"Yes I have my God. Damn. Toothbrush." I yelled back down the stairs grabbing my phone from the charger from my draws.
"And your sleeping bag?" a answering voice yelled up the stairs
"Mum do you really think I'm that much of an idiot? It's a sleep over. I have the sleeping bag." I shoved my phone into my pocket and lugged my bag to my bed.
"Well how do I know they don't have spare beds over there? And any way …" her voice droned on as I pulled boxes from under my bed reaching toward my stash, I gonna need this tonight especially after this week. I grabbed a bottle of cider and the left over vodka, along with my last can of Stella. Thank god for Toby.
"Are you okay up there your awfully noisy" her footsteps were slowly coming up the stairs. Craps of all times I need you to care you don't and now what? I don't want you to care so you do.
Why is life so fucking unfair?
I'm panicking. I rip open my bag shoving the bottles in separate corners so they won't clash against each other. "Mum it's okay don't bother coming up I'm just grabbing…"
"Oh, honey what have you forgotten" I hate her soft sympathetic tone, it like when you're trying to calm an animal before you kill it.
" How many times do I have to tell you Don't. Honey. Me! I'm not your lovey dovey husband!" I rip the bag back up; it's a lot heavier. All I have is some PJs, skinnys, t shirts and my favourite all time jumper.
Her footsteps had stopped coming up the stairs and I thrashed the boxes back under the bed.
"If you forgot your sleeping bag it's okay to admit it." her words sounded hurt. Okay maybe I was a little harsh with the dad comment but it saved my ass.
"Okay I forgot the stupid thing" it was the best explanation for the stupid boxes crashing into each other. "It's just I'm in a rush." A rush to get the fuck away from you, woman.
"You know I'm going to miss you." her words drifted to my ears as I grabbed a muiltpack of tic tacs from shelves and stuffed them into the front pocket of my now stuffed bag.
"Stop talking shit mum. You know you hate having me around. 'Burden of a daughter'ring a bell" I yelled back, so what, I know I was being a bitch as I quoted her words but she deserved it.
"Fuck you. I didn't mean those words, you know that!" her words were stern and final. Yeah because if she's says anything in a stern tone it's true. Fuck her. I grabbed the remaining cash from my so draw, shoving it into my right pocket. I started to turn round again.
" Go to hel…" I started to yell back but my words drifted, as my room was now a torch lit corridor. My grey walls were gone and replaced with soft orange candlelight.
I quickly looked back. The corridor proceeded the other way for a good hundred meters. I closed my eyes and blinked hard. It was still there
No, this is not happening. What the hell is happening? No, no, no... calm down, its okay...okay its still there... it's not okay… where the hell am I?
Calm down, just think, if I'm here mum might be here. Yeah that would be some luck! SHUT UP SARCASTIC VOICE IN MY HEAD! This is not the time!
"Mum?" I said the words softly, they echoed, rebounding on the walls. No answer.
The floor was a gray stone; it was hard under my converses.
My bag was still on my shoulder, weighing me down. Bag, money, phone, Phone! Jimmy! I grabbed it out of my pocket, turning the slow thing on.
Why do phone take ages to wake up? Who decided they needed to a silly message saying 'Vodafone how are you?'?
"Jimmy, come on Jimmy wake up!" I whispered silently to the stupid technical box. Yes I have named my phone Jimmy and yes I am talking to it and yes I might be a bit nuts, but I prefer creative.
After what felt like five hours…
The stupid thing didn't have signal.
"Jimmy" I sighed in disapproval. Okay. I'm stuck in some weird corridor, stuck meaning my room turned into the corridor, my phones utter **** and I have no idea where I am. Good one Poison, what next?the stupid voice in my head mocked me.
If your like me, then I will predict that you will wave your phone in random directions searching for signal, when this doesn't work you'll start rubbing it in your hair for static electricity (don't ask, it works at the hell hole of a school), then you'll get mad and lob it at a wall. Why not?
Oh I know, because it might break your phone!
After my little tantrum I dumped my bag on the floor softly and fetched my phone checking for damage.
"Jimmy I'm sorry. I just need some signal, just a little bit, tiny ickle little bit!" note to self persuasion and phones don't go together "JUST GIVE ME SOME GOD DAMN SIGNAL!" yeah, neither does yelling.
