Jason thinking for a minute then said, “You should just run, he won’t come after you, trust me.” Jason just gave me this look and didn’t even respond besides that. Narrowing my eyes angrily I stated, “Really Jason, get back to the freaking group before they start freaking out.” This time he really did fully ignore me and continue his visual scan of the surrounding area.
I was about to kick him in his pretty face when another knife came at the two of us. With shouts we both launched ourselves to opposite sides before hiding in the trees. I started running away from Jason hoping he would finally just go back to the stupid group and maybe tell Ms. Robin that I would be back momentarily after I don’t die.
No more knives came at me as I stopped by the creek again and just stood there waiting. Minutes passed and nothing happened so I bent down to take the leaves off of my leg and saw that the bleeding had stopped although the sight wasn’t too pretty. After a few more moments passed without any incidents I started slowly walking back towards the path that I knew my fellow peers were following. My back was to the woods where a moment ago knives were hurtling at me, but I somehow knew that my danger was gone for the moment and wasn’t going to attack.
I found the trail then had to follow it for another twenty minutes until I spotted Ms. Robin walking ahead of me. Stepping behind a tree I waited until she was at the head of the group again before I quietly slipped in the back of it; no one even glanced twice at me. I was feeling pretty good about myself until a hand grabbed my arm and I turned to see Nick’s livid face. Leaning down he whispered, “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been looking for you for the past forty minutes; I thought you got killed by some maniac in the woods.” I’ll give him some credit; he wasn’t that far off with that statement.
Feeling the pain in my leg I just said lightly, “Oh I saw something in the woods and checked it out, sadly it wasn’t too interesting.” Which wasn’t a lie, I should get some credit here too fro not lying to him about what just happened. Looking ahead of us I saw the back of Jason’s head as he walked with the rest of the students looking around himself with his shoulders hunched as if he expected to be attacked out here. Well nice to see that he managed to make it back alive and in one piece.
Nick squeezed my hand protectively as we continued walking, I wasn’t listening to Ms. Robin though anymore, I was wondering what the hell was up with Jason. If there was anyone in his place they would have freaked out and started asking a thousand questions, all he did was run away with me, almost like he knew what was happening.
We finally got back to the hotel that night and I wasn’t too surprised when I found my door locked. Knocking on the door I called, “Crystal if you don’t let me in I am seriously going to throw you out the window.” No one answered me so I continued knocking; with my head.
I was just starting to get dizzy from repeatedly hitting my head when the door quickly opened and I stumbled into the room before catching myself. Vanessa stared down at me with my suit case in her hands, “Here I packed your stuff and hid it last night before Crystal and Ashley could go through it. You might as well go stay with your friends tonight because they were talking about shaving your head when you fell asleep.”
Taking my bags from Vanessa I asked, “And why are you being nice to me? If there’s a bomb in my bag I think I may have to sue you, no offense.”
A smile flashed across her face and she said, “Trust me I’m not the one that wants to kill you. And this is my thanks for standing up for me during the truth or dare game last night, so thanks.” I nodded at her and then trudged up to Sam and Natalie’s room lightly knocking on the door.
Natalie opened up the door and asked, “I’m guessing you decided to stay here again tonight?” I walked into the room and set my bag down next to the bed I slept in last night just as Sam walked out of the bathroom, her hair wet from a shower.
The three of us sat down at the kitchen table and I said, “Well apparently Crystal was planning on shaving my head tonight when I fell asleep, now I’m pretty sure I can pull off the bald look pretty well but I don’t know how Nick would react to that.”
We laughed at the mental image of me bald when Sam asked, “So Natalie, how are you and Dylan doing?”
A happy smile flew across the burnet’s face and she said, “Really good, he’s just so sweet to me and loves helping me out on projects. He even wore a skirt for me while I tailored it.” Sam and I busted up laughing and collapsed onto our arms struggling to breathe. Giggling Natalie said, “Yeah, please don’t tell anyone about that because I wasn’t supposed to mention it to anyone.” Sam and I both promised before it got quiet and Natalie asked Sam, “Soooo, how’s Timmy?”
“Oh he’s fine,” Sam said dreamily, when Natalie and I prodded for more she said, “Oh well the day before we left for this hell hole he kissed me on the cheek, it was so sweet.” I gave her a wolf whistle and laughing she smacked me on the shoulder. “Yeah, and it’s fun to go around taking pictures with him while he films things, it’s like we were meant to be together. He hasn’t worn a skirt for me though, I should ask him sometime,” she mused and we all laughed again.
Facing me Sam asked, “So Josey, please explain to me how you and Nick are such a perfect couple together? Like how did you even forgive him for that whole Crystal issue?” I stopped to think about that, how did I forgive Nick for all of that. A mental image of Nick flashed in my mind. His warm smile that he only had when he looked down at me, the way he always tried to protect me from everything, how he stands up for me no matter what my decision was, his warm blue eyes that crinkled when he laughed, the way his lips felt against mine.
Smiling a little I said, “He’s just so sweet and perfect, and I know for a fact that he would rather shove Crystal’s face into a garbage disposal now then be within ten feet of her. He’s so protective of me even though he knows I can take care of myself, and whenever he smiles at me I just feel so warm inside.” Realizing what I just said I blushed a little but I still was smiling because I knew everything I said was true.
Sam and Natalie made little kissing noises and laughing I grabbed a pillow off of the couch and threw it at them. My stomach gurgled from hunger since we didn’t have dinner yet and I asked, “So what are we allowed to eat around here?”
Picking up a white card Natalie said, “Oh we’re allowed to get room service as long as we don’t go too over board.” I took the card from her and saw a list of rich people food that didn’t sound too appetizing. In fact, the only thing that looked good on here was all of the desserts; they had about every single flavor of ice cream in the world and brownies. At the bottom of the paper I saw numbers of food places around here, finding what I was looking for I grabbed my cell and made a call.
Someone said hello and I replied, “Why yes, I would like to order a large cheese pizza and a large pepperoni and sausage pizza,” I listened to him rattle off the prices and I added, “Oh and can I get two liter bottles of soda? Yeah I would like a root beer and a Dr. Pepper.” I told him the address of the hotel and when I hung up I saw that Sam and Natalie were grinning and I said, “Hey as much as I want to eat,” I glanced down at the room service paper, “Snails covered in mayonnaise, I think we would all prefer pizza here.”
Our pizza showed up a little later and while we were eating that I ordered us dessert which arrived in the form of three huge ice cream sundaes placed on top of these huge warm gooey brownies. The three of us spent the rest of the night watching a movie and going through our food until we fell asleep around one in the morning.