Page 27 of Ruthless Chaos

They’ve stepped away from me, but I can still feel their presence.

In my peripheral vision, I see their shoes. Thick black boots.

I’m shaking all over. My heart is beating so fast I might have a heart attack. My thoughts keep spinning in the same anxious circle and I fall deeper into the hole in my mind.

They’re going to kill me.

They’re going to kill me.

They’re going to kill me.

A sharp creaking sound echoes in the room and I jump. A door opening? Then there are footsteps. There’s a thud and gasp, and in the wan light I see that they’ve tossed another girl beside me.

She looks my age, dressed in a skimpy nightgown. She’s bound at the feet as I am. They rip off her blindfold. She’s been crying too.

This makes no sense.

If I’m not the only one they kidnapped, then…

My eyes have started adjusting to the light. I squint, trying to get a better view of where exactly I am. As the seconds tick by, this feels less like the doing of my father’s enemies. They wouldn’t wait to kill me.

The room looks like something out of an ancient Roman period piece.

It’s all stone—the floor, the walls, the ceiling. On either end of the room, stone arches with thick drapes the color of fresh blood open into dark hallways. The flickering light comes from a huge candelabra in the center of the room.

Over the course of the next few minutes, more girls are thrown to the floor and their blindfolds are ripped off. They look shaken up, in various stages of undress too. A few of them are completely nude, making me feel a little bit better about my own nakedness.

I keep my eyes on their faces to preserve their dignity.

Still, I have no idea what’s going on.

What do I have in common with all these girls? Why were we dragged from our rooms and brought to this strange, ancient-looking place?

Someone enters the room from one of the dark hallways.

Theclick-clackof their footsteps echo in the cavernous room. I can tell they are wearing heels. The shadowy figure is clothed in a thick, floor-sweeping robe. It’s a creamy white, the skirt and sleeves fringed with green.

The figure stops a few feet away from us, by a wooden lectern near the candelabra.

Four more shadows emerge from the hallway.

They are wearing heels too, their robes plain green. I’m both mesmerized and terrified by what’s unfolding. The room is eerily silent.

I’m afraid to even breathe.

It feels like I’ve been dragged into some sort of cult meeting. My heart rattles against my rib cage. Those things usually only end one way—with human sacrifices.

The person in the white robe—a she, her red manicured fingernails glisten in the candlelight—holds up a palm and my kidnappers move to the edge of the room. The robed people lower their hoods.

My breath catches. They’re all women.

I’m unsettled by the sight of them. They all look like perfect carbon copies of each other—just like the racist girls in the hallway.

Silky straight platinum blond hair cascades from their heads, framing perfectly made-up features. But the girl in the white robe, she’s the prettiest of them all. Her lipstick is the color of dried blood, and long dark lashes shade her piercing blue eyes.

There’s something familiar about her, but I can’t place it.

In unison, the five girls put two fingers flat against their necks—I recognize the motion as the letter ‘H’ in sign language. The other people in the room do the same thing, the ones who dragged me from my room.