Deceased

Chapter Seven

It's chilly when I wake up. My entire body complains about its exhaustion, soreness, and of course, the cold. I don't feel Alex beside me, so I open my eyes. She isn't there.
Immediately I go into panic mode, springing to my feet and looking everywhere.

"Alex?" I whisper-shout. I find myself thinking of that one fateful day in the store for the last Alex I was with.

"Don't worry, she's safe," says a loud feminine voice from the shadows.

"Who are you? What have you done with her?" I yell, taking out my knife.

"Woah, calm down!" She comes out of the shadows, her palms facing upwards indicating that she holds no weapons.

I lower my knife but I stand alert, ready to attack if need be. She can't be more than twenty years old. She stands at about the same height as me, I'm 5'6". She has curly blonde locks, which counteracts my straight dark hair. I can't see her eyes, but I imagine them to be a light color.

"Where. Is. She." I ask, clenching my teeth and pronouncing each word slowly.

"Safe. I promise you, she's safe. I can take you to her if you'd like. She should just be getting done eating."

"I'm not going anywhere with you!" I scream.

My yelling seems to break her calm facade. "Look, you need to seriously stop yelling. If you want your sister and you to live, then I strongly suggest you quiet down now. You want to talk? Fine, we'll talk. But you're putting me at risk here, too. I didn't have to help you, you know. I could've sounded the alarm."

We both stand there, neither of us breaking the silence that comes after her words, and neither of us even so much as glancing away from one another.

"If I had wanted to kill you, then I very easily could have," she says at last and then slowly sits down, her legs crossed, against a wall.

I decide to sit also, but I sit so that I can jump up in a moments notice. I make sure to hold the knife where she can see it, in case she does decide to try something.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Amanda. My family called me Mandy, but they're dead, so call me Amanda. What's your name?"

"I'm sure that my sister told you", I say almost hesitating when I say the word 'sister'.

She shakes her head. "She didn't. She told us her name, but not yours."

"My name is Amber. No fancy nicknames, just Amber."

"Okay, well now that we've gotten introductions out of the way, do you have anything else to say?"

"What did you mean by sounding the alarm?"

"Everybody is looking for you guys. Nobody has ever slipped through our group like that before. I mean, usually they're just so scared out of their minds when they see that their exits are blocked, that they just give up. But, then some little girl and a teenager-you are a teenager right?"

"Yes."

"Okay, yeah so anyways you two are gone in a flash. It took everybody by surprise."

"Why couldn't they have just let us go? We were just passing through."

"It's not how they do things. If people pass through, they kill the ones that would only hurt the group. Like, the old and the young. They would've killed your sister. The ones they don't kill it's either 'join or die' and of course, most choose to join."

"You said the word us before. Who's with my sister?"

"A friend of mine. Don't worry, you can trust her."