Mines

Chapter Twenty-three

"Take out your guns!" I immediately shout as soon as Seabury turns the corner.
"Should we follow him Alex?" Angelica asks, turning around to stare at me, and I shake my head.
"Let the weasel run. There's no point in hiding our location anymore." I answer.
"Alexander, look!" Peggy says, tugging on my sleeve. I turn to look at her and I see she's still looking up. When I look up too, I see what she sees. There's a trapdoor in the ceiling.
"Okay, Peggy, climb on my shoulders and unlock it." I instruct, and bend down so she can get on.
"Hurry!" Eliza tells her sister. "I can hear footsteps!"
"Almost got it!" Peggy yells back.
"Front line defense!" I tell Angelica and the two other men with us. It's a command we learned back when we were training with the rebels. They get in a line, Angelica in the middle and the two men on either side of her, all of them raise their guns and wait for the British to come around the corner.
"Got it!" Peggy informs us. After a brief amount of pain when she kicks off of my shoulders, she's on the other side. "It's all good up here. Just another dark corridor."
"Okay, Eliza, You next," I say, and lift her up to Peggy, who grabs her by the torso and hauls her up. "Angelica, come on!"
"Pfft, fine. But only because I want to, not because you told me to." Angelica says to me and gets pulled up by her two sisters, which is somewhat difficult because of her cast. Then I get one of the men up, and then the other until it's only me left. Utterly helpless.
"Alex!" Peggy says, and reaches down her arms. I grab onto her wrists and kick off from the ground, feeling the support of five people pulling me up. I get up just in time to close the trapdoor, before the British turned the corner. We made it.

"Where are we?" Peggy asks, looking around. In the scuffle to get through the trapdoor, all the torches were extinguished, leaving us in complete darkness.
"Let's wait until our eyes adjust," I say and everyone agrees. After about two minutes, we can see again, so we get up and start moving. "Quietly." I remind them all, and I can barely see Angelica roll her eyes. It's difficult to be quiet however, when you can hardly see. We keep bumping into each other and tripping on rocks. Eliza actually tumbled, and we barely caught her before she hit the floor. Nevertheless, she screamed. "Everyone, against the wall. Don't move, don't speak." I order quietly, and we all press into the shadows. We see a flicker torch light coming from the end of the corridor, followed by a voice.
"Did you hear something?" the torch holder asks, and his friend replies.
"Yeah, screaming. Get used to it, they do it all the time down here."
"Alexander, are we... are we where they keep the prisoners?" Eliza breathes into my ear. I swallow the lump in my throat and nod.
"Okay, let's move on." We continue, walking down the passageway and feeling the corridors, until:
"AAAGH!" one of the men, the one with blonde hair and green eyes yells and falls sideways. Sideways? Sideways. Into another corridor. We all huddle around him, and then move back into the shadows again, but this time, our screams go unnoticed. Without anyone saying anything, we continue on. This time, instead of passing solid rock wall, we pass cells. But none hold anyone, or anything. We turn another corner, and start to see cells line with people. Most of them look on the brink of death, and have old wounds that never properly healed, or protruding ribs. Or both.
"Okay so, the hostages might be held together, so in that case we have to find a big cell, but if not they should be somewhere around here." Peggy says, stating the obvious.
"Oh but- what about them?" Eliza asks. "I mean, they're trapped to. Shouldn't we get them out?"
"Most of them look on the brink of death, we couldn't really do much with them. But we can try, they're second priority." Some of them are dead. I think to myself as we pass a cell holding human bones.

"Do you hear something?" I ask, raising my head from my knees, and peering around the cell.
"Maybe you're going crazy." Herc says groggily, and I realize he's half asleep. This makes me worried.
"No don't fall asleep, don't leave me." I say to him, tugging on his arm. What I really mean is, don't fall asleep and never wake up and leave me alone forever. But that sounds too morbid right now, and Hercules isn't in any danger of dying. Like Laf.
"Okay okay," he says. "I'm not going anywhere, I'm staying right here." He grips my wrist and squeezes as to let me know I'm safe. What a laugh.
"Quiet in there!" the solider shouts, making an echo clanging sound as he knocks his gun next to the metal bars. We suddenly hear a distance shout of "over there!" and several loud hurried footsteps as six people come into our eyesight.
"Alex!" I shout, unable to hide the happiness I feel at seeing him, seeing his face. Being with him.
"Y-you!" The guard shouts, his hand flying to raise his gun.
"You know, I've been getting that a lot recently," Alex says, and raise his own gun, but more slowly. Five other pairs of guns raise as well. "Drop the keys." Without hesitation, the British troop drops the keys and runs around the corner.
"You're just going to let him go?" Herc asks, his eyes following Alex as he unlocks the door and then opens it.
"Why not? They already know we're here and what we're after." But as soon as the door opens, I rush forward and fling my arms around Alex.
"I'm so happy you found us!" I say as he hugs me back.
"Me too... sorry I didn't come with you earlier." he responds, and then we let go of each other.
"How's Lafayette?" Eliza asks, looking around us and into the cell.
"Still out cold, we patched him up best we could, and we can feel his pulse," Herc responds. Then he sighs. "Even screaming 'baguette' wouldn't wake him up."
"Okay for the record, that happened one time and it was just a coincidence." I answer Alex's confusion.
"It was not!" Herc replies offended.
"Let's just get out of here. Hercules, can you carry Lafayette?" Angelica says before I can respond, and Herc nods, scoops up his friend and stands up.
"Alexander," Washington says, standing up and startling everybody. I expected him to speak long before this, but then I realized he dozed off somewhat. "How did you get here?"
"Tunnels sir!" Alex says immediately. "We also might have drawn a tiny bit of attention to ourselves, but nobody followed us."
"Good enough. Alright, we have to head back where you're keeping the others. There... are others... right?" Washington asks cautiously. Alex nods.
"Yes sir, of course," Alex beckons the others out of the cell and the two rebels and James Madison rush out to join the group, the rebels staying behind Washington, and Madison just in the back in general. "Alright, is this everyone? Let's go."
     "Now hold on, just a moment. I'd hate for you to leave so soon." says a cold and unwelcome voice. We all turn to see Captain George standing and smirking at us, with about twenty guards behind him.