Emerald

Chapter Thirteen- Amythest

It was finally midnight; time to sneak out of the room and go get that gem. We all decided to stay in our pajamas so we wouldn't be suspicious if we were caught. Silently, we opened our room doors and crept down the hall.

"We'll be quieter if we take the stairs," I whispered. They nodded in agreement as we made our way towards the large staircase. Ari decided to take the first step down the beautiful flight of marble stairs. There wasn't a single creek. Perfect.

Once we made it down the flight of stairs, Matt checked the front desk to see if the lady was asleep. Sure enough, she was snoring even louder than she was the night before. I silently giggled as we began to search through every chair and sofa we came upon.

***

"We've been here for hours, and there's no sign of anything purple! Let alone a freakin' amethyst!" Rose whisper-yelled. I sighed. She was right. The entire room was white. There wasn't a hint of purple, anywhere.

"Wait," Ari began. "The sapphire was with the creature, who was alive, not in the rose bushes. So what if..." We all looked toward the lady at the desk. Sure enough, there was a clip in her hair with something shiny and purple on it.

"Oh, come on! Could this night get any worse?" I yelled, not thinking. I could hear my own voice echo through the lobby and I slapped my hand over my own mouth. The lady began to stir and sit up. Once she was all the way up, she stared straight at us.

"And what are you children doing down in the lobby on such a nice night as this?" she said. Her voice didn't sound like it did when she came to us that morning. It seemed to be dripping with venom, like a snake's. Like...Shadow...

"We're sorry, ma'am. We lost something when we first came to the hotel and think we left it here. You were sleeping so we tried to be quiet, but somebody decided to yell out in frustration," replied Ari. The lady snickered.

"I don't think that's why you're really down here," she said to us, just as her eyes were turning a deep black.

"Uh oh..." stated Rose.

"Run, guys!" I yelled to them, and they ran for their lives. The lady began to grow red claws for fingers, like the creature from the other night and sprouted what looked like spider legs from her back. Anyone could tell from our faces that we were absolutely terrified.

"Ari! You have to get it!" I yelled to her. She looked back at me and nodded. Without thinking twice, she ran towards the lady and grabbed onto one of her spider legs, being wary of her claws. She must have felt Ari on her legs, because she began to swing them around, taking Ari with them.

"Come on, Ari! You can do it!" yelled Rose in encouragement. Suddenly, Ari's face changed to one of determination, like Rose's from before. She gripped onto the lady's hair and forcefully pulled the clip out. She threw it to me as she got off the lady and ran away.

The lady then began to go back to her original self; claws retracting, spider legs melting away and eyes going back to normal. She sat back down at her desk and fell back asleep. My friends and I all looked at each other and raced back up to our room.

***

"Holy heck! That was worse than last night!" yelled Ari.

"Agreed," replied Matt. It was then I noticed that Ari's arm was bleeding.

"Ari, I think she scratched you," I said. She looked down at her arm and hissed in pain. "Feeling it now, huh?" I giggled. She nodded in response.

"Why does someone always seem to get hurt whenever we do something like this? God, its like were in some sort of fantasy-action movie!" sighed Rose. We all laughed at that, mostly because it was true.

I walked over to Ari to get a closer look at her wound. There were three claw marks that were dripping with her red blood. The skin around the cuts seemed to be turning a black-ish color.

"Okay, I'm gonna go put the gem away and grab the bandages that I brought," I said. She nodded and waited on the couch as I went to do as I said. I walked in my door, put the amethyst in the box and began to dig through my bag for the bandages.

"You always come prepared, don't you?" Ari commented when I came back out with the item in hand.

"I kinda thought you would know that by now, seeing as you were my first friend," I giggled as I began to wrap the cloth around her arm. She hissed in pain whenever the cloth touched her wounds directly. "I'm sorry this had to happen to you. I should have gone on this trip by myself. That way none of you would get hurt..."

"Shut up," I heard Matt say. I turned around to him with a shocked face. I'd never heard him sound so rude and determined and...hurt. "You can't put yourself down about this stuff. It's not your fault, Em. The legend thingy did say that three friends had to come with you on this little "adventure", so you couldn't have gone by yourself anyway. You just need to trust us, okay? And nothing could possibly happen that we could hate you if that's what you're thinking, right guys?"

"Right," said Ari with a smile. Rose nodded with the same smile. I smiled at them just before I yawned. "We should probably get some sleep, we still have one more gem to find."

I walked off to my room, got changed and tucked myself in bed, without even saying "goodnight". I was way too tired. I slowly drifted off to sleep with only one thought in my head;

We're so close to finding Shawn...we'll see you soon...