It was midnight.
Me and Gem were crouched in an alleyway off of Escape Avenue.
"Ok, so here's the plan-" Gem started. I pressed my hand against the house to my right to steady myself, and frost instantly spread from my fingertips.
"Sorry." I said and pulled my hand away.
Gem frowned, then pulled two things from the bag she had brought. Two blackstone forearm cuffs. "You'll need to wear these."
I scrambled backwards away from them. "There is no way." I said.
"Scott, they can't know it was you in there. I'll take them off as soon as we finish." She pleaded with me. "Fwhip will take one look at the frost and know you were the one who released her."
"Ok..." I said slowly after a moment, taking them from her hands. The dark circles I had noticed before instantly cleared from under her eyes...partially. I clamped them onto my forearms and shuddered as the frost melted off my body and the compressed feeling returned in my chest. I lost my balance and slid down to my knees. "Ok."
"Now, here's the plan." Gem continued. "We're supposed to be in Azurite. So, I can't be seen either. But I have a keycard." She held a piece of white plastic up. "I'll slip inside, then enter cell 13b. You have to get to the courtyard unseen, then slip through the open window I'll make by spelling the bars off. Then, we have to get to the lowest floor, minus seven and to her cell. Got it?"
I nodded. "Is there a part of the wall that's not patrolled?" I asked.
Gem shook her head. "There's not. But the moon will be slightly to the West soon, leaving shadows on the East. Navigate to the East wall and get in through that entrance. It leads to the busiest part of town, so there's less cameras. Keep an eye out for blinking red lights. That means there are cameras recording."
I nodded, going over the steps in my head. "Alright...what happens if I am seen?"
Gem pursed her lips. "I don't know...even if you knock them out, they'll tell Fwhip."
"So, we'll have to kill them?" I said slowly.
Gem's eyes widened slightly, and she shook her head violently. "Even if they see you, don't kill them! Just leave and wait for me. We'll go back to the Crystal Cliffs and pretend we were never here."
"But Erin-"
"We'll try again tomorrow. If you're not by the window in an hour, I'll retreat back here and wait for you." She said, before standing up and striding out of the alleyway.
After a moment I pulled myself up using the grooves of the bricks on the building and made my way out of the alleyway as well. I pulled my cloak tightly around my shoulders as I maneuvered my way away from the prison, out of the guards' sightlines before heading East.
The prison came back into sight 10 minutes later. I avoided the lampposts, and down one alleyway, I reached the wall in complete darkness. I sat there for a while, memorizing the pattern of the guards, before clambering up the metal rungs attached to the side of one of the nearby houses.
I crouched down on the roof, waiting for the guards to pass before leaping into the patrol path and swinging myself over the barrier, sliding down the opposite end of the wall, into the prison.
Almost everything was brightly lit in the courtyard, but the shadows from the moon gave me a broken path of darkness to traverse towards the castle-turned-dungeon.
I pressed myself against the stone brick wall, sucking in my stomach, and started to slowly move around the curve of the turret to the barred window Gem had talked about. The metal bars that used to be blocking the hole in the side of the castle, were now lying in the grass.
I stepped back a foot before running and grabbing onto the edge of the ledge with my fingertips and pulling myself up to the window, squeezing through the extremely small space.
Gem grabbed my forearms and helped me down into the cell.
She then grabbed her staff that was leaning against the wall and twirled it in her hand. It disappeared, and for a second I wondered why she got rid of it. Then I realized it would be very awkward to sneak around with.
She pressed a finger to her lips, and we crept out of the cell into the hallway. "The guards just went by. They patrol this hall every five minutes. We have to be quick." She whispered, and we darted down the hallway, barely making a sound.
Then we made it to the staircase. It went down and curved into darkness. Gem suddenly grabbed my upper arm and yanked me behind the wall that framed the staircase. A second later, I heard footsteps echo up the stairway and two guards come up.
"...You recon the Ice King will be at the execution?"
"Nah, he'd try and save that psychopath. Remember the trial with the demon? We wouldn't be in this situation if he had just let Count Fwhip kill the girl."
I held my breath as they walked down the hall out of sight. Ice King? Seriously?
Gem then grabbed my wrist and dragged me down the staircase without saying a word. We whipped down the stairs, traveling down floor after floor in silence. It got darker the farther we went, and torch brackets filled with fire began to line the staircase instead of the electric lightbulbs. Maybe it would be too expensive to run the entire prison on electricity.
I knew when we hit the bottom floor. The ground floor consisted of grey, slightly worn stone bricks. Down here, they were all made from a black, slightly shiny, stone. Each rectangular brick was heavily defined, and the floor was sleek.
