Watched (The Watched Series)

  Watched

  By Cindy M. Hogan

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2011 Cindy M. Hogan

  Copyright © 2011 Cindy M. Hogan

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All rights reserved.

  For more information on the author and her books go to

  cindymhogan.blogspot.com or watched-thebook.blogspot.com

  For Hensley and Hannah, whose eager requests for

  “the next chapter” pushed me to complete it

  CHAPTER ONE

  I plastered a smile on my face, trying in vain to stop the shiver that traveled with slow determination up my spine.

  None of the other seven in my student tour group seemed to have a problem with the Hotel Norton’s dark gray stone exterior. Six sat on its wide steps, chatting away, while one, the boy who made my heart all but stop, ventured inside the hotel to see if the bathrooms were “suitable” for us to use. No one seemed ready to walk the four or five blocks back to our hotel just to use the bathroom and no one wanted the fun night to end.

  “Get over here, Christy,” Marybeth called from the steps, her extra long, brown hair blowing lightly in the cool breeze as she patted the empty spot next to her.

  “In a minute,” I said, unsure if I would be able to keep that promise and hoping Alex would come out and tell us the bathrooms in that hotel had dripping faucets, doors that didn’t close and those awful cloth towels that went round and round in the dispenser, getting dirtier and dirtier with each pull. At least then we’d have to go to another hotel. And maybe, just maybe, the hot rock in my stomach would go away.

  I kept my eyes fixed on the hotel door, wanting Alex to appear so I could feel the soft tingles he always gave me. It had been five long minutes since he’d gone inside, and the sprinkling of goose bumps on my arms seemed to grow with each passing one. It didn’t make any sense, but something felt wrong.

  Sneaking out of our safe, inviting hotel at ten at night to explore Washington, D.C. had been the scariest thing I’d ever done. I may have come from a small town, but I still knew that D.C. boasted one of the highest crime rates in the U.S. Unfortunately, I had this maddening drive to be accepted by this group of kids and I wasn’t going to let a few statistics prevent it. So, I had ignored the warning voice in my head and snuck out with them, down the back stairs of the hotel and into the cool, sticky, night D.C. air.

  I had no interest in politics. I had come to get away from home to change who I was. Was I asking too much of a high school student political trip? Could my life change in two short weeks? I was counting on it, praying for it.

  Nothing bad had happened to us as we roamed around the last two hours, but that little voice, not so little now, screamed at me to head back to our hotel. Did that voice have the power to root me to my spot? It sure felt like it did. I couldn’t even go over to my new friends, a mere twenty steps away. Instead, I leaned against a “no parking” sign in the grassy strip next to the street.

  An eternity seemed to pass before Alex slinked back out the massive, dark wooden doors of the hotel. Right on cue, my heart started pounding.

  “This place is perfect,” he called out, walking toward the others, a roguish look dominating his face and sending a speeding freight train barreling through my chest. “It’s a bit creepy inside, too,” he said, flashing a perfect set of teeth. I hadn’t met anyone who could resist Alex’s charm and all six on the steps stood, as if in a trance, to follow him inside. I, on the other hand, despite the fluttering butterfly wings tickling my insides, still couldn’t seem to move.

  Book after book I’d read told this exact story: unsuspecting girl loses her brain when perfect boy enters her life. I always considered the girls in those stories weak or silly, until Alex happened to me. Heck, my heart skipped a few beats just looking at him, and my mind turned to jelly. There was no rational explanation and after only a few days in D.C., I’d already learned that feelings could easily control the mind if you let them. I felt helpless, and an unknown part of me liked it—a lot.

  To get my feet to move, I tried to convince myself it was the Ritz inside that dark, foreboding hotel. It didn’t help. A desperate panic filled my gut as all seven went in without me. Any hope I’d dredged up the last four days of becoming a new person, accepted and liked, drowned in a flood of horrible memories: sitting alone at lunch, being taunted, being picked last for teams and never being invited to anything. None of the others even noticed I hadn’t gone in with them.

  I tried to slow my frantic heart by taking deep long breaths, leaving my mouth dry. No one but adults ever noticed anything good about me at home, and I’d been determined not to repeat that cycle here in D.C. Yet here I stood, the forgotten one, in front of a horrible hotel. I didn’t want to be that person again. I willed my legs to move, but like my feet were encased in cement, I couldn’t. As the seconds ticked by, I felt more and more alone. Then, Rick and Marybeth opened the door and came to my rescue.

  “Are you crazy?” Rick said, his arms out to his sides, palms up as he walked toward me.

  “Yeah,” Marybeth said, her dark brown eyes creased with worry. “You can’t stay out here by yourself. It’s too dangerous.”

  I heard an odd chuckle escape my lips. Relief or perhaps renewed fear. I felt liked, but not safe.

  I sighed, glad that I hadn’t looked like a total loser. Rick and Marybeth had this insane idea that I was being brave, just waiting outside for everyone to get back. Were they out of their minds? Who would do that in this city?

