Young Writers Society

The ringleader stepped forward, pulling down her black bandana from her face. Her dark brown hair hung around her waist. “My name’s Anna-Claire McCray. I’ve been following leads to find my little sister, Carissa. She leads an assassin ring known as the RSA. We were separated ten years ago when I was captured by a muse, and I’ve been searching for her ever since I escaped. I learned about her assassin ring during my searches, and I heard word about the RSA being near here. Another thing I heard that this guy here - what’s his name? Was it Wyatt? Anyway, I heard that he had come into contact with Carissa just a few days ago, and now I’m trying to find out from him where she went. Unfortunately, he won’t tell me anything. It’s extremely irritating.” She scowled down at Wyatt so threateningly that it gave me chills.

“I’ve never heard of anybody named Carissa McCray, or this assassin ring,” I told her cautiously, “but I’ll do what I can to find your sister. If I find anything out, I’ll send you a note. Also, if you don’t mind, can you stop torturing Wyatt? Nobody likes getting cut over and over by random people they’ve never met.”

Wyatt gave me a pointed look that seemed to convey the message, Oh, REALLY? I wonder where you got that idea. He rolled his stormy blue eyes to add on to the message, his ginger hair falling in front of his face. He didn’t say anything on the matter, though. Probably because he was gagged. Must’ve been new, since his screams had sounded pretty darn clear.

Anna-Claire clutched her dagger a bit tighter as if she didn’t trust me. It made sense that she didn’t trust me, since she didn’t know anything about me. “How do I know you’re telling me the truth? How do I know you haven’t heard of Carissa, or her assassin ring? And how do I know that you’ll tell me about anything you learn?” She shook her head. “I need proof. I need to know I’m not just chasing a fantasy. How do I know you’d be giving me any proof? If you’d just be sending me a note, how would I be able to tell it’s not a lie?”

Savannah glanced at me with a pleading look, like she was saying, I have an idea. Let me handle this. I know what I’m doing.

Somehow, Savannah, Lotus, and I were able to always understand each other, even when we only used looks. It was confusing, but hey, it worked. And if I was reading her expression correctly, then she knew what she was doing. I could trust her with this. So I nodded and let her handle the situation.

“So, Anna-Claire, you want to make sure we’re telling the truth, right?” Savannah started out. When she got a nod, she continued. “Well, we’re going on a special quest thing. One of our members just abandoned us because… well, she’s annoying. To make sure you know we tell the truth and that we have enough members for our quest, maybe you could join our quest. What do you think?”

I knew she wasn’t asking me, but I could see the logic in her idea. We needed another quest member. Anna-Claire needed the truth about her sister. Plus, she seemed like a valuable quest member. It was a good plan, in my opinion.

Except that we didn’t know if she was a child of the gods. That was an important detail.

Anna-Claire leaned back against the cave wall and tilted her head to the side in consideration. She still seemed to be unsure about whether she could trust what we had to say, but she also wanted answers very desperately. Turning to her gang, she asked, “What do you guys think? Will you be okay without me?”

“We’ll be fine, don’t worry,” replied a girl with curly red hair. “Go find your sister,” she said, gaining nods of agreement from the others.

“Thanks, Carmen,” she told the redheaded girl. “If I go, you’re in charge.” Then she turned to us. “So, are there any requirements, or do I just join you?”

“You have to be a child of a Greek god or goddess and a child of a god or goddess from some other mythology,” I told her. “Oh, and you also need to not cut any of the quest members anymore.”

“Carissa and I are daughters of Hecate. We’re also daughters of… well, somebody from Celtic mythology. Not sure who yet,” answered Anna-Claire. “And I’ll stop cutting quest members.”

Savannah, Lotus, and I took that moment to share a three-way fist bump in celebration. Anna-Claire was fully qualified for the quest!

“Great, now that that’s settled, let’s untie Wyatt and get back to the others. Then we’ll explain what went on down here and hope Carter doesn’t start yelling at us for making deals without his so very desired and way too annoyingly logical input,” Lotus told us. “Let’s hurry so we can get his weird logic over with.” She turned and stepped back into the tunnel, grumbling about how annoying Carter could be.

Savannah grimaced. “Unfortunately, she’s right. Carter’s gonna be annoying about us not waiting for his logic, and Taylor’s gonna be freaking out because safety first and all that crap. Ugh. All right, let’s untie Wyatt now.” She grabbed the ropes around his wrists and cut them with her battle axe, then did the same for the rest of the ropes, while Anna-Claire and Carmen took off the gag.

I helped Wyatt up from the ground and said, “All right, guys, let’s go join Lotus in the tunnel. We don’t want her getting Carter too angry.” I turned around and leapt into the tunnel, made sure everyone else had joined me, and proceeded to lead them through the tunnel until we caught up to Lotus.

Lotus spun around when she heard us, then sighed in relief when she saw it was just us. “All right, let’s go,” she said. “Don’t let me anger Carter too much.”

“Don’t worry, we can just throw rocks at him,” I replied with a smirk.

Then we stepped into the cave, causing Carter to spin around. His expression darkened when he saw Wyatt’s condition and Anna-Claire. “All right, what happened?” he asked. “Somebody better give me a good explanation.”

I took a deep breath and said, “So, what happened was….”