There were no cells on either side of the hall. Except for at the very end. I was surprised there weren't any guards down here...maybe Gem had done something. The hall seemed to go on forever...but finally one came into sight at the very end of the hall.
Two heavy metal doors covered it, and Gem scanned her card before typing in a five-digit passcode. The doors steamed before slowly opening, revealing an inch of bullet proof glass.
Erin was chained to a seat in the middle of the white room, her muzzle back on. She looked up when the doors opened, and her eyes widened in shock. She began to shake her head with a look that clearly said, 'GET OUT OF HERE!'
Gem pressed a few more buttons, and the glass began to sink into the floor, letting us into the room. Gem suddenly pressed her hand against my chest and held up her hand, signaling me to wait a second. She put one foot inside the cage, turned around, looking up, and threw two small somethings at the corners of the room I couldn't see.
I heard glass shattering before two broken cameras fell from the ceiling.
"MHMMMHM!" Erin shouted through the muzzle.
I ran over and pulled it off her.
"What are you doing!? Get out of here!" She hissed.
"Not without you." I said and began unbuckling the straitjacket.
"No, Scott you don't understand!" She cried as the straitjacket slipped off of her.
"Why-" I started, looking up at her face. Then I realized why. The whites of her eyes weren't exactly white anymore...more like a shade of grey. There were strands, like veins, of black running through them... I ran my thumb right underneath her eye. "Wha...?"
Her lower lip began to tremble before she suddenly burst out. "I don't know what to do Scott! He's already in my head!"
"What do you mean?" I asked, although I knew exactly what she meant. I was trying to stop the panic rapidly spreading through my body. Gem crouched down next to me, and I saw the expression of fear on her face.
"How long?" she managed to choke out. "How long has he been...?"
"Months!" She cried, on the verge of tears. "I can barely think anymore! It's just him!" She closed her eyes tightly, her hands trembling as she clamped them around the seat.
"No, stop it." I said, trying to stop my voice from shaking. I pulled her down from the chair, the chains still around her ankles thumping to the floor. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and pressed her face into my chest. "Your stronger than him Erin." I said quietly.
"NO I'M NOT!" She shouted, grabbing at the roots of her hair. "I'M NOT AND SOON IT'LL JUST BE HIM! YOU SHOULD JUST LET THEM KILL ME."
"Don't say that. Please. You know I can't let them." I said in barely above a whisper. "You can't die."
"I'm turning into him Scott...What else do I do?" she asked hopelessly.
I took a deep breath. I had to accept the facts, the consequences. "Get as far away as you can. I don't care where you go. Anywhere but here. I- I'll try and find you when this all blows over...if ever."
"I don't know...Fwhip can hold a grudge, Scott." Gem said, biting her thumbnail.
"So, I might never see you again?" Erin asked, I could barely hear her she was talking so low.
I had come to the realization as well before we had even entered the prison, and I slowly nodded. "Believe me. I wish you could come with me. But Fwhip would find you and-"
I was cut off by Erin jumping into my arms, burying her face in my shirt, and twisting her fingers into the fabric of my cloak.
I was stunned for just a moment before I hugged her back, resting my chin on the top of her head and trying to hold on to what might be the last moments I spend with her. My nose started to sting, but I couldn't cry, not now.
Then I felt Gem's hand on my shoulder. "We've got to go." She said urgently. "They'll notice the cameras are out sooner or later."
I nodded and began helping Gem remove the chains on Erin's ankles. I pulled the clamp off of Erin's wings, and saw how red her shoulder blades were, and the blood dried all around the joints.
"Are you going to be able to fly?" I asked her.
"Yes." She answered without looking up at me. Then she held her arms up, and Gem stared down at the blackstone.
"I'll take it off on one condition. Try not to hurt anyone." Gem said, it sounded as if she were begging.
Erin's face fell. "You know I can't promise that-"
"I know. But please try."
Erin opened her mouth, then closed it before nodding in agreement. Gem pressed her thumbs into the depressions in the crack going vertically up the cuffs, and they snapped open. Immediately the red magic began to spill from Erin's skin and wrap around her arms and torso in glowing strands.
I helped her up, and she rubbed her forearms.
"Can you break the glass?" Gem asked suddenly.
Erin looked up at her. "Wha- Oh. That glass. Probably. Why?"
"I need to close it back up. Or else someone will be blamed for your escape." As Gem said that she leaned down and began to shred the straitjacket.
"What are you-" I started.
"We need to make it look like she escaped by herself." Gem cut off.
Erin kicked the chair over and began to use her magic to break the chains. She stomped on the blackstone cuffs, but it didn't do anything, and she glared at them.
