Salient Secret 2

43

Vada

"Heaven?" I ask with slight disbelief in my voice. 

"Not God and angels heaven, this place is probably better," she responds. 

"This place?"

"Welcome to Electus," she says smiling. 

"Electus is a place?" 

"It's more than a place, it's a haven for fulminares," she explains. "In all my years I've only seen this place once, rumor has it, you can only get here through a rare portal, you're the first person I've ever met who has been able to enter here with your powers." 

"Being special hasn't really worked out well for me now has it?" I say referring to the fact that she kidnapped me, is threatening my mom and is now forcing me to help her destroy the world.

"It is a shame isn't it?" she says mockingly. 

"Let's just find what you're looking for," I say and then start walking. 

*****

"You know this would go a lot faster if you just told me exactly what you're looking for," I say aggressively. We have been walking around here for half an hour and I still don't know what I'm looking for. 

"Aurelia's grave," she flatly responds. 

"And you think it's up that hill?" I say not wanting to climb the hill with her, this all just seems like a waste of time and since my mom doesn't have much left, I'd like to speed this along.

"Come on," is all she says once she reaches the top. I sigh loudly and follow her, when I get to the top, I am completely flabbergasted, I'm convinced my eyes are playing tricks on me. The hill gives this perfect view of what looks like interconnected stone mansions, it's magnificent.

"I'd hurry if I were you, your mom must be starting to ice now," Tasia says snapping me right out of my trance. 

"Won't these people recognize you and ask questions?" I ask hoping she says yes so I can scream help and let them kill her. 

"Who said they're going to see me?" 

"How will they not? A place as big as this has to be housing a few thousands of people."

"We're going to the graveyard, the place where thousands of people avoid."

Kai

"So let me get this straight, you think Vada is somewhere in this mystical place ?" Cassian asks, clearly not convinced. 

"Think about it, it's a place so low key that we had no idea it existed," Imelda passionately says. 

"It's worth searching," I say. 

"How do we get out?" Cassian asks. 

"You can teleport out, you just can't teleport in," Rik explains."Oh and one day in here is like one hour out there."

"You guys were in here for days?????" Cassian asks.

"Well yeah, look around, it's awesome. We learnt so much about Cynthia and how she wants to be immortal but the serum is here blah blah blah" Imelda says like she doesn't know vital information. 

"The serum is here?" I ask in shock. 

"Yes, don't worry, it's guarded by some really powerful fulminares," she says winking at me. 

"Why are you winking?" I'm confused, she opens her jacket, reaches into the pocket and pulls out a vile. 

"You stole it?????" Cassian asks. 

"Well yeah, we needed a plan to make sure Cynthia doesn't get what she wants," she explains. 

"Won't they know?" I question trying to figure out how they pulled something like this off. 

"No, we replaced it with a look alike," Rik says with a bit too much confidence. 

"Don't look at me like that, it was just lying in her grave. After we figured out what Cynthia wanted, we decided to beat her to it. We were on our way back to you guys when Idris showed up," she says. 

"Idris showed up, which means if Cynthia realizes the serum is gone, you two are the first suspects," Cassian scolds through his teeth. 

"I didn't even think of that," Rik says. 

"So let's get out of here and make sure we hide this serum somewhere they will never find it," Imelda suggests. 

"What happened to finding Vada?" I critically ask. 

"Imelda and I will go home and hide the serum, you and Rik stay here and look for Vada," Cassian orders and everyone agrees. 

Vada

"When you said grave, I thought you meant an actual grave, you know, with a headstone and a coffin 6 feet under the ground," I say after walking into this room full of stone tombs. I guess she died a long time ago and this is how royal people where commemorated. 

"Not quite. I should have said tomb. She was falsely favoured around here, they would put her in the center," she says weaving through the tombs, making her way to the middle. She was right, there's a fancier tomb in the middle engraved with her name. 

"Help me open it," Tasia says getting impatient. We slide the the top off carefully and set it down of the floor, we stand up and look into the tomb, there's nothing but a skeleton, which is clearly fake but I won't be mentioning that to this psycho bitch. 

"It's not here," she sighs are rummaging through the 'remains'. 

"She must have hid it somewhere else," I say trying to get out of this place asap. 

"Or someone beat me to it," she says staring me down like I wasn't with her the entire time. 

"Why you looking at me? I've been with you," I defend myself. 

"I ran into your two friends earlier, the one with blue hair and her rather good looking brother, they were in RKA, you know what RKA has?"

"A rocket," I answer sarcastically. 

"A portal, to here."

"They wouldn't know that," I say as she slowly starts walking toward me. 

"If you're lying I swear-" she stopped talking, what just happened??? She falls to the ground on her face, ouch, and I notice an bullet in her back, I look up when I hear footsteps. It's Kai and Rik. 

Rik walks towards me, puts his gun down and says, "You're welcome."