Hey guys, I hope you all like this chapter. I'm sorry in advance for possible punctuation mistakes and stuff like that (especially when people are talking), my first language isn't English. Anyway, I hope you are all liking the story so far, I'm not really sure how I want things to turn out just yet, so let me know if you have any suggestions in the reviews and also all criticism is welcome and greatly appreciated!

Warning : slight swearing in this chapter.

The sunlight was starting to filter through my windows, and my eyes began to flutter open. I lazily turned to my side table and glanced at the time. 9:13. Shit! I was late by like an hour to my meeting with Dad, Stavros and Brice. I thought I had turned my alarm on last night.

I quickly slipped on a pair of some dressy plaid pants and tucked in a black turtleneck, grabbed some black heels and ran to Dad's office.

Luckily it wasn't too far, I put my shoes on and knocked.

"Come in." said Dad

I cautiously opened the door, "Sorry I'm late, my alarm didn't go off and I got here as fast as I could."

"It's okay honey, just try and not make it a habit," Dad replied

Brice scoffed, causing all of us to turn to her confused, "Right, because you're always on time for everything, right big brother?"

Dad shrugged and simply just said, "Do as I say, not as I do," and let out a little chuckle.

I took a seat and Stavros filled me in on what they were talking about. In lower income provinces, some families couldn't afford to send their kids to school and needed them to work instead, even though the castes had been eliminated, people were still struggling with poverty and couldn't afford to have the kids who are able to work, not working. And so, attendance was low in the schools from those provinces. Not to mention that those schools were also severely underfunded.

"What can we do about this, is there any room in our budget to help these families? Like maybe we could give them some funding, you know like those who make less than whatever a year and have a certain amount of children are eligible for some kind of financial support. And then for the schools being underfunded, we could look at the budget for the richer provinces and see if maybe we could distribute the wealth a little bit, if that makes sense." I said

"Yeah that makes sense, we'll have to take a look at the educational budget and look over how much money each province is getting and see whether or not it's necessary for that province to get so much and maybe help out the poorer/underfunded provinces instead." said Stavros

"The only problem if we do that is that the other provinces won't be happy that they're getting less than others, regardless of whether or not they need the money the most, they're still not going to be happy about it. I think it's a good idea, but maybe to use it as more of a last resort since it could cause an uproar from other provinces. As for the financial support for lower income families, we'd have to look into it, but I'm pretty sure it'll work." explained Brice

"That's a good point, I hadn't even thought about that. We'll have to keep coming up with ideas to help out the schools, since it could cause some friction between provinces, and the least amount of friction created the better." I replied

After brainstorming some ideas, we all decided to not make any decisions just yet and to keep thinking about it and hopefully we will come up with an idea that works for every province, causing no commotion or disapproval.

一一

It was about a week later, Dad and I were brainstorming ideas to solve the whole education debacle in his office, when there was a knock at the door.

Not looking up from a report, Dad replied."Yes?"

Stavros opened the door. "Sorry to bother you, Your Majesty, but there's something that needs your immediate attention."

Frowning, Dad asked. "What is it?"

Stavros looked at me then back at Dad and said, "I think it is best we talk about this, in private, sir."

"Very well then, I'll be back soon Raia. Keep coming up with ideas, we'll review them when I get back."

I nodded and the two of them left the room. I wonder what that was about.

A couple hours or so later, Dad returned looking worried and distraught.

"Is everything alright? What happened?" I asked.

"Hm? Oh, um, no it's fine sweetie. Don't even worry about it." He said unconvincingly.

Knowing that there was definitely more to the story, I decided to drop it for now since it didn't seem like he wanted to talk about it and I wasn't going to push it.

一一

It had been a really stormy night, Aliya got really scared and came to my room to sleep with me. The two of us were cuddling under my covers, sleeping soundly when suddenly I woke up and realized that the siren, the Rebels siren, had been blaring. I had no idea for how long, but all I knew was that we needed to get out of bed, now. I tried waking Aliya up by shaking her and repeating her name over and over, but she wouldn't wake up. I was so confused as to how she was sleeping through this loud and annoying siren, yet she woke up from the thunder and lightning. As time went on, I got more and more stressed. Until finally, she woke up.

"Aliya, finally! Come on we gotta go, the Rebels are here, the siren's been going off for who knows how long, we gotta get to one of the safe rooms."

She just stared at me, eyes wide, and stayed completely still.

"It's all right, ok? We just gotta make it to the safe room, there's one right at the end of the hallway, we'll be ok. Here take my hand."

We both exited the room, and the first thing that made me feel uneasy was that there were no guards, usually there were guards outside our doors, just in case. Silently but rapidly we ran to the end of the hallway. I found the hidden door and pushed as hard as I could and banged on the door. Nothing. I repeated the same thing at least five times, but no matter how much I pushed or banged the door, it just wouldn't budge. It was locked. Usually they waited for the entire Royal Family before locking the rooms, maybe they thought we were already there or maybe they couldn't risk it. Man, how long had that siren been going off. Either way, this wasn't good, at all. I tried to hide my panic as much as possible to try and not scare or worry Aliya, but if this safe room was locked then who's to say that all the other ones won't be as well.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm my thoughts and nerves before whispering,"Ok, so this one's locked. Don't panic, I'm sure that there are plenty of others that are unlocked and we can just go to one of those, alright?"

