"Do you see anything?" "Clearly not or I would have pointed it out," the man who I knew to be Matthew said with a scowl.
"Alright alright, no need to be so rude," we walked in silence after that. A few minutes later, a red flare went up with a bang. I started running towards it with Matthew, seeing flashes of Bert's blue t shirt and the armed men's camouflage pants.
"Didn't take long huh," I didn't pay attention to who said that, too focused on what lied ahead of me.
Moss covered the ground in specks and crawled up the trees, faint sounds of frogs and crickets faded in the background as I heard footsteps.
Sarah went closer to what seemed like ruins of pillars, furiously scribbling something in her notepad.
"Bottom...lake...turn...back...I hope..." Sarah furrowed her brows in confusion at her notes.
"That's all I could get out of what's left," She shrugged with an apologetic look on her face.
"Well then, what're you waiting for? Get to the bottom of the lake and see what's there!" Aditya boomed at three men. They grumbled under their breaths but threw their guns on the ground and went to remove their boots.
They made a huge mistake by throwing their guns on the ground. From what I figured, Aditya wasn't one to do the dirty work himself, if I attacked he'd get himself to a safe place. His men were absolute cocky pieces of shit who had a pea sized brain. Probably why Aditya employed them, he knew they would bend to his will.
I nodded softly to Bert who glanced at the guns in question. I nodded once again and he nodded back, quietly moving to smack Chloe's hand. She glared at him but then noticed the guns and saw what he meant.
I softly kicked a rock towards Anna who looked down in question. She looked at me and saw the guns close to where I was, simply laying there. She jerked her head towards the weapons in question and I nodded. She smirked and whispered something in Aryan's ear who raised his eyebrow but said nothing, though his stance and demeanour did change.
We waited for the three men to come out the lake, we needed to see what was at the bottom before we escaped. Or at least I needed to see what lied there.
Water splashed around as the three men lugged a coffin while grunting. "What the-" Sarah cut herself off and rushed to the coffin, kneeling and running her hands softly along it.
"Brahmins always preferred, cremation, it doesn't make sense for whoever is in this to be buried," She tilted her head in confusion. "Maybe it's not a Brahmin?" I asked. "No, it has to be. This place was sacred for the Paliwals, or at least that's what the inscription implied.
Aditya barked something at his men in Hindi and two quickly scrambled to shoot open the locks on the coffin.
"Careful! Have some respect would you! This is a puzzle piece in a historic mystery you're trying to blow up!" Sarah barked at them in anger, but they simply rolled their eyes.
They shoved her aside and roughly pulled the coffin lid out, only to come across a skeleton, buried with an arrow that I assumed was once placed in his hand and a few rings that lay loose now but once were probably worn by whoever this skeleton was.
Sarah picked up the rings and inspected them, pausing occasionally to write things down. Aditya tapped his foot while twisting the ring he wore on a chain.
I nodded to Bert and his stance shifted immediately, his hands out his pockets. I counted down to one from four and when I got to one, I managed to conjure chaos.
"SARAH HIDE!" I screamed and she didn't need me to say it twice. She immediately ran without looking back to who knows where.
I grabbed two of the guns on the floor and threw them to Chloe and Anna, and the two got to work immediately. Knowing Bert didn't have his throwing stars, I chucked one of my knives at him and he fumbled but caught it. I threw the last gun to Aryan and chucked my dagger at one of the men's head, lodging it in his throat.
Bullets were being fired everywhere and adrenaline coursed through me as I threw my last knife at a man who was going behind Bert, who was too busy fighting others too notice.
After the gunshots, my ears were ringing and so were everyone else's Nd it took us a while to realise that everything was actually quiet and that we were safe, Aditya having gone long ago at the beginning.
I gasped, trying to catch my breath as I looked all around me. Blood flowed in the moss, the sight not affecting any of us, the ones who remained alive.
"You...you wanna know why I was desperate to come? It's...it's Aditya. I knew he would...that he would be here," Aryan panted out while kneeling on the ground, looking up at me, not bothering to look at any blood around him or on his clothes.
"Good to know kid," Anna patted him on the head before sighing. "Oh fuck. How long did it take us to create... this?" Chloe gestured all around her.
"Don't know, don't wanna know," Bert walked over to the man who had my dagger lodged in his throat. He pulled it out and groaned in disgust as he wiped the blood of as much as he could on his t shirt, handing it to me.
"Thanks," I was surprised at him but took my dagger nonetheless, smiling softly at his grin.
He tipped an imaginary hat at me and Anna pretended to barf. "Jeez, how do people ever figure out you're dating," Aryan rolled his eyes at us and Bert gave him the middle finger in response.
"She left a note. That's what she was writing," Anna said while holding a red stained piece of paper.
"It says she's gone. For good. She'll hold Aditya off as much as she can, I don't know how, but she'll have to, to get her brother back," Anna said and folded the note to put in her pocket.
"Let's go to my house. We'll take the rings and anything else important and we can do our research there," Aditya said and ran his hands over his face.
"Yeah," I let out a deep breath. "Are we going out to find the dagger? I mean, I want to but I get if you guys don't," Chloe asked.
"Yeah, let's. I wanna know how and why we're connected," Aryan said and stood up.
We walked to two of the jeeps that were there, parked quite far away. We wouldn't have to worry about Aditya's men trying to attack considering their blood spills, lack of pulse and the sight of knives and bullets lodged in them confirmed their death.
This ran way deeper and this truly was no longer my fight.
"You guys okay with off-brand ramen right? It's the only thing I can cook,"
"We'll live."
YOU ARE READING
Nyx Anora
Teen Fiction"What are we doing? Really. What-what is this?" "I'm sorry, I don't know," "Exactly. We don't know. I don't know you, you don't know me. What is this then?" "...I-" "You don't know."
