Twenty-Nine

Glory

It sounded like burning skin.

The black venom sizzled against Scarlet's shocked face. And to Glory's horror, it started to melt off. Scarlet screamed, clawing at her face. Her friend, Burn, ran away without even giving her a second glance.

Glory felt sorry for the woman screaming on the floor. It really did seem painful. "You probably killed a lot of people. You probably helped to create this venom. Did you think you could get away with it?" Glory blinked.

"Help...me," Scarlet screamed. Glory stood there, unable to do anything for a moment. And that was when Scarlet reached for her throat.

Luckily, Scarlet's grip wasn't firm, but it was clear in the murderous look in her eyes that Glory had made an enemy.

Glory tore her eyes away, coughing, and ran to the place Clay and Peril were fighting. Clay was punching her, and Peril wasn't fighting back. She just kept talking.

"Clay! Clay!" She sobbed. Not this not this not this.

Clay stopped, but only for a moment. He turned to her, his black pupils staring right at her. "Glory," a voice that didn't seem like Clay's said, cold and angry.

"Clay!" She felt the tears again. She had never felt so much fear. She cried out again. "Clay!"

"Give it up, Clay! Control yourself! You're killing her!" Peril shouted from the back. She was running towards them, her face bloody. Her lip was swollen. Her hands lit up with fire. "Think wisely."

"Don't hurt him!" Glory cried, trying to run to her. Clay seemed confused. Traitor. She's trying to hurt him, she will kill him-

"Keep talking to him!" Peril shouted, to her surprise. "Clay, it isn't real! None of you are safe!"

Clay shook his head. "Safety. Warmth. Protection-"

"Think, Clay, think! We have to get out of here. They will kill us all!" Glory sobbed. She felt empty, utterly broken. Clay was fighting a battle against himself, and there was nothing she could do. "Please!"

Peril was slowly walked to him, her expression full of caution. "Your friends. They are in danger. Open your eyes and see, Clay. Open your eyes," she said, calm.

"What are you doing?" Glory demanded. "We have to get out of here!"

Peril flashed her an irritated look. But her eyes were full of fear. For what? She's not in danger. Why is she afraid? "You don't know what it's like. Being in that paradise in your head-fighting to gain control. Don't speak like you know what it feels like."

"Why should I believe you?" Glory challenged, as Clay gripped his head. She cried out and ran to him, but Peril held her back. Glory thought she was trying to burn her, but the fire had subsided.

"Because I-" Peril started. "I-"

Glory laughed, in a moment of insanity. She felt anger, and she directed it to Peril. "What? You love him or something? If it wasn't for you, we would have been safe. We could have escaped!"

Peril flushed. "I didn't-"

But then the explosion happened. It was like a bomb. Everythin started to blow up. It was timed. Someone's trying to kill the assassins.

She felt amused. She shouldn't have been, but she was. The assassins are being assassinated.

In what seemed like a slow in time, Glory was lifted off the ground and was forced onto a wall. The air was knocked out of her. Numbing pain blinded her.

She reached for Clay, for anything, but nothing came into her reach. She closed her eyes. The screams seemed far away. A surge of horrible pain- heat- exploded all around her body. But then the darkness came, and something hit her face, like a piece of glass.

She was in the air- up, up, up- and everything seemed to slow down. She could feel her hair flying upwards.

In that moment, she felt like an angel.

~

Sunny

She was always the small one, the kind one, the soft one. She always held everyone together. She brought out the best in everyone.

The good thing about being the glue in a friend group: you got to cheer people up. Everyone liked you. People treated you nicely. You stopped fights, kept everyone together, and helped people.

The bad thing about it: nobody took you seriously. People thought you were an innocent baby that needed to be protected. And even though you helped people with everything you had, sometimes you didn't get any back.

She woke up smelling smoke. She coughed, and she opened her eyes immediately.

The first thing she searched for- her friends. Tsunami was right there next to her. Tsunami shivered. Sunny checked her forehead, but no fever. That was a good sign. Probably.

