Chapter 25 | Across the Darkened Path

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Alejandro Roberto Gonzales-Santos:

I shut the door to my dad's car, then trudged over to where Hunter stood, rage in his eyes, above Principal Hollendale's fallen body. "Hunter." I placed a single hand on his shoulder. "Don't blame yourself."

"I don't," he said through his teeth. "I blame White Robe for everything."

"Well, alright then." I nodded firmly. "I say it's time we do something about it."

Hunter nodded back, his eyes meeting mine for the first time.

"Um, y-you guys..." Hannah quivered, staring around across the lot's cracked asphalt. "Where'd Azalea's dad go?"

Hunter and I spun simultaneously, turned to Hannah as she sat on the ground with her legs still tightened against her chest, circled by her arms. She stared back at us with wide eyes and a shaking frame.

"Oh, no," I breathed, surveying the parking lot once more. "He's gone."

"Guys, what the heck is going on!?" Hannah screeched.

"Hannah, calm down," I ordered. "We can't afford to lose our cool, especially not now. Azalea's in that school somewhere, and we've gotta find her—with or without her dad."

She slowly nodded, and Hunter moved closer to her. He reached out a hand to help her to her feet, then the three of us trekked cautiously toward Scofield-Andrews before heading inside.

Any other day, I might've been more spooked by how easily the outside door creaked open the moment we twisted the knob and how impossibly quiet it was once we'd stepped inside—how even the whisper of the wind seemed muted, crushed by the weight of the towering building in which we now stood.

Before us was a dark, sprawling hallway that split at its end, where two separate paths faded into shadows. Wispy, ebony-like waves of umbrated blackness crept along the walls in defiance of what meager amounts of light filtered inside from the parking lot.

Any other day, that would've terrified me too.

But not today, I steeled myself. Today, we're saving Azalea. My grip tightened on my pistol.

Hannah shivered next to me. "Which way do we go, Hunter?"

He hesitated. "Let's...check the left one first, then right."

I nodded my agreement, and we started to pace slowly, turning almost every instant to glance over our shoulders as we moved forward.

Little by little, we searched the entire first floor—every empty classroom, every door left ajar—but there was no sign of Azalea.

"It's no use," Hunter muttered, hanging his head. "This place's too big. We'll never find her in time."

"Hunter, come on," I begged. "We can't just give up now."

He sighed, eyes turning to me. "I'm not giving up, Alex. I just...I don't know what to do."

I hesitated as I stared back at him, as Hannah shivered next to me. "Maybe we should split up."

"What!?" Hannah practically screamed. "Are you crazy?"

"Alex, man...I don't know," Hunter added, drawing back.

"Look," I offered, "I know it's risky. But you said it yourself, Hunter—this school's huge! And if there's one thing we don't have right now, it's time."

Hunter shook his head. "I'm sorry, Alex, but that's a terrible idea. Breaking us up is exactly what White Robe wants. Just look at how he waited until you and me were gone before he kidnapped Azalea." His voice fell. "It's my fault she got captured—I'm the one who split us up. I can't do that again."

I took a step closer, rested both my hands on Hunter's shoulder. "Bro, if that robed freak really is planning to kill Azalea, we have to stop him, whatever it takes." I shut my eyes, hesitated before continuing. "I know you blame yourself for what happened, but you've gotta let it go, man."

Hunter held his silence, but Hannah shook her head. "There's no way, Alex. Didn't you see that lace-faced lunatic who almost blew all our heads off!?"

I hesitated again. "...If this was Mathletes—if Azalea was here, what do you think she would say?"

Hannah's eyes popped wide. "Um, she definitely wouldn't say turn yourself into three easy targets by splitting up to search some creepy college building!"

My eyes fell.

"Not three targets," Hunter spoke up. "...Two."

Huh?

"You and Hannah go check the basement," he said to me. "I'll head upstairs."

"What?" Hannah screeched. "Hunter, you can't go up there alone! Have you not been listening to a thing we—?"

"It's the only way, Hannah!" he fired back. "We've all got our phones...and Alex still has his gun. You guys'll be safe."

"And what about you!?" She was still shaking, the look in her eyes darting incessantly between terror and bewilderment.

"It's fine," Hunter tried. "I'll be okay."

"How do you know that!?" She shivered against me.

Hunter sighed. "I don't."

****

After Hannah and I'd descended a set of wooden stairs to the basement, we immediately began our search, Hannah flipping a switch that set off a cascade of overhanging bulbs. Beneath the raining brightness, gargantuan bookcases stood almost as tall as the ceiling, their bulky metal frames scattered all throughout the underground. Interspersed between them were rusting iron desks and cushioned chairs powdered thickly with gray dust.

"Alex," Hannah began as we walked between a set of desks. "Do you think Hunter..." She swallowed hard. "Do you really think he'll be okay all alone?"