Aliya nodded, with fear in her eyes.

I grabbed her hand and started running to find the next one but she wouldn't move, "Come on Aliya, we gotta get to a room." I tugged lightly on her arm, but her feet were glued to the floor. We didn't have time for this. So I turned around, grabbed her legs and hoisted her up on my back. Giving her a piggyback. It wasn't ideal and would make us slower, but it was the only option at this point.

I ran as fast as I could to the next room I could think of, but it was locked. And another one, locked. Locked. Locked. Locked. All the ones I could think of were locked, I didn't know what to do anymore and I started to panic. We made our way down the stairs and found ourselves in the main foyer, trying not to be as quiet as can be, when I remembered that there was some kind of janitor's/utilities closet nearby. I ran to the door, and sure enough, my memory hadn't failed me. I quickly slipped in and let Aliya off my back. Man, she was getting bigger. I turned to go lock the door,but there was no lock. Lovely.

"So I know that this probably isn't the most reassuring place to be, but right now this is all we have. We'll be safe as long as we stay super quiet and hide in the back," I whispered.

I led Aliya to the back, and grabbed a mop and a screwdriver, just in case a Rebel came in. So that at least I had something to defend myself and Aliya.

After a little while, Aliya seemed to have calmed down and ended up falling asleep. Although I was exhausted, there was no way in hell that I was going to sleep. If I was asleep and a Rebel happened to open the door, then we'd be screwed. I don't know how much I could do if I was awake either, but we had better chances if I stayed up.

It had to have been morning, since I could see the light shining in through the bottom of the door. One of many problems when hiding in a closet instead of a safe room is the not knowing whether or not it's safe to come out or not, usually guards and Gavril would come by to let everyone know that everything's fine and safe. But no one knew we were in this closet, so how would they know to look for us.

I let out a sigh, feeling completely at a loss. If I opened the door and the rebels were still here then I risked Aliya's and my life. If I didn't open the door then we could go days, or even weeks without water or food. After a couple of minutes of deliberation, I decided that I would wait a little bit longer before seeing if the coast was clear, just to be safe.

It had been, what felt like an eternity, when I finally decided that it was time I should check. Aliya stayed hidden, just in case. I opened the door just enough so that I could see and waited to see if anyone would walk by. When I heard people talking I instinctively closed the door and thought that it would be wiser to try and just listen to the voices.

"Did you see anyone?" asked one voice.

"No, I think we got caught too early. If we could only be quicker and stealthier then they wouldn't have as much time to hide," a deeper voice replied.

I didn't recognize these voices at all, but based on what they were saying, I could deduce that they were definitely Rebels.

A third voice piped up, "And how do you think we do that, Karl? They have a state of the art alarm system, how are we to beat that?"

"I don't know man, but I'm just so sick of them always getting away from us," the voice who probably belonged to Karl replied.

"Dude, chill. Don't be so pessimistic, we'll get her some day. Shit, I think I hear a guard coming, we better get out of here fast."

And just like that, they were gone. But who was the her that they were talking about, was Mom in danger? Issadora? Aliya? Brice? Was I?

Aliya spoke for the first time in hours, distracting me from my thoughts.

"Raia, I'm thirsty and hungry. Is there really no food or water in here?"

"It's a janitor and supply closet, I doubt there's any food and water here, love. Believe me I wish there was. We shouldn't be in here much longer, so let's just try and tough it out, ok?"

Aliya harrumphed and said."Ok, but as soon as we're out of here, I'm drinking and eating the entire kitchen."

I chuckled and said, "Alright, you do that."

After about an hour or so, I thought it would be a good idea to check again, and this time it was dark out again. I spotted some guards but couldn't make out any faces or name tags, so I wasn't entirely sure whether or not they were Rebels. Luckily I spotted Aspen and I sighed out of relief, we could finally leave.

"Aliya?" I asked softly, in case she was asleep.

"Yeah?"

"I think the coast is clear, I see Aspen."

I cautiously opened the door and grabbed Aliya's hand, just in case. Aspen was on his way down the hall when I yelled, "Aspen?"

He whipped his head back and smiled at the sight of me and Aliya and spoke into his walkie talkie. "Thank goodness you too are alright. We were worried that something terrible might have happened," he said, " You should go see your parents, I'm pretty sure they're in their room, they've been worried sick."

We sprinted up the stairs and all the way toMom and Dad's room and I didn't even bother knocking and just opened the door.

"Mom? Dad?" I asked gently.

"Hellooooo?" added Aliya, rather loudly.

Mom and Dad came rushing out of the room. They both gave us great big hugs and looked so relieved to see us.

"Where were you guys?" asked Dad worriedly

"Well, um, long story short, we hid in a closet." I said simply

"Really? What if one of the Rebels had opened the door, those don't lock?" Mom asked anxiously.

I shrugged, "I had a mop and a screwdriver, so I was ready to take one of them down, if I needed to."

Dad let out a chuckle and said, "Well, sweetie, I'm just glad you guys are alright."