The Elementals - The Ice Princess

Chapter 46

"CRUNCH!" is the sound that Laney hears when she sets her nose back in place. She uses two hands to pull the nose out and then quickly shifts it back into place. The pain is excruciating, but only for a few seconds and then it starts to subside. She is able to muffle her cry of pain by biting in her good shoulder. She imagines that she is going to have quite the black eyes from it if she makes it out of here alive.

Laney can hear the screeching from a few rooms over. They obviously found her blood on the floor based on all the excitement. She shudders at the thought of what they are actually doing with it now that they've found it. She imagines that they are fighting over it, or rolling around in it to get the smell of her on them. Gross, she thinks to herself.

With her nose taken care of, she needs to get moving. She peeks up from her hiding place, behind a teacher's desk in an empty classroom, similar to the one they jumped into when they first arrived at the school. From here, Laney needs to sneak down a couple more rooms and she will find herself in the office, which houses the principal's office. She listens to the screeching that still continues and decides that this is her best chance to make a break for the office. She opens the door a small crack and peers into the hallway. Seeing nothing, she opens the door slightly more and bolts into the hallway at full speed. She needs to the get to the office before the door fully closes and latches giving away her position. As she nears the office and grabs the handle, she can hear the door behind her finally close with a loud click. Immediately the screeching stops as Laney begins to close the door slowly to the office trying as carefully as she can to not make a sound.

The sound of clicking fills the hallway as Laney finally lets the latch fall silently into place. She breathes a sigh of relief. That relief is short lived when all of a sudden there is a huge bang at the door that she is leaning against. They've found her.

Laney pulls her legs in and makes herself as small as possible so as not to be seen, pressing herself up against the metal door. One hand grips her legs and the other grips her illuminos, just in case. After what feels like a lifetime, but is actually more like a moment or two, the scout in the hallway continues its search releasing the handle. Laney sits for a few seconds to make sure that the scouts are actually gone, then gets to her feet and makes her way to her destination.

Standing outside of Mrs. Raymond's office, Laney puts her ear to the door. From inside, through the thick wooden door, she hears muffled voices. Thinking that she's in for another fight, she grabs at the illuminos from her belt and opens the door.

She couldn't be more wrong about the fight. Sitting in the middle of the room, strapped to a black, high back, leather executive chair sits an older man, with blood dripping out of his ears, it's Eira's dad. He looks in rough shape.

He lifts his head up slowly and a look of wonder comes across his eyes. "Eira?" he says weakly to Laney. Laney realizes that she is still in her Eira form. She contemplates changing back to herself, but decides against it. She figures that he needs to be able to trust her to get up and get moving out. So she runs to his side and starts to untie him.

"How are you here? Why are you here? It's not safe..."

Laney helps Eira's dad to his feet but he is incredibly weak and the weight of his body is almost too much for her. They both stagger towards to the door before he stumbles and falls to his hands and knees.

"You need to go, leave me here. You are more important than me. Go."

"I'm not leaving without you," Laney finally says to him.

"Eira, if you die there are no more ice royalty. The powers die with you. You are the last of your kind."

The real Eira doesn't know. Laney thinks to herself. This really complicates things. For a moment, Laney actually thinks about leaving Eira's dad to find Eira and protect her, but she made a promise to get her dad to safety and that is what she is going to do.

Laney re-grabs Eira's father under the arm but he pushes her away. She falls backwards towards the desk.

"They're coming! Hide!"

Laney hates the idea of having to hide, but realizes that if she doesn't she may get herself and more importantly Eira's dad killed in the process. So she curls up under the desk as a couple of figures enter the room.

"Clever old man," says a familiar voice that Laney can't quite place. "It's time and we want to make sure you have a good seat for the show."

Laney watches from her hiding spot as two shadowy figures pick up the weakened body that moments ago she left lying on the carpet and drag him out. She sits thinking about her next move. She knows she must get to Alex and Eira before Eira gets herself killed and make her aware of what she just found out. But she also needs to stay close to Eira's dad now that she has found them. At the moment, she decides it's more important to watch over Eira's dad. She hopes that if anything were to happen, Alex would know enough to get her out and that Eira would be smart enough to listen.

Laney exits her hiding spot from under the desk. She takes a quick stock of her illuminos to make sure it's at the ready and rubs the back of her hand across her nose to make sure she's not bleeding any longer, which she isn't. She makes her way to the door and sneaks a quick peek. Seeing and sensing no danger, she exits the room into the office hallway. She hears the door to the office latch closed a few seconds later and from down the hall can hear Eira's dad dragging his feet. She knows where they are taking him and judging by how slowly they are going, she has time to make one little pit stop, so she slowly and cautiously decides to follow them trying to be more inconspicuous than the dark clouds of rage that hunt her tonight.