Adventure Awaits

Chapter Eighteen: Tough Choices

Scarlet's POV

I timidly made my way over to the men. I took off every piece of jewelry; I tried to come up with a smart move in order to be able to keep them, but nothing came to me and I'd already tricked them once.

     They would surely be more prepared this time around.

      I dropped the precious stone in his hand, letting out a long sigh of defeat. Then I backed up, holding back tears. What's going to happen now? They're in control! And there was nothing I could do about it.

     I glanced behind me to see if Anne, Ed, and/or Lucas saw or was going to do something. Deadly mistake. The boss followed my gaze, snapped his fingers, and had the other men take them.

     Great.

     So there we were. The four of us, just standing before the bad guys, unsure of what they were going to do next. They could now bend all of the forces of nature according to their will, but I'm pretty sure that they weren't planning on keeping the peace.

     "What are you going to do?"

"Well, I hate to pull a cliché... but I'm going to take over the world."

"That's a bit extreme," Ed scoffed.

"Maybe," he replies "but now that I have the power, it isn't too far fetched."

"How did you even find out about the stones in the first place?" asked Lucas.

He groaned, "Like everybody who hears the stories."

"But they're only stories-" Anne tried to protest.

     "Yeah, yeah, yeah," the boss interrupted "I was obviously critical at first, but with research, we started to track all of those 'Keepers' to try and get a hold of them... and now we have!" he held the jewelry up, proudly.

     "But..." I say, weakly "The Keepers  were meant to protect them, so they wouldn't fall into the wrong hands. And use them to bring beauty back to the world. Do you really want to start a war over this? They came from the earth and maybe that's where they should return, because that's the natural way of the world, not a human being controlling it! Help me put them at peace!"

     He began laughing, almost uncontrollably, "Ha ha! You're a funny girl. But not a very smart one." he turned to the other men "Take them away."

     They started to drag us away, but I attempted to struggle, "Wait! Wait! Fine!"

     The boss turned my way, giving me a confused look, "What do you mean, 'fine'?"

"Maybe I can help you guys."

Lucas whipped his head at me, "Scarlet! What!?"

I shrug, "You know... If you can't beat 'em... join 'em. And who knows, maybe it'll be fun."

      Everyone was giving me either giving me looks of anger or confusion, but I knew what I was doing.

     At first, the boss was skeptical, but he eventually gave in, "Whatever, you'll probably be of some good use."

     The men cut me loose and took the others away. "How could you?" they all asked. I only shrugged. I approached the boss, "If we're going to be working together, I need to know three things..." He crossed his arms, "Shoot." I put up my fingers to count, "One: What's your name? Two: How old are you? And three: What are we going to do first?:

     He cracked a smile, "Dale, 26, and hehe... you'll see." That last thing sort of gave me the chills. We were walking into their hideout or something, I wasn't really paying attention. "Can I ask you 3 questions too?" I looked around, "Uh... sure." He stopped walking, "How old are you? Dou you think I'm an idiot? And do you know that there's more to these stones?"

     I hesitantly answered with, "Um... sixteen, no? And th-there is? How?" He snapped his fingers, "Don't worry... you'll find out."

A.N/ Sorry that it's been a while since I've updated this book. Unfortunately, there wasn't 10 votes last chapter so no double update, but if you guys want another go, 5 votes and I'll double upload. :)