Her eyes were filled with the richest black fire I'd ever seen as they met mine, and in that second I knew that I had lost her.
My best friend was gone, and a monster was in her place.
I stood up and backed away from her, my eyes locked on hers. The look in her eyes dissolved as she stood up and ran away. Tate ran after her and I felt my stomach drop. I felt the eyes of everyone on me, burning into the side of my face curiously. They too, couldn't believe what had just happened.
I stood up and walked out. No one followed me as I roamed the area, I wasn't going to attempt to run away, because although no one was following me, I still felt their eyes on my back. A feeling of utter loneliness crept in and I felt myself stopping next to a pier.
It was beautiful, the water next to it was a deep blue but that didn't matter. I slumped down on the pier and cried like I had never cried before.
My chest heaved as I sobbed into my hands.
I missed Jason, I missed Chelsea's Mom and Mindy, heck I even missed my parents. The thought of how they're feeling right now made me cry harder.
I felt someone sit next to me and my face hardened.
"P-Please l-leave me a-alone." I said through my tears.
The figure didn't move so I turned around to give them a hard glare.
Harvey.
I let out a groan.
"What the hell do you want? To embarrass me some more? To mess with me like you're doing to Chelsea."
His eyes darkened. In less than a second his hand had grabbed my face tightly in his vice grip. I had stopped sobbing and now just angrily stared at him.
"Suck it up. You can't let friendships get you down. People let you down all the time, get over it."
I scowled.
"Can you just go? I don't expect a heartless killer like you to understand."
The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them.
"You're really underestimating me here. Fine, I'll leave. But if you don't get your act together I'm going to kill you. And I may have let the first comment slip, but you're had your warning. I'm not going to let you get away with that one. You've pushed me too far. I won't hesitate to kill you."
Do it, I wanted to say.
It's not like I'm getting out of here any time soon, it's not like I have anything to live for anymore. Hope. What hope is there in a place like this? I'm lucky if I make it to eighteen!
I heard another pair of footsteps and Harvey stood up.
"Maybe you can get through to her." He said in a sarcastic voice.
I opened my mouth to tell whoever it was to get lost but stopped when I saw Danny.
"Not even a drunken night can make me forget you." He said with a grin as he sat next to me.
My face twisted as I turned away from him.
"I don't want to talk."
"Well too bad because we're going to. How do you get away with being such a bitch to Harvey? He usually had your ass if you mutter a word to him."
I shrugged my shoulders, ignoring the insult.
"What's wrong? Is it because of that girl?"
"She was my best friend." I murmured.
"You need to talk to her."
"Oh believe me I've tried, all of our conversations end in arguments." I explained.
"Well keep trying. She just wants to live and I can see that, you just need to talk it out and get your point across. You're either friends or you're not."
I let out a sigh.
"You're right." I said under my breath.
"I always am."
****
I walked into my room later that day to find Chelsea packing.
I didn't question it as I lay down on the bed and shut my eyes, massaging my temples, trying to figure out a way to address this without murdering someone.
"I'm leaving." She said.
"Leaving?"
"Moving upstairs, they have an extra room, said I deserved it." She said, a hint of a smile appearing on her face.
I was silent. I tried to ignore how much it hurt to have them treat her with kindness and not me. A bitter feeling of rage threatened to spill but I kept it in.
"I did it to look good okay. It sounds so stupid, and it is so stupid. We're supposed to be in this together but when you went out of line I just got so mad I decided to go solo. I tried to tell Tate I didn't want to move but he threatened us. He actually threatened us. I thought we could try to work together, Tate and I, but apparently not. I'll move into the room but I'm allowed to sleep here, that's what we agreed on."
I let out a sharp "whatever."
"Are you mad at me?"
I found her gaze on me as she sat down next to me on the bed. Her silvery green eyes scanned me.
"Am I mad at you? Is that a serious question? You have been the most selfish, stupid-"
"Ally, I'm just trying to survive."
"By shutting me out?" I exclaimed.
