Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing.

Welcome Back!: Chapter 20

Nina's POV

I crept up the attic stairs slowly. I had figured out long ago which ones creaked and which ones didn't. I peered around the corner of the doorway to watch Victor. He was at the panel, which had been fixed.

He walked around the room, surveying everything. He stopped at the stain glass window.

"The sun is beautiful, isn't it, Halley?" Victor said.

"Yes," I heard someone say. There was no one else in the room. "Victor, you will find a sacrafice for me, won't you?" the voice said.

"Yes, of course, my darling," Victor said.

"You should probably get back. Those rotten little rats aren't up here. But they were earlier," the voice (Halley, I assumed) said again.

"What were they doing?" Victor snapped.

"They found the secret passage to the secret room of the cellar. They explored it. That Nina girl unlocked it," Halley said hostily. I gulped. At least she didn't know I was here.

Suddenly, a white image appeared infront of Victor.

"Those blasted things! If only Nina would listen to me! The society would be even moore powerful." I was about to gasp, but stopped myself.

"Why don't you tell Nina that you'll use Fabian as a sacrafice if she doesn't help you," Halley said. My eyes widened in horror. Please no! Please not Fabian! Please let it be me! Sacrafice me so no one else has to get hurt! I thought.

"That's a good idea! Then, unless she wanted Fabian dead, she would have to listen to me!" Victor had and evil smile on his face. I tried not to cry, but the tears were coming. I had to get out of there. I felt a hot tear trickle down my cheek. I went downstairs as fast as possible.

I shut the attic door as quietly as possible, though it was hard with my vision blurred. I ran for my room and shut the door. Finally I let the tears come. I sat on my bed and cried as silently as possible, hoping Amber wouldn't hear me. She did.

"Neens? Are you okay?" she asked, getting out of bed and sitting next to me. "What's wrong?"

I tried to tell her, but my voice was raspy. I don't know if she heard a word of it. She hugged me tight, and I cried for an hour straight.

When I was done, I told Amber the full story, crying again as I told her how they were going to blackmail me into helping them. Amber was tearing up, too.

"It'll be okay, Neens. We won't let them do that to Fabian," she said. She was trying to sound confident, but there was a hint of fear in her voice.

She climbed back into her bed a few minutes later, after I convinced her that I would be okay, but I knew I wouln't get much, if any, sleep.

I layed there thinking. There had to be a way to stop this. When I was convinced that I would never get to sleep, I got out of bed. I snuck to the end of the corridor and peeked through the door. Victor wasn't in his office. I went into the cellar through the passageway in the kitchen.

When I got there, I went over to the bookshelf I saw when we first came down here. I skimmed the titles of books until I found Egyptian Legends. I opened to the table of contents. Chosen One-43.

I turned to page 43. There was a picture of Amneris. I skimmed the pages until I found Locket Powers. I read as carefully as possible.

Then I read: Only the Chosen One can sacrafice fully. Anyone else who tries will only harm the person's body temporarily. Then the soul can come back and live on until it's true death.

Suddenly, there was a loud THUMP! I turned my head to see Victor's shadow comiing down the stairs. I ran to the passage and got back to the kitchen. Now was my chance to get upstairs. I climbed the stairs as quietly as possible so I didn't get Victor up here. When I got back to my room, I hid the book under my pillow and finally got some sleep.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

I turned the alarm off and hopped out of bed. I changed quickly into my school uniform.

Fabian's POV

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

I hit the snooze button. Five more minutes, I thought.

Then there was a knocking at the door. Mick was out for a run, so I had to get it. I stood up and stumbled through the dark to the door. I turned on the light and opened the door. Nina was standing there, already dressed.

"Hey, what're you doing here so early?" I asked.

"Well, I need to tell you something about-is Mick here?" she asked.

"No," I said. "What do you need to tell me?"

"Well, I went to get the necklace from Patricia, then I saw Victor go into the attic. So I followed him. He started talking to this ghost thing named Halley. It was really creepy."

Nina's POV

I told him everything.

"What?" he asked when I'd finished. "They want to sacrafice me?"

"Yes, but, if you can keep your soul in the house, you can go back to your body once it's healed," I said. "But I was really hoping that we might be able to find a way to stop the society before that happens."

Trudy was coming down the stairs. "We'll talk about it later, yeah?"

"Yeah, I'll see you in a bit." I gave him a peck on the cheek, then entered to the dining room.

Fabian's POV

Me? They want to sacrafice me?, I thought. I changed into my school uniform. walk into the dining room to see Patricia, Nina, Amber, Joy, and Jerome. Nina was telling them about the sacrafice.

"We need to figure out how to stop them," Joy said. "Who knows how long it would take Fabian's body to heal. And it would just be weird knowing that." Joy cringed.

"That would be really discusting," Jerome said. That's when I walked in.

"Fabian! Good, you're here. I was telling them about-" Nina started.

"I know. I overheard," I said, taking a bite of my toast. Nina raised her eyebrows at me, then turned to look at Patricia, who had started to talk.

"Well, if we're going to do that, we'll have to explore the secret passage way in the attic," Patricia said.

"Yeah, but we'll have to do it at night. And we wouldn't want to do it on a school night. Then I would go to school looking terrible, and only you guys would know why. I say we do it this weekend," Amber said.

"Amber, did you ever think that they might take Fabian before the weekend? We'll have to do it soon," Nina said. Then Mara, Mick, and Alfie came in. Mick was really sweaty. Nina told them what was going on.

"Okay, let's do it tonight. Midnight?" Nina said. We all agreed. "Sibuna," she said, covering her left eye. We all coppied her.

"I'm going to head over to school," I said, standing up and grabbing my bag.

"I'll come with you," Joy said. I looked at Joy, who was grabbing her bag, then to Nina, who had a jealous and confused expression on her face.

I leaned down to her and said, "It's okay. There's nothing between us." I pecked her cheek and walked outside, Joy following closely behind.

"So, Fabes, I-" I interupted her.

"Joy, look. I know you like me. I used to like you, but I don't anymore. So can you at least try to move on?" I said. It came out meaner than I meant.

"I have tried, Fabes. But I can't. You can't tell me that you don't feel that spark," she said.

"Yes, Joy, I can. I don't feel anything between us anymore. And if I did, it wouldn't matter because I have a girlfriend, who I care about more than anything," I said. She was silent for a moment.

I thought she was going to say something, but instead, she kissed me.

This is where I leave you for now. So, Joy just kissed Fabian. What's gonna happen next? You'll find out when I update. Which, hopefully, will be soon.

Please review?

*~apples~*