Juliet stretched her body as she began to wake up. She sat up very slowly due to the aching in her back and head, the night before was blur, all she could remember was feeling nauseous.
"Morning."
Juliet looked over to see Myka standing in front of the mirror, brushing her hair.
"Good morning." Juliet returned. "I didn't puke on you last night did I?"
"No you didn't." Myka chuckled.
"Oh thank god." Juliet ran her hand through her thick, brown locks. "That would have been embarrassing."
"Oh don't worry I can assure you worse things have happened to me." Myka sighed as she began to put on her boots. "Did you know that monkey's spit?""
"I haven't really given it much thought to be honest but it doesn't seem too farfetched." Juliet tossed the sheets off of her and began climbing out of the bed. "I'm sorry that you were spit on by monkeys. That sounds like it would me traumatizing."
"Thank you. You know everybody thinks I was over reacting but it truly was a dreadful experience." Juliet would have laughed at Myka's face if it wasn't for the fact that she seemed so sincere.
The teenager opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by the knock on the door. Myka made her way across the room and opened it.
"Hey guys Vanessa is here."Pete said. "Where do you want to do the..thing?"
"Uh-" Myka looked at Juliet.
"We could do it in the study." Juliet offered. "I'll be down in a minute."
-"Are you enjoying your time here?" Vanessa asked as she placed the stethoscope over Juliet's chest.
"Yeah." The girl nodded. "It's..different."
"Well it is a big change." The doctor sympathized. "I find what you're doing incredible brave. I could never do something like this at your age."
"Well I've always been used to moving around." Juliet shrugged. "So it's not too bad."
"Are you feeling better than you did last night?" shined a bright light in the girls right eye.
"Kind of. My head still hurts and so does my throat but the nausea's gone away." Juliet answered.
"Well I don't see anything too major to worry about." Vanessa stood up and went over to her medical bag. "But I'm gonna give you this anyway." She took out a red medicine bottle. "It'll help with the head and throat, I'm afraid it doesn't taste very well but it works like a charm."
Vanessa and Juliet walked out into the hallway where Myka had been waiting for patiently.
"I'm gonna go lay down for a little bit." Juliet said to Myka. "Thank you very much ."
"So is everything alright?" Myka asked worriedly.
"Everything is fine." Vanessa reassured the woman. "You're right it's just flu, in fact I think it's just a twenty-four hour bug. I figured I ought to give this to you." She handed Myka the medicine. "She should take it twice a day for the next couple of days, just to help for the aches and pains."
"Okay thank you." Myka said.
"How are you holding up?" Vanessa put her hand on Myka's shoulder.
"Everything's fine." Myka nodded. "I mean it's different obviously but I think everything's going well."
"You know when Arthur first told me about this arrangement I was a little skeptical at first, I mean a child in the warehouse isn't very.." Vanessa trailed off searching for the right words.
"Warehouse-like?" Myka filled in."
"Yes exactly." Vanessa nodded. "But then I realized that maybe this is exactly what you guys need, something away from the Warehouse. And Claudia was around the same age when she first came but Juliet seems…different. Has she seen the Warehouse yet?"
"Juliet?" Myka questioned. "Um..no I-I haven't really thought about it to be honest."
"Oh, well, all in good time." The two began to walk to the front the door. "Call me if her fever doesn't go down soon."
"I will, thank you so much Vanessa."
"No problem."
"Hey Mykes." Pete greeted his partner as she walked into the kitchen, a puzzled look on her face. "Whats up? You got thinking face on."
"Nothing it's just Vanessa brought up something right now that I hadn't thought about."
Myka said as she walked over to the coffee pot and poured the dark liquid into a mug.
"Oh yeah what?" Claudia asked.
"I realized that Juliet hasn't been to the Warehouse yet. I mean she hears about all the time but she's never actually been there."
"Well is she allowed?" Steve inquired.
"Why wouldn't she be?" Said Abigail.
"Because she doesn't work for the Warehouse like the rest of us." Steve answered.
"But she was affected by one of the artifacts." Abigail pointed out.
"But still it's not enough." Claudia said before she took a bite of her cereal.
"Wait Mykes are you saying that you want to make Juliet your one?" Pete questioned.
"I don't know." Myka looked around the table at her colleges.
"That's a big decision." Claudia thought aloud. "Because what if you get married or I don't know have your own kid, what are you gonna than?"
"Well Juliet does already know about the Warehouse right?" Abigail said. "So maybe Myka doesn't have to make her her one."
"Well yeah that's-" Pete began but was cut off by Claudia coughing and giving the 'shut up' hand signal.
