He looked at me with surprise, and he nodded.
Instead of the rubber plantation, the driver went to the forest behind the villa. I could hear the fighting and the sounds of thunder coming from the villa. It’s about to rain.
The path was winding, and my head started spinning along the way. My stomach churned, and I retched a couple of times. The sounds of fighting still roared on behind us. Abe and his men were showing no signs of stopping. We were taken into the forest and eventually arriving at a clearing.
It was a heliport, and a helicopter was waiting for us there, much to my surprise. The car stopped, and the driver said, “Get out.” Then he leaped out of the car and dragged me out roughly before I realized what had happened.
Nora and the girls were in the cars before mine, and they were taken out too. “Get in here ASAP!” the man at the cockpit roared at us, and I looked in the villa’s direction by reflex, but all I could see was smoke billowing in the air.
Nora and the girls were taken to the helicopter. I thought something was off, but I couldn’t put a finger on it. I went in with them and noticed Nora was still deathly pale. Then I went up to her. “How do you feel, Nora?”
She opened her eyes weakly and looked at me. Nora opened her mouth and attempted to speak, but because of her throat, speaking was impossible for a while.
The man beside us said, “Take your seats and don’t move. We’re taking off now.”
“Where’s Armond?” I looked back at him curiously.
The man paused. “He’ll be rendezvousing with us in Epea. We have to go right now, or nobody’s leaving.”
I nodded and went to my seat. Nora was still a concern, but the most important thing was to leave right away, and the helicopter took off.
Halfway through, Nora clutched her stomach, and her face contorted in pain, and she kept sweating. I was getting worried for her, and I was going to help her, but someone stopped me. “We’ll handle this, Ms. Stovall. Please sit down and don’t hinder them.”
The staff took Nora into the cockpit, and I couldn’t do anything but watch. We landed on an airport after a few hours. I had no idea where we were because of the long hours of flight.
“Change of chopper. Chop, chop, people. Tempus fugit.” We went to board one of the planes without even going through a security check.
Alright, that was weird. Did Armond plan all this? I reflexively looked back at Tabitha and the girls, who were taken into the plane. They hadn’t been talking over the past few days, and the escape had exhausted them.
They were deathly pale, and I knew they would have fallen if it weren’t for the people around them. I noticed that they were clutching their stomachs, and I frowned. Something’s off. But I didn’t take the chance to ask, since we were urged to board the flight.
Nora felt better once we boarded, so she was let back into the passenger cabin, and there were other strangers with us too. I scanned the place and thought something was definitely wrong, but I couldn’t put a finger on it. No point thinking about it then. I buckled myself and waited for the flight to take off.
It took more than half a day to fly from Aploth to Western Europe, and I was still confused even after we landed. We settled some paperwork in the airport, and then we were taken to a villa.
Everyone was exhausted from the long journey, and Nora and the girls had fallen asleep. I tried to stay awake on pure will alone, and I tried to call Ashton, but someone stopped me.
The man who took us to the villa was a burly one, and he never seemed to smile. He had this perpetually cold look on him. When he stopped me, he said, “You need to rest, miss.”
I tried to negotiate, “I want to call my family, sir.”
He threw me a cold look and answered stiffly, “You are forbidden from contacting anyone without Mr. Murphy’s permission.” He gazed at me, trying to force me back into the room.
It’d be bad to face it head on if Armond was making the orders, so I nodded and went into the room. I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to sleep after the long journey, but the jetlag was stopping me from getting any rest.
I had the feeling something was off the moment Armond said he wanted to bring me to Western Europe, but I couldn’t figure it out.
I finally drifted to sleep at midnight, but then someone knocked on the door early next morning, waking me up.
I opened the door only to see Tessa before me, looking deathly pale. Since they spent all their time in the glass room, it took a great toll on their bodies. I never talked to them either, since they never said anything.
I was surprised to see her, and she came into my room and locked the door. Tessa was glowering at me. She said nothing, but I could feel her enmity toward me.
