CHAPTER 13 #2
I nod. I don’t know who this Taylor person is, but I’m excited to leave the castle grounds and also meet Abigail’s daughter. Silas leaves and Abigail comes over, making sure he is gone. She pulls me over to the tap and turning it on full blast.
“You can escape if you give Taylor the slip,” she whispers to me, and I stare at her.
“How?” I whisper back.
“Take the tunnels,” she says. But then we hear footsteps, and she straightens, turning the tap off.
It’s just one of the cooks. The cook eyes us suspiciously and I grab an apple from the bowl along with Abigail.
Striding down the corridor toward the front door, Dragus is waiting with a jacket and cloak.
He helps me put them on and I sit, placing a pair of boots on he brought down.
Dragus then goes to a cupboard and grabs another pair when he sees Abigail only has her flats.
He hands them to her, and she looks a little shocked.
Abigail sits next to me and puts them on.
“Stay with Taylor, please don’t wander off. I don’t want you getting in trouble with Silas, okay?”
I nod, and he kisses my head then walks off.
Abigail and I walk out and are greeted by a woman with shoulder-length blonde hair that is styled messy, her black eyes showing she is a Werewolf which I think is odd.
She is slender and athletic looking, wearing a leather jacket with jeans and boots.
Most of the time Werewolves aren’t permitted in the city unless looking for their mates.
So, the fact she is here makes me think she must be important to the Dragon Kings.
“Hi, I’m Taylor,” she says, extending her hand.
I quickly shake it, her eyes not even darting to Abigail, not even acknowledging her existence or the fact she is standing right beside me.
She then turns on her heel and starts heading toward the gates at the front of the castle.
The Vampires standing guard open the gates, allowing us to slip through, closing them behind us.
Lots of people are staring, some even running off as we walk down the streets.
Some whisper “a Fae.” It is expected; Fae are rare creatures, and those who remain—if any more remained—hide in the shadows hoping to go unnoticed.
Taylor did not stop or look back at us. Abigail remains quiet, and I assume Taylor must know where we are headed because Abigail never once gave her a direction. When we trot around four blocks away, we turn up on a desolate street. Only a few houses are intact, the rest abandoned or destroyed.
“That’s my mother’s place there,” Abigail said, pointing to the last house on the street. The house is old and weathered. The gardens look overgrown with exotic looking plants, which is a little odd because we are in one of the worst snow seasons we have ever suffered through.
Taylor looks back at us but doesn’t say a word, just continues on.
When we are nearly to the end, Abigail nudges me, and I glance to her direction.
She stops walking and points to the gutter.
My gaze darts down; she is pointing to a drain.
And I know she is telling me these are the tunnels she was talking about.
I’m familiar with the tunnels for the underground labs, but they are on the other side of town, so I’m unfamiliar with this side.
Taylor stops in the absence of our footsteps on the pavement. We quickly catch up to her to avoid throwing her off guard. Entering through the little gate, Abigail trots up the porch steps as I follow her. She retrieves a key from her pocket and places it in the keyhole.
“I’ll wait out here. Silas has given you an hour, Elora.”
I nod to her following Abigail inside. Taylor sits on the porch steps and pulls out an old flip phone.
Phones are somewhat rare in the city, the Dragon Lords took over, we lived in a technology based world and now it is more apocalyptic, so seeing her with a mobile was strange to see.
It looks pretty old, so I’m a little shocked it works.
I know the castle has a phone but it is a corded landline and not portable.
So, a mobile was something I hadn’t seen in years or had ever used.
Stepping inside the house is vastly different compared to the outside.
The walls are colored yellow with white trims, and I smell lemon and citrus-scented candles burning.
The house is warm, with good heating and scarce furnishing.
A little girl comes running out who I know is Abigail’s daughter.
She runs up, screaming, “Mommy, mommy,” jumping into Abigail’s arms. “My little princess, this is Elora, the Fae girl I told you about.” The little girl gazes up at me from Abigail’s arms shyly.
“Hello,” I whisper to her, giving her a brief wave. She smiles and says hi, ducking her face into her mother’s shoulder.
“Where is grandma?” says Abigail.
“Out the back getting firewood.”