Also if you are like me, you will be completely unobservant for a good few minuets in a new environment. Like right now, though out my whole hissy fit I only now notice that there are no windows.
Fact of life: no windows= no phone signal.
I put Jimmy back in his pocket.
I need alcohol. I open that bag bring out the vodka. The bottles only half full since Toby got wasted on it, I had to drag him home and dump him on the bathroom floor for the night therefore I nicked the rest. What? It wasn't like he was going to remember it anyways.
I took a few quick gulps, enough for a high but not too much. I know my limits from liquid confidence to liquid um…I think the word "blaarrhhhh" sums it up.
The fire spread through my body warming me up, only now I notice that the corridor is colder then my room, but I am wearing 5 layers.(what? I'm always cold)
The colour pink caught my eye as I placed my stuff back into the bag, huh? I do not own anything pink. Hell no!
It's a sticky note with a posh swirly writing, I can barley make out the words: IT'S TIME YOU PAID YOUR DEPT
Being honest it was freaky, not a double jointed freaky but a more like I think I gonna be sick freaky. I read this and all I'm thinking is 'I really hope this is one of Toby's I'm-trying-but-failing-at-being-funny-pranks-because-I-have-a-weird-sense-of-humour' but I don't think Toby can make walls disappear and he sure as hell wouldn't go this far.
I ripped the stupid note up; it might just be old or something, from a past prank. A coincidence. Or not. Or shut up!
I zip up my bag, but my breathing and the zip are not the only noises.
Footsteps are coming. Someone's coming. Or something.
Do I hide?
Or confront them?
Do I run?
It's too late now. A boy walks round the corner. His hairs black and his eyes are blue. He's good looking. His body fades where the candlelight doesn't hit him and where it does it shows his wide shoulders and well built muscular body. I'm frozen in place staring at him.
He stops mid stride, taken back. After a moment he draws out a blade from the darkness.
"Malik," the low word rolls off his tongue and it lights up. "Who goes there?" it's a simple question.
My mind blanks, he's a good hundred meters away but he's slowly moving forward. Step after step, slowly like I'm a danger, but I have no weapon, he has a light saver. Hell the hell am I dangerous?
"How did you enter the institute? There are wards and runes and glamours and …" his words make no sense. I don't like this.
I turn and run. I hear his silent curse.
My converses slap the stone, leaving echoes behind me. I can hear him behind me much quieter, more balanced. I turn left and then right at the corridors.
I have no idea where I'm going, it endless.
"Stop, in the name of the angel. Stop!" the guy yells after me. I think I'm faster then him but I power my limbs faster in hope of a doorway. An exit. I can run like the wind, won the county long distance 4 times in a row. That's all I live for running.
There's noise up ahead and an open door as I pass I look it, only a flash. A library.
A group of people socializing.
I must be near a door.
I turn to see what the boy does. He's closer then I though only 30 meter behind or closer. He skids to a stop. I carry on running, keeping my breathing even.
In through the mouth, out through the nose. In through the mouth, out through the nose.
"Intruder." I hear him yell into the room. His voice is loud and bounds through the corridors. I turn right and head up some stairs. I can do this all I need is…
There's a girl, a very pretty girl, she's wearing a tight corset dress. I slow then skim past her gaining speed. This is weird, is this some costume thing going on? Ninjas? Now 1600s? I hear her gasp as I skim past.
I turn again, feeling the alcohol kick in. not good.
I open a door, and then the next, maybe I can confuse them. I go round another corner.
All the corridors had looked the same but this one had widows. Barred windows. At least now I knew I was on the ground floor. I opened another two doors. I then carried up along the corridor and picked a room to hide in.
The room was bare except a ready-made bed and a simple empty chest of draws.
I go to the window and open the curtains. What I see shocks me. In the corridor window there were only fields but this side is a densely packed city, smoke from chimneys, and rain out side and a murky river in the distance.
I reach for the handle, hoping that it wasn't locked.
Please, please, please don't be locked. It opens; I push the rusty thing wide. I heard shout in the corridor
"Search every room, every corridor and Jem search her bag your not well enough for othe…" it's the same low voice.