"You're not exactly being the wisest right now, are you? Someone needs to keep both of us alive and if that requires me sucking up to those meatheads then why not? I'm not doing this to be selfish Ally. I'm doing this so they can trust us and we can escape together. Unless you haven't noticed, we've been kidnapped and your tactics of getting us out have been to no avail. It's time we tried it my way."
"By grabbing my hair and scratching my face?" I questioned.
"By grabbing your hair and scratching your face." She confirmed. "It will only make them like me more, meaning I get more information for us to use against them. It's brilliant if you think about it."
I sulked.
"Not for me it isn't."
She cracked a smile.
"It will be soon. I love you and you're my best friend. Next time I'll consult you in my plans."
She collapsed on the bed next to me and hugged my waist.
"I'm relying on you Chels." I muttered. "Don't mess this up."
***
When Chelsea had been called upstairs I still lay on the bed, staring solemnly at the ceiling. The door opened and a dark haired girl with black eyes glowered down at me. It seemed no one had respect for our personal boundaries.
"Come with me." She ordered in a tone that left no room to argue.
I hastily followed her into Harvey's office where Chelsea sat nervously. I stared up at Harvey and Tate who sat with calm expressions.
"You have another mission, this one is more difficult. We're all going to a hotel where a party is being held. Your job is to hack into their security systems, find Oliver Franco and report his file back to us."
Why did I doubt that? Maybe it was because of the mischievous glint in his eye as he spoke.
"Okay." I said simply.
Harvey's eyes studied my face as a pleased grin appeared.
Definitely not going to be this simple.
****
We were forced into black body con dresses and handed to two different girls that were commanded to apply make up to our faces.
"You new here then?" The slim blonde asked me, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she applied eyeliner.
"Yeah." Was my reply.
"You broke down and cried yet?" She asked, a ghost of a smile appearing on her face.
"Yes."
She scoffed.
"At least you're not like that Lina girl, they hired her a couple of days ago and she slammed her head into the wall and killed herself."
"Wow."
"Yeah. I've heard about you, you don't like Harvey, do you? I'm surprised he hasn't punished you yet, he hates it when people don't like him."
"Well he kidnapped me and took me here against my own will, acted like a complete douche to me and expects respect. Not in a million years." I muttered.
"Ally, I must say, you have the ability of making me feel so special, seriously."
His voice echoed through the newly silent room and I suppressed a sigh.
I didn't say anything, knowing that opening my mouth wouldn't do anything positive. He walked around until he stood in front of me and crouched down until we were on eye level.
"You look very beautiful today Ally, I must say. I would've never guessed you were a computer nerd."
I gritted my teeth and gave him a fake smile, the insult burning on my tongue.
"Well, I'll see you tonight."
The look in his eyes told me this wasn't over. And I had a feeling this was going to be one heck of a night.
****
The place stunk of richness.
Ladies in the finest ball gowns, strutting from person to person as they handed empty compliments to one another. The men in striking suits, pressed smugly against their chests and their hair styled to perfection.
I stood arm in arm with Chelsea, a dark blue silk floor length dress that hugged my body together, and had a large cut out in the back, hanging low in the front, while Chelsea had the same in red.
I loved how they had made our outfits so that they were the same.
We both practically ran upstairs, throwing the door closed behind us as we stared into the room full of people that's eyes were glued to the screen.
"Act natural." Chelsea whispered.
I gave a discreet nod and pulled out a chair, slowly gliding it outwards and sitting down, handing a casual smile to the man sat next to me.
I clicked on the guest list and typed in the name Oliver Franco.
What now?
I can't just whip out my phone and take a picture, it would look so suspicious. We were already getting weird looks from some of the suited men making coffee.
I turned to Chelsea and she pretended to be typing away on her phone, she snapped the picture so quickly I wouldn't have guessed it.
"They trust you with a phone?" I asked.
"They tapped into it, they can see exactly what I'm doing and who I'm calling."
I nodded my head as she sent the picture.
"Good, now lets get out of he-"
The fire alarm wailing cut me off as the doors slammed shut one by one.
