CHAPTER 132: 132-TEAMING UP WITH IAN

Clementine:

We made it to the next house and did the same thing. Since the layouts were similar, it was easy for us to get through the back doors. The real problem started when we tried to cross the road to get to the other four houses. We had been letting Medusa in at every house, but of course, it wasn’t going to stay that easy. As soon as we opened the door to the first brown house on the other side, we ran into our first hurdle. It was completely empty and silent.

"Do you think anybody is even here?" I asked Ian.

We had rushed into this house while the others took over the rest. I guess somewhere along the way we grew so confident that we didn’t feel like sticking together anymore. Haiden had carried Jessie away.

She had to hide in one of the other houses because she was in such a bad state she couldn’t even transition, so he stayed with her. Yorick and Troy had rushed to the house next to ours. Ian gave me a hand gesture, then pressed his finger to his lips, telling me to stay quiet.

We crouched down, moving across the corridor, and when we reached the living room we found it empty.

"I guess nobody’s here," I told Ian. I noticed him turn to give me a nod before his eyes suddenly widened. He grabbed my wrist so tightly I felt a burning sensation on my skin.

"What is it?" I asked, trying to turn around, but he shook my body and forced me to face forward.

"Don’t turn around," he said. That was when I heard the hissing of snakes.

"Come on, run," he said.

The moment he dragged me toward the front, I felt something almost reach me. Then I noticed a mirror ahead. In it, I saw one of the snakes on Medusa’s head lunge at me. She wasn’t just turning people into statues with her gaze, the snakes on her head were playing a different game.

We ran, avoiding the snakes and Medusa, careful not to look directly at her. After I saw her attack the couple and turn them into stone, I told my squadmates what was going on and how we’d avoid the same fate. At the same time, we worried about the snakes on her head.

Ian dragged me to the kitchen and tried to lock the door. The snakes started sliding through the half ajar door. I pushed the door with him, but the harder we tried to close it, the more she forced it open. Ian glanced around and pointed at a shelf where a knife sat. I rushed over, grabbed it, and swung at the snake trying to get inside. As soon as it fell, it turned to stone, and Medusa let out a scream. She backed off for a moment, giving us just enough time to lock the door.

We stood there, breathing heavily, when screams echoed from the second floor. Ian and I exchanged a look, realizing someone else was upstairs.

"My crusaders will fucking teach you all a lesson."

We recognized Xenia’s voice. Ian quickly knelt and peered under the door.

"She’s gone," he said, letting me know Medusa had walked away.

I grabbed another big knife and handed one to Ian. We waited a few seconds, then cracked the door open again. We needed to get upstairs, so we crept out carefully. From the corner of our eyes, we saw Medusa rummaging through a bedroom on the ground floor, which gave us the chance to rush upstairs to Xenia.

Normally, we wouldn’t have risked it, but we wanted to take her back and expose her. That way, the others would see what she had done. Nobody should be able to kill someone in the north and come home to live like nothing happened. That was our intention.

As we hurried upstairs before Medusa could catch us, we found Xenia tied to the ground with candles placed around her. Right then, we knew they planned to sacrifice her tonight, but luckily we had arrived in time. Ian rushed to her, stared, then shook his head, as if telling me he didn’t want to help her at all. But what choice did we have? We began untying her quickly.

"Oh my God, you came back?" she cried, tearing up when she realized we were really standing in front of her.

There was another reason we ran upstairs. The room Medusa was rummaging through was right next to the corridor with the exit, so we had no choice but to go up. We could have just stayed in the kitchen, to be honest. The minute I saw her face, Xenia’s face, I remembered how another innocent girl had died because of her. I wasn’t exactly feeling helpful either, but I still untied her.

The awkwardness lingered as she stood up, then, in the next second, she glared at me.

"What?" I snapped, angry at the way she looked at me.

"You guys left me there when they had me on the rooftop. None of you seemed to care," she yelled. Ian raised his finger to his lips, trying to hush her aggressively.

"No, I’m not gonna shut up. I’ll tell all the ringleaders about it, how you had no empathy for your own crusader. You didn’t even ask them twice to let me go. They kept me tied up on the rooftop for hours, and none of you came to help me!" she complained even louder.

We tried to take her with us to another room, but all of them were locked. While Ian and I searched desperately for an unlocked one where we could hide from Medusa, she wouldn’t stop complaining.

"Okay, enough!" I shouted as I turned to her. Then I saw Medusa’s shadow growing larger. She was coming upstairs.

"Oh shit," I muttered, then turned to Xenia. "You wanna cry about it? Huh? You wanna cry that we didn’t save you back then? Even after you’re the reason one of the innocent crusaders died?" I hissed, and her eyes widened.

"Why are you bringing the past into this? It was a mistake, I said it," she growled in a raspy voice. She was badly injured too. But it was at that moment that I realized we shouldn’t have untied her.