Jem? What the hell? And the light savers? This is like really similar to the book that I read about …
I can hear rooms being opened. I climbed on to the sill of the window, closing the curtains behind me.
The door opens. I can't move.
I can't make a sound
"All clear" it's a mans voice, a different one. The door closes. He moves on to the next room. My lungs deflate the breath I didn't know I was holding.
I look at the ground 7ft give or take. Lowering my legs I drop off bending my knees into the grass. I start sprinting to the wooden gateway, which is encased by a waist high Cotswold wall. The grass is long and slows my pace, tangling with my shoes and giving me hell. As soon as I'm over the gate I can run into town, hire a taxi or borrow someone's phone. I quickly reach in my pocket, having a hard time since I was running, and pull my phone out. no signal. Where the fuck is this place? I turned it off and put it back in my pocket
The soft rain pounded my face, but it wasn't that bad, not like the last race it did, where it was hammering down. The gate was coming closer and I sprinted the last distance. My clothes were becoming wetter and heavier, slowing me down. Why did I wear 5 layers today? I could feel my hair becoming wetter and it caught in the wind and whipped my face.
So close to freedom, so close… I reach the gate and fumble with the chain; I give up and climbed over. It was slippy but it didn't matter.
By the time I drop over a blackness moved, so fast I don't understand. There's a light near my face. It's the handsome guy with black hair again. I press myself against the fence. He was soaked, his hair messy and sticking to his face. He ran his fingers over his forehead and whipped it back.
Such elegant cheek bones and thick eyelashes, if only I had my sketchbook.
"Clever in and out, but a mundie mistake" he looked at me for a comment "you could of jumped the wall, yet you chose the gate." He held steady knowing he had the advantage.
"Get that out of my face." I attempted to use the flat of my palm to stop the light facing me "FUCK" I screamed and jerked back, the freaking thing burnt me. I doubled over holding my hand to my stomach "shitting, clover, dogs, red, vodka lemons", I say the words to try to escape the pain. The guy smirked at me. Amused.
"What are you vampire or werewolf?" the guy still had his light saver pointing at me.
"Get that thing away from me before I ninja your ass, you incontinent mental jerk! Where the hell am I?" I stood up straight avoiding the blade, he was nuts. Vampire or werewolf? What's he been reading, twilight?
"Now miss …" he looked at me amused when I didn't fill in the blank "that's no way to speak to a gentleman, especially a handsome shadow hunter, who has every right to enforce that you have broken the accords, which is sentanceable to death." He moved closer keeping me a forcing the blade near my throat. I bent slightly backwards over the fence to keep away.
"accords?" I looked at the guy funny, "what the fuck are you on? Broken acooooor…." I suddenly came into realization. The mortal instruments, infermal devices, the laws.
My breathing was shallow. This was a joke right. They were actors. This wasn't real.
Shadow hunters?
Accords?
Light savers?
Only Toby knows I'm a secret bookworm.
"Toby." I said the name and the guy looked puzzled
"No my name is William Herondale." The boy was smirking again. I'm gonna kill toby.
"Toby set this up. Right?" I gasped the word out. Why was he still pushing the blade towards me?
"I have not heard from any Toby, is that really his name?" Will never lost the smirk, whilst causing me further into the gate.
"Pick on the book geek right? Huh? No wonder your smirking." I looked him in the eye; he gave me a weird look, like he didn't know where I was going with this. "Toby you can come out now! The jokes over!" I yelled as loud as I could. Will turned his head to the side as if to study me or figure me out. "Toby! This isn't funny any more! Tell your friends to back off!" I yelled louder. Please let it be Toby, just jump up and I'll forgive you.
The heat of the blade was touching my skin of my neck. Okay this is getting too intense.
Will the guy really kill me?
It was a joke right?
Toby's just trying to embarrass me. He's just getting revenge for Saturday. He just wants to scare me a lit…
Suddenly a hand grabbed my neck from behind pulling me a painful angle backwards and a sting entered my throat. I could feel the difference of temperatures as something was injected to fast for a vessel to cope with, forcing me to scream in agony.
The hand held me back ignoring my struggles. Which became weaker and weaker as something stopped me movement and let my eyelids droop.
The last thing I saw was a flash of orange, and I heard Wills voice say "Henry."