Abigail nods, and I follow her down the hall, passing a lounge room with a fireplace that is crackling and into a yellow kitchen with brown cupboards. There is a door leading outside, through which Abigail walks and I follow.
I step out to the back to find the lawns are waist high, and an old outhouse is far in the backyard with a concrete path leading to it.
Garden beds take up one entire side of the yard and a shed on the other.
I vaguely hear someone rummaging around in the shed.
A woman with gray hair to her hips comes out with an armful of firewood.
Peering up, she smiles and approaches and wraps an arm around Abigail.
“You must be Elora?” she asks, looking at me.
I nod.
“I’m Jackie. It’s nice to finally put a face to the name,” she chuckles. We follow her back inside and she closes the door. She turns on some music from the old radio.
“Why can I sense someone else here?”
“There is a guard outside.”
Jackie nods, turning the kettle on. She glances over at me and smiles softly, her green eyes lighting up.
“I haven’t seen a Fae in decades,” she says, gesturing for me to take a seat.
Abigail digs around in her pocket, dumping some cash on the table. “This is all I got on me; I will try to get more when I can,” she tells her mother.
Her mother nods, putting the cash in a cookie jar.
It isn’t much, but I can tell her mother really appreciates it.
She makes us both some tea, and we talk for a while.
When Taylor walks in, Jackie glares at her for letting herself in.
I can see she holds no fear of the Werewolf, yet I sense alarm in Abigail’s eyes.
“We leave in twenty minutes.”
“But you said an hour,” I tell her.
“Well, Silas wants you back.” Then she turns and struts back out. We listen for the door to close. Hearing the latch, Abigail lets out a breath.
“Mom, do you know if the tunnels are still accessible?” Abigail asks, staring at her mother.
Jackie nods and puts a finger to her lips.
She then stands and moseys to a door I thought was a pantry.
Jackie opens it, and I realize it’s a basement.
She flicks on a light, and we descend the stairs.
The basement is filled with dried herbs hanging from shelves and canned food.
Jackie strides to the back and points to a cupboard.
Abigail comes over and grips one side and I the other.
We lift the cupboard so as not to make any noise so Taylor won’t hear we are under the house.
Once moved, I find a metal grate covering a huge square hole in the ground. With a heave, Jackie helps Abigail lift it off.
“Follow the tunnels; they lead to an old pharmacy on the main drag,” Abigail says, squeezing my shoulder.
I glance at the darkened tunnels, a little scared of what is down there or being heard by those on the streets above.
A lot of underground activities are confined to the tunnels, which are not exactly safe for traveling in.
I nod and jump in, knowing which pharmacy she is talking about; there aren’t many besides a few underground ones and herbal-based ones left in the city. The drop isn’t that far, but the stench of stagnant water is putrid. Abigail drops a flashlight down to me and I flick it on, staring up at them.
“What about you? They will know you helped me,” I ask her, worried for her and her family.
“Don’t worry about us, good luck, I hope you make it out.”
“I don’t need to make it out, I just need to head home and retrieve something. I won’t get past the border guards, but I may be able to hide out till I come up with a plan to escape,” Abigail nods at my words.
“It was nice meeting you, Elora,” Jackie says, helping Abigail lift the grate back over.
peering down the tunnel with the light, I start trudging.
The air is thicker down here, the scent of stagnant water makes me a little queasy and burns my nose.
The stone walls are covered in moss, mold, and mildew, with puddles of water throughout where it hadn’t drained out properly.
I follow the tunnels. I come to a few intersections, and it takes me a few seconds each time, trying to decide which way to go. I should have asked.
After about twenty minutes of wandering, though, I hear lots of voices and noise coming from above.
When I see a drain and a little ladder leading up, I climb it.
Peering out the gap that looks out onto the road, the sight of the main drag in the city stares back at me, people roaming the streets hurriedly above.
At the sight of the main road, I breathe a sigh of relief.
I continue down the tunnel and follow it, taking the next left, which I know is an alleyway.
Seeing another ladder, I climb it, pushing on the grate and sliding it to the side.
Sticking my head out, I am correct: I am in the alleyway behind Victor’s pharmacy.
I’m not far from home now. Climbing out, I pull my hood over my head and slip out of the alleyway.