CHAPTER 128: 128-ALL ON THE ROOFTOPS

Clementine:

"Isn’t this one of your friends?" the same young woman asked, as they shoved Xenia onto her knees.

"Please, please don’t hurt me. I’m just—I’m just a teen," Xenia sobbed. I could already see they had beaten her badly.

"What have you done to her?" I screamed at them. Their smiles only grew wider.

"We didn’t do anything, we saved her. She was attacked by some bad monsters," said a boy who looked about fifteen. But that child didn’t look like a child. He looked like someone who had walked straight out of hell.

"Let her go!" I screamed. As I turned to look at my squadmates, they gave me a hand gesture, almost like telling me not to bother too much about Xenia.

"Guys, I understand she messed up earlier, but these people are not the ones who should be having their hands on her. If anything, we’ll make sure she’s punished in the academy, not here by these people doing some ritual." I hissed, swallowing fear and anger. They were terrifying. What if their ritual put us in danger?

I kept insisting, but I could tell they weren’t interested. Still, if the ritual worked, it would mean they were using Xenia to harm us. Then Haiden rolled his eyes and stood up from the ground.

"Fine. Give her back to us," he said, making it clear he was only doing it for me.

"Didn’t you say you don’t hurt anyone? Then why keep her captive?" I asked. That’s when I noticed Troy moving closer, standing by my side to let me know he was also doing it for me.

"Return her to us, she is not some sacrificial goat," Yorick yelled, almost like showing off to me that he was also standing with me.

"We just want to meet, that’s all. We want you all to come sit with us. But you act like we’re insane, running away from us." The same man from before, the one with the long hair, was now standing at the last house, the brown one closest to our rooftop.

"We don’t need to meet up. Say what you have to say here." I reminded him he could still talk. But why did he want us to step inside the brown house?

"Guys, these people are fucking crazy," Ian muttered, making us all turn and briskly follow him. With our hands gripping the low rooftop wall, we looked down to see two of their people painting the green house, the one we were standing on, brown. But do you know how? They were painting with blood.

"What the heck," I grunted. Now we realized why it wasn’t brown paint. They were covering houses with the blood of their victims, turning them into different shades of brown.

I turned to look at my squadmates. It didn’t make sense. We had no clue what these people were doing, but we knew they were dangerous.

"You say you’re not harming anyone. Then what the fuck is that?" I yelled, and their smiles began to fade. It was strange, the way all of them lost their expressions at the same time.

"It’s the blood of animals," the man said, openly lying. I had seen bones with them, and with Xenia in such a state, I could tell they were just as manipulative as Medusa.

Thankfully, rain began to pour, and I noticed how worried they looked, as if something precious had been stolen from them. The younger ones glanced at the elders, probably asking for a way to stop the rain.

"We need to pray. Pray to the devil to stop it."

The old woman said to the man with the long hair, and I could already tell he was the leader.

"Sure," he said. "Everybody, back inside and start the ritual." He pointed to the door with a grunt.

My heart raced as I watched them look at Xenia, then at us. The long-haired man suddenly grabbed her hair in his fist, dragging her back. She was too exhausted to fight. He tied her in the middle of the rooftop.

"If you want, you can come and save her." He started walking back into the house.

The rooftop door stayed slightly open, and we could see people waiting there, ready for us to jump down and try to save her.

"Listen, having empathy is one thing, but risking your life for someone like her? I wouldn’t recommend it," Ian said.

"Please help me! I swear I didn’t want to kill her. It was just a mistake!" Now that her own life was in danger, she was screaming for help. Every time she said it was a mistake, it seemed to anger everyone, because we all knew it wasn’t. She did it on purpose. Was she really that slow? Either way, she was in a terrible state.

"Guys, I’d recommend you not let Clementine put her life in danger," Oriana yelled from across the houses, her voice carrying over. My squadmates turned to look at me.

Seriously? Is that how they all saw me, as someone ready to sacrifice her life for others? When had I ever done that? I had no clue. I just grunted at them.

"I’m not going there to save her." I made it clear they didn’t have to worry about me. I wasn’t that stupid. I knew what she had done. The fact that they fought us right after getting that poor girl killed proved the white squad had no empathy in their hearts.

"Where the fuck are her squadmates?" Ian finally said what we were all thinking.

"Probably just bullying the monsters," Haiden shrugged, still looking down from the earlier conversation with Medusa.

After a while, the brown house people stepped onto the rooftop and untied Xenia, dragging her away. I had to look away because I wanted so badly to fight for her, but we had no clue what kind of weapons they had.

We slumped down on the rooftop, soaked in the rain. Hours passed. I don’t know when I leaned onto Troy’s shoulder, but I found myself dozing off and only waking when it was dark. Even Troy was asleep against the wall with me. The others were also sleeping the same way, except for Ian, who was pacing from one corner of the rooftop to the other.