I panicked.
I was shocked when he grabbed my arm. So shocked that I raised my other hand and slapped him hard across the face.
He yelped, his deep green eyes now showing nothing but surprise and pain. He stumbled back, clutching his cheek. I took my chance and sprinted away, running as fast as I could. I only stopped at the end of the corridor, and looked back.
He'd blended back into the group of rebels.
I sighed in relief, and continued running, not knowing where I was going, turning into unused halls, rounding corners, and occasionally hiding in a deserted room when a rebel came by. I ended up in front of a slightly familiar door.
No one was around.
It opened to somewhere behind the palace, a dark meadow. I put my hand on my chest and bent over, catching my breath.
It was perfect. Nobody was there, and, because it was dark, nobody would be able to see me either. I straightened up and looked around. This place looked very familiar. Too familiar.
I gasped, a ghostly sound echoing through the quiet night.
This wasn't just any old meadow. This was where my sisters had been murdered.
All seven of them had been killed here by my mother. From Laurel to Juniper, their dead bodies had been found here. I'd seen them, dead, lying in this very meadow, on the morning of the sixteenth birthday they'd never had.
Now, on the eve of my sixteenth birthday, I was here too.
I began to tremble as I looked at the spot where I'd seen Juniper's body, two years ago. How I'd screamed and fallen on my knees, because from then on, I was alone. And how Ivy had almost smiled- I could see right through her air of mourning.
And how, two years later, I was in the same spot.
Practically asking to die.
How had I come here? Why had I, not even realizing where I was going, subconsciously come to this spot? This meadow, of all places.
But I tried to calm myself.
Wherever she'd be expecting me, it wouldn't be here. She wouldn't think I'd come here, like a lamb to the slaughter. She definitely wouldn't think I'd escaped here, where I was supposed to have been killed. She wouldn't.
But I had to leave. However safe I'd be here, I couldn't be in the place where my older sisters had been murdered.
I turned around- and jumped back.
Two green eyes glowed at me from the darkness.
"Hello, darling." she cooed, as she emerged from the shadows.