"Hey guys."Juliet yawned as she sat down beside Myka.
"I thought you were gonna lie down?" Myka asked, whilst running her hand through the girl's almond colored hair.
"Yeah I did but I got bored." The teenage rested her head on her hand.
Suddenly the front door opened and everyone could hear footsteps approaching. At first they were all wondered who could be but they relaxed oncehey saw that it was just Helena and Artie.
"H.G. how did the meeting go?" Claudia exclaimed.
"It went well Claudia." Helena smiled lightly. "I have been official reinstated."
"Right on!" Pete and Claudia said in unison. "Jinx!" They said at the same time. "Jinx! Jinx! JI-"
"Alright that's enough!" Artie held up his hand. "I am going to the warehouse now, I suggest you all be ready to the same." And with that the eldest of the agents turned on his heels and left the room.
"Yeah that's a good idea." Myka stood up. "I will just go..get my stuff." Myka rushed passed Helena, purposely avoiding the other woman's gaze.
"Well I'm gonna finish eating." Pete shrugged.
"Hey HG come sit down." Claudia offered.
The newly reinstated agent took a seat in the chair Myka had been previously occupying.
Juliet however was staring at the double doors Myka had walked though. She felt a drastic change in the atmosphere of the room; there was definitely anger and sadness but there was something else as well. Something the young girl couldn't quite put her finger on.
"Oh Juliet this is HG." Pete broke the young thoughts.
"Oh, hi."Juliet smiled at the woman beside her. "I would shake your hand but I don't want to get you sick."
"It's quite alright, it's a pleasure to meet you Juliet." Helena returned.
-Thunder roared throughout all of Univille, causing everything in the B&B to shake. Helena sighed as she put down her book, in all of her years she had never heard such a wind before. Things with Myka weren't getting any better either, Helena had returned for a week and the other woman still refused t o talk to her. She had however made eye contact with the Brit a few times so that was an improvement.
Suddenly the lights flickered once or twice, than they all turned off at once.
"Oh bullocks." Helena stood from her seat and felt her way through her room. She approached her drawer where she kept her emergency flashlight. By now she could hear the rest of the occupants coming out of their rooms and into the hallway.
When she walked out, the first thing she saw was Myka knocking on Juliet's door.
"Juliet are you okay?" Myka asked.
"Yeah." The girl opened her door, her phone flashlight in her hand."I'm fine."
"Yo guys what's going on?" Claudia said as she made her way over to the girls.
"The powers out." Myka answered. "It must be the storm."
"Well I'm gonna go outside and see if I can get the breaker to start." Said Pete.
"Pete you can't go out there, not in this weather." Myka told her partner.
"So what are we suppose to do?"Steve inquired.
"Hold on let me just figure out what's going on exactly." Claudia pulled out her phone."Yeah the news website says that half of the town is out of power. They're not sure what it is yet but we're probably not gonna get it back on for a couple hours."
"Well I don't know about you guys but I don't want to be alone in the dark." Abigail alleged.
"We can go down to the living room." Steve suggested."We can light the fire place and just hang out for a little bit."
They all unanimously decided that was the best idea. They each grabbed what they wanted to bring with them and five minutes later met in the living room.
Myka and Juliet were on the couch underneath a knitted blanket. Myka was finishing up her book, The History of the World, while Juliet was sketching a perspective drawing for her art class.
Claudia, Pete and Steve were all on the floor crowded around the fireplace. Claudia was on her laptop, while the guys were playing Speed with a deck of cards. Helena and Abigail were on the other couch chatting, both with a cup of tea in their hands.
"No! No! No!" Claudia exclaimed. "Great my battery died."
"Damnit it Steve!" Pete shouted. "I thought you said you'd let me win this time!"
"Hey it's not my fault that you're terrible!" Steve defended.
"Okay best out of seven."Pete began shuffling the cards.
"No I'm sick of playing cards." Steve said.
"Yeah guys I'm really bored." Claudia added.
"Well what do you wanna do?" Abigail asked.
"We could play a game." Pete suggested.
"What kind of game?"
"Well do we have any board games?"They all looked around at each other.
"I don't think so." Myka answered.
"Hmm..we could play tag, or something."Claudia proposed.
"In the dark?" Steve looked at his red headed colleague.
"Actually," Juliet set down her sketch pad. "there was this game that we used to play at one of my homes when the power would go out called Ghost in the Graveyard. The way you would play it was; you would pick one person to be the ghost and they would go hide. The rest would count to twelve and then go searching for the ghost. Whoever found the ghost would yell 'Ghost in the Graveyard' and then everybody would run and try to get to home base before getting tagged."