I shook my head. "I—I don't know. I mean, he's a pretty buff guy and everything, but...all that muscle doesn't really mean much against a half dozen bullets."

Hannah bowed her head, started swaying from side to side as she walked in pace with me.

I gulped as I stared down at her, watched her wary figure shudder in stride. "Hannah," I tried. "There's...I need to tell you something."

She turned to me, looked up to meet my eyes. "What is it?"

"I'm..." My voice trailed off.

She stared at me wordlessly, the air around us hanging still.

"Hannah, I'm so sorry," I breathed at last. "I've been such a jerk to you lately." I looked off to the side. "I've always been awful at letting go, and I guess I'm even worse when it comes to you. But I just..." I exhaled. "I'm sorry—I'm really, really sorry. I needed you to know that...in case we don't make it out of this."

She wrapped herself with her arms. "Thanks," she whispered soberly. "And thanks for saving us out there. That lace lady would've killed us if it weren't for you."

I nodded silently, stuffed my hands in my pocket. For the first time all night, I saw what looked like the tiniest glint of happiness shining in Hannah's eyes. I moved closer, my body inches from hers when—

CLANG!

I bolted to attention, pulse roaring inside my chest as the jarring noise echoed ferociously against the basement walls.

"What was that!?" Hannah wailed from beside me.

"I—I don't..." Shivering, I fumbled to raise my pistol, readying myself to fire. "There," I nodded forward, angled my head toward a set of silvery shelves partially obscuring a collection of metal desks. "Whatever that was...it sounded like it came from behind that bookcase."

Hannah nodded shakily.

"Stay behind me, okay?" With my free hand, I squeezed hers tightly, then crept forward.

The silence of the basement air slithered all around us, and Hannah shuddered in time with the muted lights.

"Who's there!?" I barked into the glimmer.

"Mmm! Mmm!" a muffled cry erupted to my left.

Hannah and I twisted away from the metal bookcase and darted to the left, toward a bricked outcropping that seemed to shield imperfectly another area of the basement. As we rounded the uneven bricking and rushed to the opposite side, willowing cobwebs sprang from the darkness, wrapping my face and snaking over my shoulders. I cried out instinctively, and Hannah screamed alongside me as the spider gossamer clung to her hair.

Clawing my face clean, I lifted my head at last, gasping aloud as I lay eyes on the source of the gagged screams that had drawn me running.

"...Mrs. Jackson?"

Before me stood a life-sized cage, a colossal rectangular cube sealed with titanium bars—and inside of it was none other than Luvietta Jackson, gagged and chained to the metallic rods of gray.

"Just hang on, Mrs. Jackson," I ordered. "We're gonna get you out!" I ambled over to her and reached a hand through the bars, pulling the gag from her mouth as I scanned the area with my eyes for anything strong enough to bust a set of handcuffs—

"Get out of here!" she shrieked suddenly from inside the cage. "It's a trap! You'll all be killed!"

My heart leapt into my throat. "What!?"

The sudden clamor of footsteps clacked behind me, their speed almost inhuman as they thundered through the darkness, blitzing just outside the sphere of faded light cast by the bulb above Mrs. Jackson's cage.

"Who's there!?" I demanded, whirling frantically from left to right, pistol lifted high as my finger trembled to grip the trigger. "ANSWER ME!"

More footsteps sped past.

A hardback book flew off one of the shelves and crashed to the floor, tiny clouds of dust spewing from between its pages.

"Show yourself, coward!" I screamed, cocking my weapon.

BAM!

The spine of another hardback book slammed into the nape of my neck. I stumbled forward, just as the heel of a stiletto-sharp shoe sliced into my right calf.

I cried out in pain and fell to the floor, gripped my leg with my free hand, felt blood pulsing out the back. "Hannah, run!" I screamed, turning to her suddenly. "Get out of here!" I whipped my head back to the right, where the glint of the overhead bulb sheened off the pale white of a snowy lace mask.

It's her!

Lifting my gun, I yanked back the trigger, felt my weapon fire twice as the woman in lace ducked back into the darkness.

The gash on my leg pulsed more blood.

Throbbing ached across the base of my neck.

I waved my weapon in the air, jerking the barrel at every click-clacking rush of footsteps that taunted me from the shadows.

"Basement's secure."

I spun around at the sound of the voice only inches from my neck, but a swift kick slammed into my wrist and sent my only defense flying into unfettered blackness.

Crying out at the pain in my wrist, I felt the hypodermic jab of a pointed needle as it pierced the side of my throat.

"Hunter and Hannah Ivory are headed upstairs," Lace Face mused into what must've been a phone. "They're all yours."






Azalea Rose Jackson:

It felt as though every inch of my body was pinned with lead to the wooden floor beneath me. Arms throbbing, legs immovable, I struggled against the invisible weights that lay crushing my frame.

