Song- King//foreign figures

This is one of my personal favorites. If you find listening to it while reading the chapter too distracting, I suggest you listen to it before or after reading.

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He woke up to the sound of metal echoing in his room. Disregarding the noise, Hector turned on his side and tried to fall back asleep. Yet again he was stirred awake by the sound of careless footsteps, close enough to be in his chamber. He jolted upright, his eyes adjusting to the low moonlight filtering in from the window set ajar. Hector furrowed his brows at the swaying drapes, as he recalled shutting the window to prevent letting a draft in.

Before Kingsley could process the situation, a damp cloth was pressed over his nose and mouth. Simultaneously, a bag with roughly hewn edges and coarse fibers was pulled over his head. He tried to kick and thrash but soon found it harder to stay awake, the energy draining from his limbs and his eyelids growing heavier by the second. Giving up struggling, he let his body slump to the floor, closing his eyes to divulge into a deep slumber.

Hector's eyes fluttered open, darting around in the pulsating dark, his hands groping around for a familiarity of touch. Palming his surroundings, he accidentally hit something.

"Ow! Watch it!" growled a voice from beside him. It sounded oddly familiar but Hector felt calm and mildly intoxicated.

A couple of seconds later, when his pupils shifted focus on to the person beside him, he saw a slight figure slumped against the wall. The person lolled their head toward him lazily and scowled.

"Avyanna?" Hector questioned, his voice low and raspy.

"Last time I checked," She responded prissily. Hector tried to muster all of his upper body strength to push himself into a sitting position. While doing so, his shoulder bumped Ava's head and she socked his arm hard.

"You bloody disoriented dingbat!" She exclaimed, the acoustics of the room echoing her voice. This was met with a few other sleepy grumbles. Hector's eyebrows darted up as he realized they were not alone. His heart rate raced as he actualized the possibility of being held leverage by the rebels from the Cennet-Verdie borders.

If they were in the vicinity of rebels, they had to escape. Hector tried to stand up but fell back. Deciding he was drugged, Hector stared hopelessly at the pitch darkness ahead of them. Suddenly, the door creaked and the shafts of harsh yellow light fell directly on Kingsley's face. Shielding his eyes from the light, he saw a few silhouettes slip into the room. Fear was palpable, dripping silence for an oddly long time. The calm before the storm.

When in trouble, one does not pray for silence.

A hand grabbed Kingsley by his shoulder and pulled him roughly to his feet, a tedious task as he had most likely been sedated. Soon his irises contracted and he shot glances around the room. All of the chosen Assassins were there, a vast spectrum of groggy and terrified. He looked next to him at Ava, who was scrutinizing the masked figures and the room, as if calculating an escape route.

There were about six men. Hector winced as the memory of the rebels they killed hit him. This struck a new fear that spread like venom through his body, convulsing in his veins. The kids were made to hold out their hands and their wrists were tied together.

Hector held out his hands to, feeling that cooperation could save them unwanted tussles. He felt a light nudge on his elbow. He raised an eyebrow at Avyanna. She wasn't looking at him to divert attention.

"Wrists apart," she whispered so softly, Kingsley completely missed it.

"Sorry?"

"Keep your wrists apart." She repeated, gesturing down at her own hands which she had drawn close to her body than holding them out. Her fingers were entwined and there was a gap between her wrists.

"Why?" Kingsley asked, slightly frustrated.

"Just bloody do it!" Avyanna hissed.

Kingsley wasn't one to do as he was told, but he knew Avyannna wouldn't be proposing something extremely preposterous in such a tense situation. So he went with his gut and did what the girl had asked. Avyanna was still unsteady on her feet and kept toppling things over. One of their captors grabbed her by the hair and shoved her onto a chair, tying her hands behind her back. The sheer force made Ava yelp out in pain but in no way did he resist. Soon after, all the kids were tied to cracked wooden chairs, gagged but not blindfolded. Mistake number one.

Hector would've tried to think of an escape, but a ticking sound from somewhere in the room was scaring him out of his mind, and with his heart in his throat, panic overweighed rational thinking. Meanwhile, Ava hadn't broken a sweat. As soon as the men locked and bolted the door from the outside, she started wriggling her hands to loosen up the ropes. Hector tried to do the same but the knot was too thick to slip his hands out from.

Suddenly, the room was filled with a low thudding and scraping sound. The kids looked wide-eyed at each other, trying to locate the source of the noise. Moments later, everyone's eyes were on Ava, who had managed to scoot her chair to the door. At first, Kingsley thought she was going to try to break it open with her skull, which was a ridiculous notion, but Ava was capable of attempting anything.

Hector watched as the girl leaned forward, her hands touching the edge of the deadbolt, her elbows bent at an uncomfortable angle. Then she began sawing at the rope using the sharp edge of the lock. A good fifteen minutes later, a low snap was heard and Ava's head shot up in triumph. Her binds had been severed enough to fall out in perfect concentric circles.

