The Outskirts: The Sky Raiders (Jace x OC) BOOK 1

The Sky Raiders: 23

The ladder swung and twisted as me and Cole descended. Holding the flag made the the climb tricky.
When I got to the last rung I stopped. I looked around. Most of the women looked similar, the clothes were the same, there hair all slicked back in tight buns, and there uninterested attitudes.
"Hey, Cole!" I shouted up at him.
"Yeah?" He said, twisting to look at me.
"I'm going to step off the ladder." I said.
"Okay, be careful." He said. I snorted softly. Of course I'm going to be careful, I don't want to die!
I jumped off the last rung. Cole followed. Every women suddenly stopped what they were doing to stare at us. I was scared that if I moved, they would come attack us.
"Creepy." I whispered. Cole just nodded.
One women bustled over to us, her footfalls loud in the silent courtyard. She peered nervously over her shoulder more than once. The rest of them remained still, there eyes boring into us. The incoming woman removed her shawl. When she reached us, she gently pushed us together and wrapped it around our shoulders. We had to keep close together for it to stay on us.
As If responding to an invisible signal, the other women simultaneously started there work again, totally ignoring us.
Remembering the flag, I set it on the ground. It stood straight up, even without a base.
The women that gave us her shawl held our her hands. "This way," she urged. "We haven't much time.
"Why?" I asked.
"Not here," she said, anxious eyes peering over her shoulder. "Indoors." Her agitation looked and sounded sincere, so I shrugged at Cole and took the woman's hand. He took her other hand and she pulled us away. The woman kept her head down, and strolled forward purposefully. The other women bustled around us, like they didn't know we were there.
The woman led us to a minor door in the main castle. They entered the corridor and passed another woman on her way out.
"What's your name?" Cole asked her.
"Not yet." She said, squeezing our hands.
They moved down the hall, then through a door into a storage room.
She released our hands, she shut the door behind us. "Merva." She said.
"I'm Cole, and this is Kendal. What's going on?"
"We have no time." The woman said, ignoring him. "It's expecting me. We can't break the routine. It must be cleaned. You must come."
"What's expecting you? Come where?" I said, confused.
She took our hands again. "Keep near me. Move how I move. Say nothing."
"Wait." I said, resisting her pull. "You have to tell us where we're going."
Her grip tightened. She looked agonized. "There's no time. It will kill us all!"
I shrugged at Cole, and let her pull me out of the room. The started down a dim winding staircase. The stairs led them to a cavernous room, comparable to a subway station. A single créature took up the entire room—a nightmarish cross between a centipede and a scorpion. Armored by a glossy black shell, the monster was the size of a train. It had five sets of claws, each pincher the size of a minivan. Hundreds of legs supported the long segmented body. The gargantuan tail curled up towards the ceiling, with a nasty looking stinger on the end.
Anchored to the rings on the floor, large chains crisscrossed the creatures body. Women bustled everywhere, cleaning it's body with mops, brooms, chisels, and sponges.
The sheer scale of the monster left me stunned. The women looked like insects next to it. No wonder Merva was worried about making it angry.
We were in way over our heads. Our best chance was probably to follow Mervas instructions. She seemed to think there was a chance of keeping the monster calm.
We stayed close to her, matching her pace and posture, she was no longer hurrying. I tried to breathe quietly.
She led us to the wall where she retrieved a large iron crowbar. Cole reached for another, but she shook her head, pointing to hers. Apparently she wanted us to share.
Merva walked along the body of the creature. Each segment was several paces long and more than three times taller than me. She stopped where the casing of one segment overlapped another, and started chiseling at the gap between them. She motioned for us to come help, so we walked over and helped her. Placing our hands on the crowbar, we assisted her in helping chip away material in the black shell.
A ripple passed through the scorpipedes body, making some chains squeal. The nearest pinchers open and closed a few times, causing some women to back away momentarily. Merva wedged the crowbar deeper between the segments and scraped harder. We helped her. Push, lever, pull.
The scorpipede shuddered. I felt the sharp vibration through the crowbar. Then came a screeching roar, that was high and low at the same time.
The room went still. In unison all women besides Merva dropped their tools. As they clattered to the ground, they all turned to stare at Merva.
All color had drained from her faced. Brushing our hands off the crowbar, she whispered. "It knows." Merva glanced at the shawl we wore. I realized the attention was on her because she lacked her shawl. "It knows I tried to conceal you. You might as well try to run."