  They each looped an arm through mine and led me to the door, my legs no longer protesting. Inside, the large foyer split into two wide sets of stairs that wound around a huge center column that housed an elevator in the middle. I couldn’t see where the stairs ended. They seemed to go on forever. Dark wood and stone lined the walls from floor to ceiling, reinforcing the ominous feel of an old medieval castle.

  “Alex said to hug the wall while going up the stairs,” Marybeth whispered. “The girls’ bathroom is on the left at the top. Once you reach the last step, peek around the corner. If no one’s looking, go on in. Just follow me. Okay?”

  “Yeah, but why are we sneaking in anyway?” I whispered, touching her arm. “Why can’t we just ask to use the bathrooms?”

  “Alex thinks it’s more fun this way, I guess,” Rick said, rolling his eyes, a tone of disbelief in his voice.

  “I’d rather just ask,” Marybeth said. “All this sneaking around gives me the creeps.”

  “Me, too,” I said. It had escaped my lips even though deep down I knew Alex’s adventurous side was a large part of what attracted me to him. I felt a bit hypocritical but still said, “I can’t wait for this to be over.”

  I watched Rick’s sandy blonde hair disappear around the curve of the stairs. Marybeth followed him, and I followed her, all the while that voice in my head screamed for me to stop. I took a deep breath, focusing on Rick and Marybeth coming out to get me and how great that had felt. Besides, I couldn’t turn back now. Not after they’d come back out after me. I had to watch my breathing; it seemed too loud. I felt warm, the chill from outside melting away. The pungent smell in the air, however, made me want to hold my breath. Marybeth rounded the corner and disappeared. I was certain that if she could make it to the restroom, I could as well.

  I took the last step up the stairs, taking a deep breath, and peered around the corner. A shallow gasp escaped my lips looking at the scene before me. Shiny blac
k barrels of large guns poked below the dark leather coats of two men standing next to the front desk. They seemed relaxed, talking to the tall, wickedly pretty receptionist. They weren’t like regular guards with handguns in a holster on their hips, though. They had serious firepower.

  Were they the reason Alex had had such a mischievous look on his face or was it just the medieval feel of the hotel that attracted him? I suspected both. I felt a tension in the air that wouldn’t allow me to quickly draw my eyes away and I tried to rationalize the guards’ presence. Maybe some important people were staying here and needed protection. On the other hand, maybe all hotels in D.C. had similar armed guards. I hadn’t seen any at our hotel, but then again, I’d never been in the lobby past eight o’clock at night, either.

  Why hadn’t the guards or receptionist noticed eight high school kids dashing for their restroom? Perhaps most or all of their guests would take one look at the long staircase and take the elevator instead. I would have. If they didn’t hear the ding announcing the arrival of the elevator, they wouldn’t pay attention to what was going on around them. Or, maybe they were simply distracting each other and we had been lucky. My heart thudded against my ribcage urging me to move. Despite the massive twinge of fear I felt, I headed for the door marked, “Ladies.”

  Wow! This was one elegant bathroom. Alex had chosen well. No wonder they didn’t want just anyone to use it. Real towels and miscellaneous personal products like cologne and powder sat neatly on the marble counter next to the old fashioned looking faucet. There were two large stalls inside, kind of like office cubicles with walls of marble that didn’t go all the way up to the ceiling, but with real doors—no peeking sides like stalls in normal public bathrooms. I waited my turn with Marybeth, playing with the products on the counter, until both Summer and Kira came out. As I was about to use the toilet, I heard muffled voices above me.

  Remembering that some guy had been caught taking pictures of girls in bathrooms near my hometown, I glanced up to see if I could find an offending camera. I couldn’t see any, but I still heard voices. That’s when I noticed a large vent just below the ceiling on the wall. I couldn’t even think of using the toilet until I’d taken a look, just to ease my mind. My heart started to pound again as I climbed onto the back of the toilet, prepared to catch some pervert on the other side of the vent.

  I stood on tip-toe, straining to keep myself up high enough to see through the vent. I looked down onto some sort of large ballroom, the glossy wooden floor shining up at me, although the scene below had nothing to do with dancing. The same type of guns the men in the lobby carried were in the hands of six men whose heads and bodies were draped in flowing robes like middle easterners’. They surrounded a rectangular table where four other men sat. The two facing me wore the same type of robes as the guards that surrounded them, but the other two looked like American businessmen with suits and short cropped hair, their backs turned toward me.

  These people were way below me—at street level—I guessed. We had climbed all those stairs to get to the bathroom. I was concentrating so hard, trying to make out what was happening down there, that I almost fell when Marybeth asked, “Are you almost ready, ‘cause I don’t want to go out there alone.”

  “You startled me!” I whispered back down at her.

  “What are you doing up there?” she asked, brushing strands of light, brown hair over her shoulder, her soft, pretty face looking up at me in surprise.

  “I heard voices and wanted to make sure some perv wasn’t trying to look at us or take pictures of us while we’re in here,” I whispered.

  “Perv?” she asked, crinkling her perfectly shaped nose.

  I guessed in Iowa there weren’t any pervs. I climbed down and opened the stall door.

  “Take a look. Something weird’s happening.”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “No, really, you’ve got to see this.”

