Page 60 of The Tree of Spirits
“We’re not stuck,” I whispered to my friends. “There’s another exit in the building, down in the basement. I found it a few days ago when I was looking for a place to store supplies. In one of the storage rooms, there’s a ladder that leads up to the street. We just have to get to it.”
“Ok, so how do we get away fromthem?” Kylie murmured, her lips hardly moving.
“You don’t.”
We looked up to find the supernatural in the broken armor looming over us.
“How...” Kylie’s mouth fell open.
The fiend tapped her helmet. “Super hearing.” She lifted her voice, calling out to the other two, “There’s another exit out of the building.” She pointed at me. “Andsheknows where it is.”
The smoky-voiced fiend stomped up to me. “Lead us to this exit.”
I swallowed hard.
“Fine.” He grabbed Nevada with one hand, hefting her off the ground. Electricity sparked on his other hand. He held the sparks in front of her face.
Nevada closed her eyes. Her lips pressed together.
“Wait!” I shouted out. “Don’t hurt her.”
“Show us where the exit is, and I won’t have to.”
“Ok!”
The fiend lowered Nevada to the floor. He leaned in toward me, so close I could see my reflection mirrored in the visor of his helmet.
“This way.” I started walking, my steps unsteady.
I headed back down the staircase, but at the bottom, I went left instead of right. I led the way down a gloomy hallway with storage rooms on either side, all the way to the big room at the end.
I started humming nervously.
“Are you sure about this?” Dante whispered to me. “I don’t remember seeing any ladder down here.”
The other Apprentices were right behind us.
The fiends brought up the rear. On the threshold of the room, one of them exclaimed, “There’s no ladder!”
I whistled, and a gust of wind knocked the fiends back into the hallway. The door slammed shut, locking them out of the room.
“He’s right. There’s no ladder.” Bronte angled an accusatory stare my way.
“I know,” I grunted, shoving a heavy crate in front of the door. “I lied about that.”
“Savannah Winters is a liar,” Zoe sneered. “Bigshocker there.”
“Would you just stop?” Kylie snapped at her. “We have bigger things to worry about than you proving how mean and petty you are.”
Zoe thrust a finger in my face, but she kept her gaze locked with Kylie’s. “She lied to us about there being an escape.”
I batted her bony hand away. “No, I lied to the fiends. I wanted them to overhear me.”
“But why? Now we’re trapped!” Bronte threw her hands in the air.
“I needed to get us safely away from them.”
“Uh, hate to break it to you, Winters, but we won’t be safe for long.” Asher nodded at the rattling door. “I’m pretty sure if those guys can knock through a concrete wall between buildings, they can knock down a door.”
