Free Greenhaus Part 1: A Storm Brews by Bryan Reckelhoff

ignored. The conversation was on hold, the men had to act fast. There were lots of verbal signals in Jacob’s world, but none more terrifying or louder than this one. Everyone in the Annex 23 could hear this and knew what it meant. An intruder had been spotted; New St. Louis was on lock down.

CHAPTER 6 (Ella Stone)
     
     
    T he thick glass kept the topics of the Oppressors conversations’ from Ella’s ears. The tools they used were also undetected, but Ella expected they were loud given the power they seemed to generate. Those on the Inside couldn’t hear the rocks she threw trying to create a diversion when they hit the glass, but when the alarm sounded she heard it loud and clear. Inside she watched the workers get lowered from their perches on high. Some shouted, others pointed, but all were scrambling about.
    Ella knew she had been discovered, at least she suspected it to be the cause of all the commotio n. Finding it odd that no one had come to look at her, she remained still, sneaking peeks at the men who moved about in a hurried state.
    The workers tied down their precious materials with ratchet straps, and locked tools in cabinets. As one worker quickly approached the bundles of steel beams nearest to her, his foot became caught in a loose strap, causing him to stumble over the beams and crash into the glass, falling just inches from her face. His pain delighted her. Lying in the shallow ditch pressed against the glass, she was mere inches from this man. Ella closed her eyes briefly, hoping somehow that would keep her hidden. Separated by only the glass, the fear gripped her again. As he pushed himself off the glass, she noticed his face had been damaged by the fall. Their eyes locked and though she wanted to run, her brain could not overpower her fear mechanism and trigger her body into motion.
    As Ella stared through her mask into his eyes, she noticed something else, something unexpected. Compassion, or at least her best guess as to what it would look like from a man, since it was a foreign emotion to her except the little she saw from her mother and Elder May Stone. What kind of Insider trickery is this?
    He didn ’t have an evil stare. Or the beady eyes she suspected all her counterparts on the Inside did. As he stood up ever so slowly, he never unlocked his gaze. It’s all over for me, he’s gonna turn me in. Ella was sure he would expose her position and knew she should flee, but the fear still held her frozen. Besides the compassionate stare, there was something else that trapped her gaze, an oddity that fascinated her. Something she missed at first, but now she couldn’t look away. One brown eye, one blue. Looking into his eyes transported her to a faraway place, where no Masked and no Insiders existed. In this place, her disdain for him and his people disappeared. Ella warmed and breathed easily. Her body buzzed and felt a strange, out of body sensation, like she was floating. 
    As he was rising from his fall, he broke the locked gaze briefly, glancing cautiously beneath his arm as he remained hunched over, before returning to Ella’s frightened eyes. He subtly motioned for her to stay still, before running in the direction of the newly arrived Rangers. She could not hear what he was saying, but now the trance was broken and Ella believed he was giving away her location. Her hate for the Oppressors returned and she waited for his betrayal to bring the Rangers running to her. She twirled one of her braids nervously while watching his actions closely.
    He pointed briefly in her direction, before slowly swinging his pointed finger in a slight arc towards the small tunnel Ella had found the night before, the only exit out of the Glass City she knew. She tried to keep one eye on the Rangers, but they disappeared into the tunnel. Gone from her limited line of sight, which was restricted by her cumbersome mask, Ella expected them to come running around the corner. Fear replaced the hate and she stiffened