Chapter 8: Caught
My heart was pumping like crazy, and my blood ran furiously through my veins. I sucked some fresh air into my lungs before I spoke.
"It's Arwen, and she's running away with your clothes!" My eyes darted back to the group of males as they seemed to gasp in unison.
Everyone appeared to have fallen for my scam, so I grabbed a hold of Henwen's wrist, yanking her out of Glorfindel's loosened grasp. Henwen looked a little taken aback for a moment, but she quickly realized what was happening. I knew we had to find the fastest route back to my room, because no matter how fast I ran I could never match the speed of elves, especially not a certain angry, half naked Glorfindel.
A few seconds later we spotted the door that hopefully led to our rescue. With some effort on my part, we bolted up the stairs, opened the door and ran inside. We could hear the sound of angry males close on our tail. We had to slow them down somehow, or we would never make it to my room.
Luckily Henwen was a quick thinker and had already found a broom we could use to block the door. I silently thanked the Valar for the broom before taking off once more.
No thanks to my sense of direction, we reached my door in no time. We both hurried inside and locked the door behind us, safe at last. I glanced over at Henwen, our eyes met and we both started to snicker. It did not take long before the snicker developed into hysterical laughter, and we were both rolling around on the wooden floor clutching our sides.
Suddenly, as if someone had stuffed a cork in her mouth, Henwen's laughter subsided. I didn't really take notice of it at first, but as my laughter died down and I sat myself upright, a gasp of surprise slipped past my lips.
There, right in front of me, stood the person I had least expected to see of everyone in Middle Earth. I could barely breathe anymore, and it was not because of my recent convulsive laughter attack. I could see Henwen's face light up in the color of bright red as my own cheeks started to fill with a burning sensation.
And then realization dawned on me as I lay my eyes on the balcony across my room. I cursed myself for being so utterly blind and stupid. How in Valar's name could I have forgotten about that? My room was missing a wall for crying out loud!
The sound of a tapping foot reached my ears and I snapped out of my chain of thoughts. My eyes met the sight of Glorfindel looking down at us with his 'I can kill you by just looking at you' expression, it made me cringe inwardly. He was not going to let us get away this time.
Glorfindel cleared his throat before he spoke.
"Well, ladies, looks like this is the end of your little 'adventure'." Silence fell over the room again.
I decided against speaking, because with my luck, I would probably just make things worse. Not that I had any time to put in a word before he continued anyway.
"I demand an apology!" Now he started to look enraged, and I huddled closer to Henwen.
We were both expecting the worst, when a knock on the door startled us. My mouth was literally open in shock at the sight of the whole gang of males we had outrun only minutes ago. Apparently there was a key.
Before I could think more of it, I was being carried away together with Henwen. Glorfindel's expression was now one of pure joy as an evil grin spread across his lips. I was desperately trying to wiggle myself free of the elves holding my feet and arms, but the more I fought, the tighter their grip got. Looking over to my right I spotted Henwen kicking and screaming at the males, not that it got her any further than me, but at least we were not going down without a fight.
I let out a frustrated groan. The vindictive males were about to get their revenge and there was nothing I could do about it. I then turned my head from left to right, trying to figure out where we were headed. Dread filled me as I realized what our punishment was going to be.