Broken - Isadora Quagmire

Chapter Nineteen - The Tunnels

The car slowly came to a stop.

"Driver. What's going on?" asked Esme.

"I told you, love. His name is Hooky"

"There seems to be some traffic" said the hook-handed man.

There was a knock at one of the car doors, "do not move, do not speak, don't do anything" Count Olaf said pointing at me and my brother before opening the door and breathing a huge sigh of relief when he saw who was on the other side. "What?" he demanded.

"It's a citywide manhunt, boss" said one of the white faced ladies.

"Yes. They're looking for you" said the other.

He huffed and glared at us before turning back to his henchmen, "I guess we'll have to postpone our trip then"

"But I packed nine different swimsuits, they're more in than the ones that are already on the island"

"Island?" I asked "What island?"

I was ignored. "I guess it's Plan B then. Hooky, you know where to go"

Count Olaf slammed the door shut and the hook-hnaded man reversed out of the traffic and started driving to another unknown destination. I tried to get more information from Count Olaf and Esme, but they just ignored me and talked between themselves. Duncan was still silent, though the blood had been cleaned off of his hands.

The car stopped again after half an hour in a dark alleyway. I could barley see anything when I was dragged out of the limousine. Count Olaf's henchmen moved a dumpster and revealed underneath it, a trapdoor.

"That's the same eyes as the one on the spyglass" I said to myself "it's V.F.D". I got my commonplace book out and wrote a couplet about it as I knew that it was linked to the tunnel system.

The henchmen opened opened the trapdoor and me and my brother were made to climb down into the tunnels that we had read about. My first thought was to make a run for it. I saw that the next person climbing down the ladder was the henchperson of indeterminate gender and they were not the strongest or smartest of the villains, that meant it would be easier to get away. I grabbed my brothers hand then started running, following the arrow signs. Duncan was hesitant and therefore trailing behind but I kept pulling him along with me. I then reached a section for the tunnels that was a kind of crossroads. I had to make a decision. I continue following the arrows labelled Quagmire. I could follow the Baudelaire arrows. I could follow the Pechman signs. I could follow any of the other signs that seemed familiar: Montgomery, Antwhistle... I decided to go a different way, follow a different path, the arrows labelled Lyons. First of all, I didn't think that Count Olaf would follow us that way. Secondly, when my brother and I briefly read about these tunnels and discovered that they lead to various safe places for V.F.D. members. So if that tunnel did actually lead to to the Lyons house, Liam and Valerie would be there. We started running in that direction but my decision didn't matter because as I thought, Count Olaf did not think we would have gone that way. Esme on the other hand, was way smarter than I thought and there have been multiple times when she has ruined our plans.

I heard her shouting for us. "Come on Duncan!" I shouted.

He kept looking back but was still running. My breathing was heavy, I could feel my heart racing, my legs ached. I didn't know how long we'd been running for. Unexpectedly, I was tackled to the ground y my brother.

"Duncan!"

Esme caught up to us and pulled a shoe out of the wall Duncan and I were running towards. It had a knife instead of a heel. That was my first encounter with Esme's weapon shoes. I'm currently leaning on a bunch of boxes containing them. Anyway, Ducan helped me up off of the floor and we were each grabbed by Esme and marhed back through the tunnels, this time following arrows labelled '667'.

"I'm so glad you found them, love"

"What can I say, give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world"

The elevator shaft was dark and cold. A few candles and torches were the only light. The cage that Duncan and I were forced into was smaller than the Orphan Shack and smaller than the broom closet.

"I'm afraid I'll have to be going" said Esme. "I need to prepare for tomorrow" she turned to me and Duncan "you see, in the morning I'm adopting three orphans"

"Don't hurt the Baudelaires" I said gripping onto the bars of the cage"

Esme laughed and left the elevator shaft.

Later that night, Count Olaf told us about why he and Esme hated the Baudealaires. The Baudelaire's father (Bertrand) snuck their mother (Beatrice) poison darts one night at the opera, the night she stole the Sugar Bowl with Lemony Snicket and Beatrice threw the dart at Count Olaf's father. Duncan was still shaken up but he wrote down every detail off all the stories Count Olaf told us that night, including one about our parents. Bertrand and Beatrice were the reason one of his parents died and he blamed Mother and Father for his mother's death. It was our parents first missions with V.F.D. and they were with Count Olaf's mother and when they were fighting off enemy agents        while they were fighting while they were fighting off enemy agents, our parents let Count Olaf's mother do all the fighting resulting in them eventually abandoning her, she was killed and V.F.D covered it up by telling everyone, including Count Olaf and his father (who was never a part of V.F.D.) that she died in a fire. Count Olaf only found out that Beatrice, Bertrand, Mother and Father were the reasons his parents died on the night of the masquerade ball (the one that Klaus and I were talking about a few days before), me and Duncan's parents escaped into the night before Count Olaf could do anything but Count Olaf pushed Beatrice off of a mountain, luckily she was wearing wings. He told us many other horrible stories about the Baudelaires parents and our parents.

"Our parents would never do that" I insisted

"Oh, but they did"

"I don't believe you"

"Well you should, I'm always truthful about hat I want, I told you twins the other day-"

"We're not twins, we'er triplets" Duncan croaked under his breath.

"What I want to do is take your sapphires and the Baudelaire fortune then kill you, all of you". He blew out all but one of the candles then left us.

I turned to Duncan as I sat down, I had no idea what he had seen at the gas station but I knew it was bad and that I had to distract. "Hey" I said "wanna talk about me and Klaus?"

He laughed and I smiled. "Sure".