  I pushed her toward the toilet until she relented and climbed up to look. “What’s going on?” she whispered after looking.

  “You’ve got me.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said. “They might see us.”

  “There’s no way they would see us. It’s impossible,” I said, as I climbed up next to her. “Let’s just find out what they’re saying. Can you hear them?” My body tensed.

  We both looked through the vent, squished against each other, trying not to fall off the back of the toilet.

  Not one minute had passed before Marybeth whispered, “I know that voice! It’s Senator Randolph—on the right. We listen to him every time he gives a speech.”

  “Senator Randolph?”

  “He’s one of Iowa’s Senators,” she explained. “My dad says he’s going to save the farmers in our state and is a blessing from heaven.”

  “He doesn’t look like he’s in heaven right now,” I said, my stomach now a roiling ocean.

  “Shhh! I can’t hear.” She urged me to silence.

  This was the most forceful I’d ever seen Marybeth, and so I listened as hard as I could. Slowly, the words started to make sense.

  “You failed…Senator,” the robed man on the right, who appeared to be the leader, said. “What… to impress on you the absolute …of a favorable result in this matter? The news…tell only of …death of the bill…told you had the votes.” I had to concentrate on their mouths to help make out the heavily accented words and the man’s large crooked nose kept distracting me, twitching every time he started a new sentence. It was driving me so crazy that I couldn’t catch every word.

  “We do!” the Senator said. “…them… bill will pass.”

  “…not want all this attention…it. ..late,” the robed man on the right continued.

  “No, No!” stammered the man next to the Senator louder than the others. “You’ll see. We have won.”

  “…nothing!” The robed man on the right, said.

  With those words, another guard, standing behind the Senator, raised his arms into the air. Only then did I realize that instead of a gun, his hands were wrapped around a long, thick shiny sword. The light reflected harshly off it. With a loud “Arhhhh!” the robed man whipped the sword through the air and through the neck of the man sitting next to Senator Randolph. His arms moved like lightning as his body made a complete circle. The man’s head now lay beside him on the floor. Blood spurted everywhere, like a geyser. I couldn’t believe how far it flew. I jumped back and partially fell onto the seat of the toilet and had to grab the stall wall in order to stop myself from falling all the way to the floor. In a rush, I climbed back up to see if I had really seen what I thought I had. My stomach lurched and I covered my mouth to keep a gasp from escaping as I looked down on the carnage.

  Even though the action really only took a few seconds, it felt like it happened in slow motion. Blood sprayed through the air and soaked the Senator’s face and side. As the first few drops hit him, he leaned down to try to avoid the flood, which only allowed the blood to spray all over his back, too. No one there escaped the volcano of blood. Unconsciously, I wiped the side of my face and looked for Marybeth.

  She no longer stood beside me. I found her in front of the toilet, eyes wide, mouth open, no sound escaping. Then her eyes rolled up in her head, her knees gave out and her head and back hit the stall door, forcing it open as she crashed to the floor. Had they heard? For a few seconds I was frozen in place, my mind wanting me to climb back up and see if the people in the ballroom had heard Marybeth fall, while my heart wanted to help Marybeth. My mind won out. I figured we would be in greater danger if they’d heard.

  I climbed back up and looked through the vent and for a split second, I thought I saw the crooked-nosed guy look right at me. I ducked, even though I knew it was impossible for him to see me through the vent when I was so far above him. It was more likely that they heard the crash when Marybeth fell and would send someone to check it out. He was he really only looking at the guard with the sword. I wanted to be sure of it. Ice
spread through my veins as I dared one last look through the vent. No one had moved from their spot except the Senator, who stood behind his beheaded friend, pacing and moaning. Maybe his loud moaning had covered the sounds of Marybeth’s fall. I looked back at her. She lay there, out cold.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Marybeth, Marybeth,” I whispered, climbing down from the toilet. I was terrified, but too busy to be consumed with fear.

  I knew I had to get out of there, but I couldn’t drag Marybeth out. What if someone saw us, like those guards at the desk? What if they were coming to investigate the sound? I couldn’t think straight. My head swam. We had to leave, but how? No amount of intellectual smarts, books, competitions, or research could have prepared me for this, and I certainly didn’t know what a cool person would do.

  Before panic could overtake me, I stepped over her and hurried to the door to crack it open. By luck, Kira was right there, reaching for the doorknob. When she saw me, she looked in the direction of the receptionist and then motioned for me to come out. I shook my head, opened the door further and grabbed her arm before she could walk away. Her gorgeous, dark red hair fluttered across my face as I pulled her in. The soft scent of shampoo lingered in the air, a stark contrast to the musty smell in the bathroom. I pointed at Marybeth, now sitting, with her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth, eyes closed.

  “Whew!” escaped my lips. She wasn’t dead. Kira moved toward her.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” I interrupted. “They could be coming. They might have heard her fall.”

  We tried to lift her, but she was too heavy and dead weight at that.

  “We need one of the guys,” Kira said as she reached for the door. At the same moment, Rick slipped inside. He took one look at Marybeth rocking back and forth and said, “What the… ?” and moved toward her like he alone was responsible for her safety.