by AJ Eversley
Max and I avoided the control room as best we could. The people in there didn’t seem to understand what we were up against. The attack on the United Isles was devastating, and more powerful than anything we’d ever seen before. No matter how many times we tried to explain what only two Carbons were capable of, they held fast to the idea that their bombs would work.
I kept training with Max and Tenason’s help, but I missed Anthony’s instruction. It broke my heart every time to think about how he was dead. He’d taught me so much in such a short amount of time, and it was because of him that I had mastered my abilities. But I couldn’t bring him back. Guilt motivated me to train harder and push myself to the limit.
Outside the village, I stood alone in a clearing. Light snowflakes fell upon my bare shoulders. Training kept me warm enough that I didn’t need my jacket. Both Max and Tenason were nearby, but where was the question. We’d been practicing my detection skills. They had come in handy in defeating that red-haired Carbon, but my powers still struggled to pinpoint a specific energy when multiple energies were moving around me.
A gentle rustle of leaves to my left perked my energy, and I startled for a moment, but it was just a baby rabbit hopping along the grass bed in tiny strides. I sent my energy out in search of Max and Tenason’s energy, all the while keeping my focus around me. They hadn’t gone easy on me, nor would they. My other senses heard and felt the movements of the forest, but the two men I searched for were mixed in with them.
A sharp twang came from a taut bowstring, but I managed to duck in time as an arrow flew past my head, sending a wisp of hair across my face. I shot my energy in the direction the arrow came from, and there I found a tiny speck of energy so far in the distance that I knew it had to be Tenason. Even with an arrow, his long-range accuracy was marvelous.
By the time my powers reached him, he was already on the move again. All that was left of him was the faint scent that had my energy on the hunt again.
The forest became quiet. I glanced around with a keen focus. Max was the one I’d yet to find in our training. His time alone in the forest had given him an advantage.
Suddenly, I felt the wisp of a knife well before I’d seen it. It was the third time that day, and yet I still wasn’t quick enough. The blade sliced through the air behind me, coming for the back of my head. I managed to move out of the way but not enough to spare me from the blade whispering across my cheek.
I spun around to find Max only ten feet away, leaning against a tree with a cocky grin.
“How the hell?” I said.
He chuckled.
“That could’ve hurt!” I stormed toward him. Max and Tenason had dulled the ends of the arrows and blades so they were no sharper than a butter knife. But still, they would’ve hurt if they had connected with my body.
“You should’ve been paying attention,” Max said.
I heard the crunch of feet over dry, dead leaves. Tenason popped his head around a tree as he joined us in the clearing. He too was smiling.
“We knew you’d get out of the way quick. We wouldn’t be helping you if we went easy on you, right?” Tenason shrugged and picked up the arrows he’d aimed at my head.
“Yeah, yeah,” I swatted my hand at him.
Max stepped toward me and gave me a nudge, brushing his thumb across my cheek.
Tenason tossed Max his hunting knife. “I’m starving. I’ll meet you guys back for supper after I wash all this sap off.” He glanced down at his pants. They were covered in sap and needles from hiding in the trees.
I walked over to a log in the middle of the clearing and sat with a sigh. As I looked up to the hazy, white sky, I stuck out my tongue in an attempt to catch a falling snowflake.
“How old are you?” Max’s footsteps crunched on the frostbitten forest floor as he sat beside me. The warmth of his body soothed my still-bare shoulders.
“Right now? I’m eight. Before the war began, back when I could just enjoy trying to catch snowflakes without being made fun of,” I sneered.
Max chuckled and sheathed his knife onto his hip. He looked up at the falling snow. “Okay, I’ll join. I like this picture.”
He stuck out his tongue. I laughed at his attempt since he failed every time.
“How can someone be so bad at catching snowflakes?” I laughed.
“It’s a superior talent. I’ve spent a lot of time perfecting it.” He puffed out his chest, missing another.
I fell over in laughter and so did Max. He playfully shoved me away before he gathered me in his arms and pulled me tight to his chest.