"What is going on?!" A man's voice cut through the room.
A middle aged lady ran to the door, her face pale with panic as she tugged on it.
"We're locked inside." She said, attempting to burst open the doors.
Others ran to the door to help us, Chelsea and I stayed frozen, not knowing how we could be of assistance.
Chelsea's phone buzzed and she held it to her ear.
"Hello?" She asked.
The person talked for a second before she held out the phone to me.
I took it hesitantly and pressed it to my ear.
"Hello?"
"Ally, darling."
Harvey's voice was sarcastic and filled with amusement, I knew he had something to do with this.
"What did you do?" I asked immediately.
"I told you I wouldn't let you get away with that comment, and now you're going to feel the burn of my wrath...or the flame that just so happened to start on the floor underneath yours. And you're locked inside, so you, along with everyone else are going to have to find a way out. Congratulations, if they all die it'll be on you."
"You sick bastard."
"I'd take that to heart if you weren't fearing for your life right now, just a friendly reminder not to mess with me. Have fun burning."
He hung up the phone and I bit my tongue to stop the scream that wanted to come out.
"He put a fire on the floor underneath us, it's going to kill us if we don't get out."
"How do we plan on doing that?" She snapped.
"Don't ask me."
She slumped onto the ground.
"And here I was thinking they could be nice. They're freaking gang members, they couldn't be nice if they tried! They don't have a nice bone in their body. From now on it's just me and you, I'm done here."
"That is if we don't burn to death." I added.
"Everybody, I have an idea. The steps lead to the roof, so all we have to do is go to the roof and climb the ladder down."
"Climb down the ladder of a hundred and fifty meter building, smart plan." Someone commented.
"Why don't we call the fire brigade?" Another lady questioned.
They all moved so we were stood in a circle, there were thirteen of us altogether.
"We have, they're on their way but we can't burn to death by the time they come and get us. I say one by one go up onto the roof while they handle the fire." Another man said.
I let out a sigh and rubbed my temples.
"Let's do that then!" Chelsea said, trying to add enthusiasm.
They gave her weird looks as they followed an older looking man with jet black hair with grey streaks to the staircase that lead to the roof.
Chelsea and I followed behind them all.
We got to the roof and watched in awe as we stared at the town. It looked like it was a city, lights lighting up the dark sky, buildings and houses in the distance.
The noise of shouting coming from above caught my attention where a large group of people stared at us, shouting words we couldn't hear. A huge fire truck pulled up and lay out a large air bed. I gasped as I realized what that meant.
"A suicide jump, great." The lady next to me commented.
"Well, it's going to save our lives so might as well." I said with a shoulder shrug.
She grumbled under her breath and walked away from me.
"I'll jump first." A younger looking guy said, pushing his glasses up and giving us all a crooked grin.
"Jump straight ahead, as far forwards as you can, don't jump near the building!" The officer announced through a speaker.
The guy let out a sigh before running forwards and jumping off the roof. He let out a loud scream and seconds later we heard his body collide with the air bed.
"I'm alright!" He said through the speaker after a minuet.
I didn't want to look down, knowing I'd end up changing my mind completely about jumping.
Chelsea and I helped everyone jump down, assisting to their needs, holding their purses and jackets to throw down later or generally just handing out moral support.
I ran back to the door and opened it, the thick smell of smoke hit me and I knew the smoke had completely destroyed the hotel.
It came to just Chelsea and I, I held her hand tightly.
I looked down at the people, my face making out a smaller version of Tate, an amused grin settled on his face.
Chelsea's hand trembled but she let out a deep long breath and nodded her head.
"Let's do this."
We both walked back, giving ourselves a running start before taking off and flying off the roof hand in hand.
It was all going so smoothly. An excited grin was placed on my face.
We were flying through the sky when my head hit a flower pot on a patio railing as it crumbled into my cranium.
I bled as we hit the bottom, my eyes fluttering shut as Chelsea's scream echoed throughout my mind.