𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐂𝐇 𝐈 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄

─ 𝐬𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲-𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐝 𝐈𝐈

𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐒

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

ONCE AZALEA HAD MADE her way to Gabrielle's room she knocked on the door twice then paused and knocked again. It was a secret code the two made long ago, certain knocks meant certain things, this one meant something had happened and Gabrielle needed to know. The two had devised the code as children for whenever it was past their bedtime and they wanted to talk instead of falling asleep so they knew it was each other at the door. Ms. Darcy always commented on how clever the two girls were as children, always creating little ways to bend the rules to their own desire. Ever since then they used the knocking code daily, old habits never really do die, do they? Within seconds, the door opened and Gabrielle, in her blush pink lace dress, gave Azalea a concerned look before grabbing a hold of her arm and dragging her into her room.

Behind her, Gabrielle shut the door and turned around to face her. Azalea went and sat on the bench at the end of her bed, Gabrielle following her and sitting next to her. She breathed in and looked up at Gabrielle to see she had already been waiting for her to start speaking.

"What happened? Is this about last night?"

Azalea nodded and breathed in before beginning to explain in the best way she could,

"I'll start from the beginning, so you understand it all. Last night, I was abruptly woken up to rapid banging at the door, at first I thought it only a figment of my imagination, but I was wrong. It paused for a moment then continued, it was shocking no one but me woke up to this noise. Regardless, I decided to go see who it was, so I went downstairs to the door and heard voices. Truthfully, I was scared, no one ever shows up here, let alone in the middle of the night. I was hesitant, but eventually opened it to see two men, both looking like death itself, tired and spirits broken. They requested shelter,"

"Were they attractive? Did you let them into the house?" Gabrielle asked, to which Azalea scoffed at her mindset and question, "you did not answer my question,"

"Is it really relevant?"

"To me yes it is, now tell me."

Azalea sighed and answered her, "One of them was attractive, the one who seemed to be slightly older than us and the other was barely of age Gabbie, he looked like he was barely sixteen."

Gabrielle smiled, and went back to listing to Azalea explain,

"And no of course not! I wasn't going to let them stay until I heard people with weapons chasing after them, so in a blur of thoughts, I took them to the old garden house. The one back in the garden that we used to play in as children, that one."

"So they are still there as of this moment?"

Azalea nodded her head, and within seconds Gabrielle was on her feet. A look of curiosity and excitement on her face. She was rushed to comb her hair and hastily put it up into a half-up style and tied it off with a ribbon. On the other hand, Azalea was confused and stood up as well.

"What are you doing?"

"You are taking me to go meet them."