Fear barking through my brain, my eyes finally opened underneath rays of pale brightness cast from the ceiling by ashen, rectangular lights. A scarcity of metallic desks littered the front of the room in which I now found myself, stationed directly ahead of a thick chalkboard powdered with brushstrokes of frosty white.

"Very good."

My heart jumped the moment I heard his voice, that dragging rasp that scraped from between his lips. Twisting my head slowly to the left, I stared across the stretch of carpetless hardwood, eyes landing on a single figure in a blanched, streaming robe as he held the body of a smartphone to his ear.

"Who was that?" I asked, my voice tired but mocking. "Your lace-faced girlfriend?"

"Why, yes," he said. "Yes, it was. She informed me that your little friends are headed our way."

"You'll never get away with this, you creep!" I spat, throat burning as I screamed.

He started cackling. "Your ignorance is laughable. Those imbeciles are playing into my hands." He began to pace back and forth. "I have been watching you, my dear, slowly and carefully. It has taken years, decades even, to bring my plan to fruition. But the hour has finally come. In just seventeen minutes, Azalea Rose, you will know all the pain I have felt."

Seventeen minutes? I looked at a clock hanging above the chalkboard at the front of the room. It's 12:09 now. What's so special about 12:26?

I heard footsteps outside, then White Robe moved closer to me and drew a long syringe tipped with silver.

"Do you hear that?" he whispered. "That is the sound of fools running to their demise." He grabbed my arm and stabbed the needle into it. "Come now. We mustn't keep them waiting."

The room began to spin, a whirlpool of light and shadow twisting over my body, pulsing through my brain. The lead pressing my arms and legs to the ground seemed at once to double its own weight. The last thing I registered before passing out was that long white robe as it flowed deftly out of sight, leaving me at the mercy of the bleak darkness.

****

I blinked my eyes twice, turned my head frantically left and right—heard the sound of trees rustling nearby, of birds chirping sweetly.

"Azalea," came a deep, resonating voice. "Azalea..."

I glanced earnestly behind me, desperate for the source of the sensual melody that called my name.

"Hunter!" I breathed, letting out a sigh of relief. "Hunter, where have you been!?"

I ran forward into his arms, breathed in his fresh and luscious aroma, felt life surge through my body.

"Azalea," he cooed. "Gosh, you're beautiful."

"You're so sweet," I gushed, resting my head against him.

"You have the prettiest, brightest, most golden eyes I've ever seen," Hunter whispered, that beautiful voice flowing like the waves of his sea-brushed eyes—deep as the waters, soft as the sky. "You're perfect. I'm so glad you're mine." He embraced me tighter, hands wrapping smoothly around my lower back as I let his warmth wash over me.

"I love you," I whispered. "I love you."

As soon as I spoke, his body grew limp, his muscled arms flaccid.

"Hunter?" I asked, hesitating. "Hunter, what's wrong?" I lifted my head, glanced up into his eyes—but the face staring back at me was not Hunter's.

"Dale!?" I screamed. "But, but you were just..."

"Your beauty," he purred. "It is as if all the majesty of the great oceans were swept together and locked within your soul, sweet Azalea Rose."

"Let me go!" I screamed, ripping his arms from around my waist and turning to run.

"Sweet darling, don't flee my affection!" he called as I began dashing away.

The moonlit darkness sailed all around me, rippling as my feet propelled me forward on a wave of terror.

"Oh, Azalea," he mused, his voice echoing as though mere inches from my body, slowly devolving from its sweet, sing-song tone into a ragged and scraggly pitch. "Why can't you adore me, as I adore you?"

I looked over my shoulder as I ran onward, fear gripping my heart as I watched Dale's golden-brown face twist and contort into the countenance of a demon. His eyes darkened into pitch-black balls; his teeth lengthened into uneven sabres, dragging the grassy ground; the ends of his cheeks curved into sharp, pointed edges as spiked bones pierced through the flesh; the caramel skin surrounding his lips and nose melted and began to cascade down his throat and chest, revealing beneath a distorted, monstrous conglomeration of meat and bones.

I screamed in horror, his only response a dark and hysterical cackling.

Though he'd been scores of yards behind me, he was on top of me in an instant, grabbing both my arms and hurling me onto my back. He spread my legs apart, then his sabred teeth extended and ripped to pieces the skirt and undergarments that covered my lower body.

I tried to push away, to fight, to runbut I was no match. The strength of his monstrous arms bound my wrists and held me against the unmoving ground, blades of grass jutting upward and pricking me where I lay. I parted my lips to scream, just as a long and jagged protrusion sprouted suddenly from between his legs.

"No!" I screamed. "NO!"

"Azalea," his voice began again as his body drew closer. "Azalea...Azalea..."

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