"That actually sounds pretty fun." Claudia concluded.
"I wanna be the ghost! "Pete jumped up.
"Alright then go hide." Myka said.
"Okay so I guess we can make the couch the base." Juliet asserted. "Does everybody have flashlight?" They all nodded. "Alright so we're gonna close our eyes and hold hands." They did as instructed, unfortunately for Myka she had Juliet on one side of her and Helena on the other… "We're going to start from one o'clock and count to midnight."
"One o'clock! Two O'clock! Three o'clock! Four o'clock! Five o'clock! Six o'clock! Seven o'clock! Eight o'clock! Nine o'clock! Ten o'clock! Eleven o'clock! Midnight!"
"It's best if we try to split up as much as possible." Juliet whispered
Myka and Steve went to the very top floor, while Claudia, Helena and Abigail headed for the middle, leaving Juliet to man the downstairs area.
Lightning lit the otherwise dark kitchen as Juliet quietly made her way through. The dark never bothered her, even when she was a child, she got a cheap thrill from not being able to see what was right in front of her. She had turned off her flashlight because she always thought it was better when the person who was hiding couldn't see her coming.
Suddenly she heard something fall and roll along the hard floor. She looked around to see where the object had landed. But she realized that the sound had come from behind the basement door.
"Gotcha." She whispered.
A warm hand wrapped around a cold door knob, the hinges creaked with every inch they were pulled.
"Pete, I know you're in here so just come out!." Juliet called down the dark stairs."Are you really gonna make me come get you?" There was no response. "Fine." She huffed and made her way down into the basement.
She shined her flashlight along the walls, which had gathered dust and spider webs over the years. She forgot about finding Pete for the moment and surveyed all of the old stuff that were laid out. She could see an old piano..or maybe it was an organ, a few mahogany tables, a couple of glass bottles and-
"Holy shit." The teenager gasped.
An entire wall, lined with cabinets was filled with artillery. There were guns, knives, shiny, metal tools that looked so sharp you could get cut just by looking at them.
*CRASH*
The teenager jumped and quickly spun around. She could see a pieces of broken glass on the floor. She moved the light off the ground and up towards the shelf in the corner. She could see a figure standing behind it.
"Pete." The girl sighed. "I know you're there, I can see you… Pete-"
"Ghost in the graveyard!" Abigail's voice echoed from upstairs.
'If Pete's up there, than who's.."
The figure limped from behind the cluttered shelf, its skin was old and its hair was madded, it was obviously someone who was once human.
Juliet was paralyzed, she couldn't move, she couldn't think, she couldn't even breathe.
"He's behind you." It breathed out, extending its long decayed figure.
Juliet slowly turned her head, only to be met with emptiness. She turned back to the woman, who was now only mere inches from the girls face. She tried to scream but her voice caught in her throat.
"Run!" A voice yelled.
Jude sprinted out of the corner and grabbed Juliet's hand.
"Come on!" He practically dragged the teenager up the stairs.
Once they got to the top they slammed the door behind them. Juliet slid down the wall and ran her hand through her hair, her heart practically beating out of her chest.
"What the hell." She whispered. She looked up to find that Jude had disappeared.. light above the kitchen illuminated the room, the girl scurried up and ran into the living room, where everyone else was.
"Tag! You're it!" Pete exclaimed as he tapped the girl on the arm. "Oh you got something on your jacket." He pointed to her shoulder.
Juliet reached over and brushed the dirt and cobwebs from it.
"Where were you?" Claudia asked.
"Oh I was just..uh..in the basement." Juliet answered.
"Wait, the basement?" Pete looked at her. "How the hell did you get down there?"
"I just walked through the door?" Juliet said hesitantly.
"Well it's just that Artie said that he hasn't even been able to open that door, it's always been locked apparently." Everybody looked down at the young girl.
"Well, it obviously isn't now." Juliet rubbed the back of her neck.
"Cool lets go check it out." Claudia began to walk towards the hall.
"No!" Juliet grabbed the red head's shoulder. "I mean it's really dirty down there and there isn't much anyways just some old furniture, nothing important."
"Yeah we'll just check it out in the morning Claud." Pete told his colleague. "Oh man am I hungry! What do you say we order some pizza?"
"Pete are you crazy?" Myka exclaimed. "Do you seriously think anybody's gonna deliver in this weather?"
"Well I don't know maybe if I pay them enough!" The crew began to make their way back up the stairs.
"Hey Juliet can I talk to you?" Steve gestured for the girl to stay behind.
"Yeah sure what up?" The girl crossed her arms.
"You want to tell me what really happened down there?"