Episode 46: Betrayals and Bad Headaches
- Crystal Crawford
- Apr 24
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 25
“Dad!” Chloe turned around in a hurry. “I was just—”
The broad-shouldered man waved at her dismissively. “Get out of the way.”
She shut her mouth and moved to the side against one wall.
The man locked his eyes on our group, heading toward us with his bodyguards right behind him.
Lockley spun and pushed the release bar on the exit door, but it didn’t open.
“Gather in,” Trenchcoat Man murmured just loud enough for us to hear.
Collin and I scooted toward him.
Trenchcoat Man clapped—
Nothing happened.
“That won’t work in here now,” Chloe’s dad said, stopping halfway down the hall. He pulled a blue-sand hourglass from his pocket. “I borrowed a few things from Madame Sava before she fell to her unfortunate death.”
“Get behind me, Aubrey. You, too, Collin,” my dad said in a low voice.
We obeyed, and as soon as we were in reach, Lockley grabbed us both by the hand and pulled us toward her, near the sealed exit door and the cheer hawks.
“We can’t shift, either,” Jillian whispered.
The adults moved protectively in front of us.
Chloe still stood in the hallway, flattened against the wall to keep out of her dad’s way.
He and his goons moved steadily toward us. All the side doors of the hallway were further down, past Chloe.
We were trapped.
“Good job for once, Chloe,” her dad said, sneering as he neared her. “Good to know you aren’t always an idiot.”
I stared at her as she blushed and looked away, embarrassed.
My heart sank.
I shoved toward the front of the group.
“Aubrey!” my mom hissed.
But I needed to look Chloe in the face. “This is the guy you’ve done all this for?” I whispered before her dad reached us. “Chloe. Why?”
She turned to face me. Her eyes filled with tears. “I had to, Aubs. He’s my dad.”
I suddenly felt incredibly sad.
“Move aside,” her dad said, practically shoving her out of the way to reach the rest of us.
“Hey!” I said. “Leave her alone!”
He stared at me in surprise. “You’d defend her? Even now that you know what she did?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to defend a liar and a betrayer—I had no real reason to. But…
Her dad smirked. “That’s what I thought.”
Chloe turned and ran away down the hall.
“Chloe!” I called after her.
“Grab them,” her dad said.
Doors all down the hallway flew open, and half a dozen more bodyguards stepped out. They were all practically clones of the first two, down to similar hair color and faces.
My dad pulled me back behind him, and we all huddled back against the sealed door.
Another sneer overtook Chloe’s dad’s face. “Knock them out,” he told his goons. “We don’t need them trying to fight us.”
One of the goons reached into his pocket.
Something clicked and whirred, like a motor turning on, and there was a hissing sound from above us.
The air swam, then everything went dark.
***
I awoke an undetermined amount of time later, on the cold, hard floor of a jail cell.
At least, I thought it was a jail cell, at first… until I saw the rows of lockboxes on the wall next to me.
The others were nearby, and most of them were already awake.
My dad was hovering over me.
I sat up. “Where are we?”
Dad scooted back to give me room. “A vault, as best as I can tell,” he said. “I just woke up a minute ago. You okay?”
I rubbed my sore head. “Yeah.” I’d either banged it when I fell unconscious, or whatever they drugged us with left a serious headache, but other than that, I was fine. “You?”
He nodded.
“Mom?”
“I’m fine too, sweetheart,” she said. She was leaning against the opposite wall of the room.
The cheer hawks were sitting next to her nearby Trenchcoat Man, who was staring out through the bars of the vault’s only door.
“So are we, not that you asked,” Jillian said. “Lockley and Collin haven’t woken up yet.”
Indeed they hadn’t. They were still out cold on the floor next to me.
I moved toward Lockley and nudged her. “Lock? Wake up.”
It took a couple shakes, but then, to my relief, she grunted and opened her eyes. “What happened?”
“Not sure, but we’re in some kind of vault. Collin?”
He’d sat up once Lockley started talking, but now he was holding his head. “Wow, that’s unpleasant.”
“It should fade in a moment,” I said, realizing mine was already lessening. “You alright?”
He looked up at me. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
I exhaled. “Okay, good.”
“Wait—” I gasped, looking around for my backpack. I was hugely relieved to find it on the ground behind me. I yanked the zipper open—Emery’s notebook was still inside. I opened it, then exhaled in relief again. The page was still there.
Mom gave me a reassuring smile. “At least he doesn’t seem to know you have that.”
Or maybe he didn’t think it was information worth confiscating. Either way, I was grateful I still had it. After years of studying that page, pondering what Emery was trying to say to me, losing that page would’ve been like losing a piece of her all over again—not to mention that there might still be info on it we needed.
“What about the hourglass?” Trenchcoat Man asked.
“Oh!” I dug into my pockets with a surge of panic—but it was there, too. I opened the small case, and the hourglass was still sitting there safe and sound. “Oh, good.”
Trenchcoat Man narrowed his eyes. “Huh. That’s fortunate. He must not have noticed it.”
I drew a breath. Now that I was sure everyone was okay, and that I still had the notebook page and hourglass, we needed to figure out how to get out of here.
I looked around.
Trenchcoat Man turned to me from his position at the barred door. “It’s a dead end to the left. There’s a cement wall just beyond this vault. To the right looks like an empty hallway, leading to some stairs with a narrow door at the top. If I had to guess, this vault is on a sublevel, maybe in a basement. I can only see the bottom of the door from here, because of the height difference, but it’s definitely closed.”
“Fantastic,” I muttered. I did not like the idea of being trapped underground.
“I’d imagine someone’s waiting on the other side of that door for us,” Meredith said. “Or it’s locked. Or both.”
“Probably both,” Trenchcoat Man agreed.
A rattling sound echoed down the hallway.
Trenchcoat Man tensed. “Someone’s unlocking the door.”
The door squeaked open, and a moment later, footsteps sounded on the stairs.
“Who is it?” Jillian whispered.
Trenchcoat Man leaned against the bars to see better. “It’s… Chloe.”
Chloe?
My stomach tensed. Was she here to try to talk to me more? To explain why she had to betray me, why her horrible father was so much more important than my family or me? How our friendship was never even real?
I scooted back against the far wall. I didn’t want to talk to her.
***
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