She wasted no time in wedging the back of the chair under the knob and bolting the rickety door. Not that it would make much of a difference, a single well-thrown blow would send the door into smithereens of wooden shards. She took off her gag quickly stumbled over to Kingsley and he had a shining moment of pride at himself for befriending the raven-haired girl. She untied his wrists quicker than he expected a drugged person to. That was no surprise since it was Ava in question. But he would never bring himself to admit that.

For a moment they stood awkwardly there in the unsettling silence, till a cold draft blew in from the vents perched high, reminding them that they did not have much time. Looking back at their gagged companions, a sense of duty washed over both the kids.

This was not a race. It was all about camaraderie.

Fumbling and sloppily freeing the kids, they now scattered around the room to look for a way out. Some were set on edge by the suspicious ticking noise whose source was still a mystery, others were ruefully rubbing the red marks snaked on their skin.

Hector was pacing back and forth restlessly and Ava was trying to get the door open without breaking the lock. Suddenly she whipped her head back, looking at a floorboard Kingsley stepped on.

"What was that?" She asked, getting the ears of many to perk up. Hector smiled internally at how much the others had started believing in Avyanna.

"What was what?" He tilted his head.

Ava pointed at a vague spot on the floor and asked Hector to walk back over it. Hearing it give hollow, strained creaks, she got down on all fours and knocked at the boards. Once. Twice. Then gesticulating the Assassins watching upon the spectacle to help her, they tugged at the swollen edges and, much to everyone's amazement, the floorboard came loose. Along with it did a few others, revealing a narrow staircase leading down into dark oblivion.

Hector gulped and motioned forward to Ava with his arm.

"Ladies first."

Avyanna rolled her eyes and let out a snort. "Much to your relief, no?" She jabbed. Nevertheless, she stepped on the first rung unsteadily and started rappling downwards. Hector tried to peek downward once she lowered out of view but the dark had swallowed her. After a moment of steady silence, Hector was debating going down himself when he heard a low yelp.

"Avyanna? Are you okay?" He asked, voice brimmed with concern.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine, I just slipped," Her voice echoed from what appeared to be about fifteen feet below ground. "You can come down, it's safe here... I think."

One by one, the terrified kids lowered themselves, occasionally slipping on the swaying rungs. There was a lit torch on the wall next to them. Diem, who had been silent throughout this entire exchange, decided that Ava had had enough spotlight. Shoving a few kids aside, he unfastened the torch from it's molded stand and held it ahead. The flames emitted a dull light which danced ahead of them and their jaws dropped.

An underground maze.

Ahead of them was a wide, single path that fractured into several dark, twisting tunnels. Each path looked more sinister than the other and with no sun above their heads to give away their position, it would be much harder to evaluate where they stood.

Diem swiftly took out a switchblade and, placing its tip to the right wall, started moving ahead. The blade left deep grooves behind which would help them realize if they were going round in circles. It was quite a clever idea, kudos to Diem. But it only then struck her-

"Wait a damn minute. You had that and didn't think of cutting us loose up there?" Leanna snapped at Katz, pointing at the switchblade in his hand. He stopped and turned around, smirking.

"Well, I thought little barbarian here had it all figured out," He spoke, lazily pointing the blade at Avyanna.

She ground her teeth together as she spat, "Why you bloody ba-"

"Language!" Ace coughed instinctively. Ava scowled at him and Ace instantly bowed his head. He'd rather fall off a waterfall than piss off the virago.

Diem rolled his eyes and turned back again, torch in one hand and the switchblade in another. As they moved, Hector kept track of the turns they made, in case of a mishap should they have to run back.

Right, right, left, right, left, left. So they were headed straight ahead.

It had been almost an hour and they were still at it. Hector could feel the hope draining from the little gaggle of kids as each minute brought by no more progress than they had made in the past hour. Ten more minutes later, Nox complained from the back of the group.

"How long are we going to keep at this? Just admit it, we are lost and we are screwed."

Just as the others could approve of or refute his statement, Avyanna pointed ahead at a speck of light.

"I think I see the mouth of the cave!"

Emboldened once again, the teenagers scampered forward, towards the echo of the light. It wasn't slow or pleasant, their exiting the underground tavern. The harsh light hit them all at once, making them breathe out in relief and cower from the burning sunlight.

A figure walked in front of them and everyone got on their defensive. Soon their eyes adjusted to the sunlight and they saw the familiar stocky build of Clarence.

"Mr. O' Clareigh? What are you doing here?" Ace asked.

He simply smiled and gestured for them to follow him. The kids shared a look, then shrugged and followed their trainer. As they walked through the wilderness, trying not to trip over vines, a deafening blast erupted from somewhere distinctly behind and below them at the same time.

Clarence turned just enough so he could see them out of the corner of his eyes.

"Congratulations. You just survived," He pointed to the source of noise, "That."

Avyanna's eyes widened at the notion which the man was suggesting. She looked back and forth between their trainer and the mouth of the cave, which was now billowing smoke.

Shit was getting real.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:

I know that I always write in third person POV but even that somehow only describes stuff from Ava's eyes. So I tried to do it from a third-person/hector POV, let's hope it went good.

Anyways, I didn't take a month to update, though I was kinda stuck on this chapter. Thanks for staying with me if you have and stay safe!

Toodles Cinnamon rolls 😘😘!