She stood up and walked around the cell. She shook the door, and to her surprise, it snapped open. There were no guards. Up close, the smell of fire was unmistakable. Excited, she ran back to Tsunami, who was sleeping, a soft frown on her face.

"Tsunami, wake up," Sunny whispered, nudging her. She remembered voices. She remembered the cell. She remembered the betrayal, which had hurt because she had believed that Peril was a friend.

They needed to find their friends. "Tsunami, wake up!" Sunny shouted. Tsunami's blue eyes snapped open, and her shoulders tensed immediately, searching the room for dangers.

It was probably a habit. It made Sunny sorry for her. Tsunami had defended them for so long, it was in her blood. She never got peace, not really.

Maybe that can be my job, too. To sympathize with people.

"Our friends are gone." Sunny pointed at the cell door. "The cell door's open. Let's go find them. It smells like a fire-"

"Great. Let's go," Tsunami interrupted, fully alert. She grabbed Sunny's wrist and kicked the door open. They ran to the end of the room. The door was locked.

"What should we do?" Sunny said. What is this?

"Stand back," Tsubami ordered. Then she did a swift kick, and the door flew open. She grinned. "I learned that from my stunt double."

They ran into the bigger room. It was lined up with cells, each of them empty. It led up to a hallway. They ran towards it. Tsunami sniffed the air, and motioned for Sunny to lift her shirt up to her nose. Tsunami scanned the hallway, cautiously walking. She peeked into a room. Nobody was there.

They went into the room. It seemed like someone had been there. The papers were scattered. And that was when Sunny saw the timer. "We have to get out of here."

"Do you see something?" Tsunami said distractedly, eyeing the blue liquid in one of the tables.

"A timer. Why would they do this? Maybe someone caught them. Or...maybe someone's trying to destroy their place. Their work."

Tsunami frowned. "You might be right. Since we can't scan every room, we'll need to go quickly. Let's go this way, shall we?"

"No. The rooms are abandoned, which means there's a big event going on. Smell the fire? And the timer? Maybe they're erasing evidence. That would explain the lack of prisoners. But what we know for sure is that we have to go that way. We have to find Starlight first. He got shot in the eyes, which means Morrowseer didn't want to kill him, which hopefully means he's in one of the hospital beds. Seeing that we weren't freed, nobody probably cares about him either. So we go this way, near rooms with the hospital beds."

Tsunami widened her eyes. "Woah. Okay. Let's go that way."

They ran. The smoke got worse, and they could see a spark of fire from the way they came from. It quickly spread, and Sunny and Tsunami looked at every room near the hospital part of the building. He wasn't there.

"Maybe I'm wrong," Sunny stressed. "Maybe-"

"No. You're right. Let's keep searching," Tsunami said confidently, but Sunny could tell it was fake.

As they kept going, coughing from the smell of smoke. They were getting further away, but it still made Sunny' troat sore.

They got into a room. A big door. Tsunami opened it swiftly with one motion. Sunny entered it, her heart thundering.

There was a gun on the floor. It seemed like someone had abandoned it. She picked it up, confused. Why would they abandon everything all of a sudden?

The bed seemed messy, like it hadn't been long since someone had slept in it. She walked to Tsunami and gave her the gun. She was about to voice her suspicions when a voice came behind them.

Tsunami noticed it first. Without hesitating, she pushed Sunny beside the bed, hiding her from view, and pointed the gun at the movement behind them.

But it was too late.

It was a girl, and she was with the boy. Was it Deathbringer? He was nicely dressed, with black tie and all, but his black hair was messy. He seemed pale, and there was a nasty bruise on his cheek.

"Move, and your friend dies," a girl said beside Deathbringer. Sunny had seen her too. Morrowseer had introduced her to Sunny at the beginning. Greatness.

She noticed two things immediately.

That Greatness was in a wedding gown. Perhaps it was a good sign, perhaps it was not. But it was clear who she was being married to. The guy beside her, Deathbringer. Which also meant that she needed to add him to the list of friends that betrayed them and was pure evil.

And the second: she was pointing a gun. Not at Sunny. Not at Tsunami.

She was pointing the gun straight at Starflight's head.