The Young Guardians

Chapter Twenty Four: The Great Escape

"Quietly," Madoc said as we hastily rushed downstairs. At the end of every staircase he would check the door and the windows and then we'd continue down.

"Madoc, do you know where we're going?" Rhys hissed as we spiralled down, with no end in sight. At one point when Madoc was checking another floor, I looked down to see how many staircases there were left; there were so many.

"All I know," he said as we ran down. "Is that these doors lead to the floors and the floors lead to exits. The staircases have an exit upstairs and at the very bottom, the ground level, and then another in the basements."

Are you guys coming? I can't see.

Oh, Eiran. We couldn't, Agate should reach you soon.

Where are you? Are you still in the hospital?

Yes. We're trying, okay. We'll be out soon. I'll talk to you later.

Fine. But only because I don't want to distract you.

Thank you. We'll meet you back at the hotel.

Several times we heard the doors opening and closing, people yelling orders to check the staircases, to go downstairs or upstairs. Every time we would stop moving and press ourselves against the walls, because mostly people would just look down to check if anyone was moving.

We knew at any second someone would see us rushing through by the windows in the doors so when we had the chance we ran down stairs as fast as we could. I was only able to keep up because I would jump the last few stairs and even then I was out of breath. Actually, all of us were out of breath.

"Stop, stop," Rhys huffed after a few minutes. "God, Madoc, how many floors are there?"

"A lot," Madoc said. "A lot." He checked the door again. "Let's go."

Rhys grimaced and followed; I kept quiet but really hated this stupid goose chase.

I heard murmurs and whispers and suddenly Madoc doubled back. He waved at us violently to go the other way, but walking backwards isn't all that safe, and I ended up tripping and falling to the floor. I landed with a thud and the three of us froze.

There was this really scary moment while we looked into each others eyes and it finally hit us that we were really in too deep. This wasn't a joke, this was breaking laws and vandalism and kidnapping.

We heard a door close and very carefully I inched forward to see if the people down the stairs had left. It wasn't helpful, so I propped myself up and leaned over the lower railing. I scanned down a few sets and was about to move my head back when caught something at the edge of my eye.

"Boo!"

I screamed and pulled myself back. They were still there.

"Let's go!" Madoc yelled and pulled me to my feet.

Rhys grabbed the door open and pushed us through. We ran down the hall, the background blurring past us we were going so fast. Madoc was leading us through, I didn't even know where we were going and I just blankly recognized people yelling at us to stop or slow down or something. I kept checking my shoulder to see if Rhys was still behind us, I had this odd fear that he was going to disappear.

"Are we," I had trouble breathing. "Are we—back—to where we started?" I asked incredulously.

Madoc nodded and continued the descent down. "It'll throw them off. I hope."

"You hope?" Rhys nearly wailed. "Madoc, it's like six hundred to three! We're done!"

"Shut up," Madoc said. "Just shut up and follow me." He was walking down now. We were too tired to suggest moving faster. "They're not going to check the stairs again. They'll be looking outside, and guarding main entrances. We're going to straight to the basement. Maybe we can get into the parking lot and bust out a car."