"Ok." Gem said, standing up and turning back to Erin. "We're going to close up the glass. Give us ten minutes to get out of the building then..."
"I expel myself from the vicinity." Erin finished. Gem nodded, and we were about to leave, when Erin asked, "Why- why are you helping me?"
Gem turned back around and looked down at the floor before looking back up at her. "Because I promised Scott, I'd be there for him, and I wasn't. Now I have to make up for it."
Erin looked mildly surprised for a moment before her expression became unreadable. "I guess this is goodbye." She sighed.
I wanted to say goodbye, but no words would come out. Nothing would. I was practically frozen to the spot.
That's when Gem grabbed my wrist and gently pulled me from the cell, reentering some of the password in. The glass began to go up again, but the metal didn't slide in front of it like before.
I placed my hand on the glass, and to my surprise, Erin put hers right up against the glass where mine was. Time seemed to freeze in that one moment, us standing there, me trying to memorize every line on her face.
"Go." She said, I could barely hear her through the layer between us.
"She's right." Gem agreed.
I stepped back from the glass, and me and Gem started to sprint down the hall. I looked behind me right before I wouldn't have been able to see her anymore. She stared at us with a stony expression, and the light seemed to have left her eyes.
No...She couldn't be gone.
Me and Gem ran up the stairs. I didn't even feel the stitch in my side until we made it to the ground floor and my lungs started to beg for oxygen.
Gem grabbed my wrist and pulled my back into the cell I had broken into to get into the prison. I gave her a boost as she climbed through the window, and I pulled myself through.
My feet hit the ground outside the prison, and I saw Gem holding a large disc. She pressed a finger to her lip as she frisbeed it to the South side. The guards looked away in the direction of the noise, and we sprinted across the courtyard to the East wall and began to climb.
We had timed it just right, and we leaped across the patrol path onto the building on the other side, down the metal rungs and into the alleyway.
I slid down the wall into a sitting position and clutched at my torso, Gem right next to me.
"You know we were really lucky." Gem said in between deep breathes. "There was an extremely high chance we could have gotten caught."
I didn't answer her, I just continued to inhale oxygen. Less than a minute later, there was a bang from behind us, and I scrambled to my feet before peeking around the alleyway corner.
The prison was glowing with red light. I heard screaming, and someone went flying over the wall and into the city, strands of red magic propelling their body.
I heard rocks crumbling, and the ground shook with something big falling over. Then, a dark shape shot into the air, and I recognized the sound of Erin's wingbeats.
But then I heard a creak as a harpoon like object shot from one of the turrets. Erin twisted out of the way just in time, before she put on a burst of speed, and disappeared into the night.
I tasted blood and realized I had just bitten my lip raw.
"You know, that's probably not going to be the last we see of her." Gem sighed.
"I know...and that's not going to be a good thing." I answered, even though I missed her already. I could already picture how lonely it would be in Rivendale without her sarcasm.
Gem grabbed my forearm and began to take the blackstone off, putting the cuffs back in the bag she had left.
I hated the feeling of my face being bitten raw all over again, and the frost creeping over my skin.
"Scott..." Gem said slowly, and I turned to her. Anxiety had crept into every line of her face, and I raised my eyebrow. "Can- can you-" she started and raised her ice-covered fingers.
My eyes widened as I realized what she wanted me to do. She wanted me to reverse it. "Gem- Gem I don't know how." I said, my voice cracking.
"Scott- Scott you have to!" She cried. "If you don't, I'll- I'll-"
"You'll what?"
"Katherine says I'll die."
It hit me like a bullet. I had practically placed a death sentence on her head. "Gem- I can try but I can't promise anything..."
She nodded rapidly, and I sighed. I was going to let her down again. I pressed one of my hands against her chest, which began to spread even more frost. I tried to pull whatever magic I had placed out, but my hand started to shake as I strained. I felt it, I felt what I had done, but nothing was happening. I closed my eyes tightly, and I felt something warm and sticky start to drip from my nose.
That's when I felt even more cold enter my fingertips. I opened my eyes to see the ice leaving Gem's body...but right as I thought it was working, it rebounded, and Gem doubled over.
I took a step back in fear, and wiped my nose, staring down at the blood freezing on my palm.
"Scott." Gem said, panic flooding her face.
"I- I'm sorry- I can't." I said.
Gem sunk to the floor and buried her face in her hands.
"Gem-" I started.
"Just- just get out of here before they find you." She said quietly.
"I'm sorry." I said again, with as much sincerity as I could, before stepping out of the alleyway and heading down the streets of Eastvale.