Despair

Despair | Chapter 2

Someone laughed inside; the laugh was soft and malicious. As soft as it was, it rang out through the whole room.

Just hearing it sent a shiver down my back.

"It's the ZK," Sterling said icily, grabbing my arm. He started to steer me away from the door. "Run!"

"ZK?" I asked.

"Yes!" he said desperately. "ZK! Just run!"

I decided to follow his orders.

We ran through the school, pushing past people in their way to the gym.

"Run!" Sterling shouts at people as we pass. "The ZK's inside! It's a trap!"

The people looked at him, as if he was crazy. "The ZK?" they asked. "What?"

Sterling shook his head and continued running. "We just have to get as far away from here as we can," he panted. "Run faster!"

"You're not my gym teacher," I whined, but I sped up.

As we turned a corner, someone slammed into us. I bucked backwards, my vision blurry.

"Woah!" Sterling yelled. I looked at him: his sword was unsheathed, and his arm was out, blocking both of us.

Despite our crazy situation, I felt a rush of affection for this guy I didn't even know.

"It's okay!" a new voice cried. "We're not going to eat you or anything."

"You're not, huh?" Sterling asked, his arm drooping a bit.

"Yeah." the voice came from a girl; she wrinkled her nose. "Humans don't taste good. Not that I know."

I looked at the new group of people we'd ran into - literally.

There were three people, one girl and two boys. The girl had wavy blonde hair and bright green eyes. The two boys looked the same; they had dark hair and brown eyes. The taller of the two had a pleasant look; there were freckles across his nose. The other ran a hand through his hair and studied us through narrowed eyes.

"I promise," the girl assured. She looked at both of us; her eyes landed on Sterling's sword. "Hey, you're armed."

"I know," Sterling responded sarcastically. "I mean, I can't really carry a sword around without knowing I am."

"Yeah." the girl smiled. "That's a good thing. Say, we've got weapons, too - and you guys look like you know what you're doing. Wanna team?"

Sterling looked at me. I give him a hopeless look.

"I guess," I said.

"Cool." the girl shook her hair out of her face. "I'm Abigail," she said, extending a hand.

"Sterling," Sterling offered.

"I'm Evan," I said.

We shook hands.

"These are my brothers - they're twins," Abigail explained, gesturing to the two boys behind her. "This is James." she pointed at the taller boy. "And this is Jax."

James smiled. "Nice to meet you," he offered.

Jax glared at us uncertainly.

"Okay. That's great," Sterling said, obviously distracted. "Let's get going."

We take off, but this time in a pack of five - united.