I leaned into him, he smelt like the forest around us, fresh and alive. I took in a deep breath and closed my eyes. His heart beat faster as his grip tightened.
“Everything okay?” I looked up from under his chin.
He thought for a moment. “We’re not going to win against Coleman with the army we’ve got. Look at what only two advanced Carbons did to the United Isles. I just don’t get why my dad can’t see that.”
I nodded and ran my fingers over his arms still wrapped around me. “I don’t think there’s much more convincing we can do.” I said. “But if we at least had Lena on board, maybe between the two of us we could stand a better chance against him. I mean, we are only two Carbons, and he will surely have more coming, but that may be our only chance.”
Max murmured in agreement before the growing snowflakes caught my eye again.
“I have to keep training. It’s the only way we can save these people,” I said.
Max sighed. “We won’t stop until you’ve mastered every skill you’ve got, and then some.” He smiled into my hair and planted a kiss on my temple.
We sat there in silence for a while longer until an involuntary shiver motivated us to return to the village. I wrapped Max’s arm around my shoulder for warmth.
War was coming. One that couldn’t be won through tricks or brute strength. We could no longer hope to hide from the enemy and survive each day knowing it could be our last … because if tomorrow was our last day on Earth, that meant it was the last day for the human race.
Chapter 40
When we returned, Max went to his own quarters to remove the sap and pine from his clothing. I went to my quarters to change and warm up.
I was still chilled despite the wool socks I had put on overtop my thick, black leggings so I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. I roamed outside to wait for Max before we grabbed something to eat. The sun had set, and the village was lit by lanterns and strung-up lights around every building. I walked over to the little garden where I sat on the edge and watched as an older lady picked the remaining peas from their vines.
“Would you like to try one, dear?” she asked, lifting the near-full bucket toward me with a shaky hand.
“Sure,” I said. I grabbed a pod and popped the peas into my mouth. They were sweet and crisp, perfectly ripe. “Delicious.” I nodded my approval.
The old lady rested the bucket between us and sat beside me. She took a pod from the bucket and popped the whole thing in her mouth with a smile.
“Why are you still out here alone?” I asked. Everyone else seemed to be inside eating supper.
“The frost is coming fast, and the cold weather will be here to stay soon. These vegetables and fruits need to be picked just at the right time otherwise they could spoil.” Her voice was a hoarse rasp, but she spoke with a smile on her face.
I bobbed my head and grabbed another pea pod. “Would you like some help?” I offered.
“Oh no, dear. I much enjoy tending to this garden and wouldn’t want you to spoil all my fun too fast.” She gave me a wink. Her long white hair poked out from her black cloak, the shadows covering half of her face, but I saw her wrinkles and leathery skin from years in the sun. She must’ve noticed my stare since she pushed back her hood to reveal her smiling wrinkled face and coal black eyes.
Looking up to the clear sky, she said, “The stars are beautiful from here, don’t you think?”
<
br /> I followed her gaze to where the stars were indeed out in full force. The clouds had dispersed to reveal the clear black sky pocked with shining, yellow and gold dots everywhere.
“Beautiful,” I said.
No matter what happened or where I was, the stars always remained the same; a constant reminder of how big the universe was and how little it made me feel.
A howl came from the distance, sending a shiver down my spine.
“The Dred Wulf.” The old lady’s voice was a distant whisper. She looked out to the forest as if to see straight through trees and to the beast that lived deep within the forest. Max had told me of the Dred Wulfs once. They were vicious, mutated wolf-like creatures that still haunted his nightmares. I tried not to picture them too much, or I’d have to add them to the list of things keeping me up at night.
“They are nasty and mean, but you can kill them. You could take care of yourself in that forest.” The old lady smiled again, her distant cold stare gone.
“I wouldn’t dare go into that forest, even with my powers.”
“Ah, but if the stars willed you to go in there to find something that you so desperately needed, then you would go.” She gave me a knowing look that made the hairs on my arm stand on end.
“What do you mean something I desperately need?” I turned to her. She was small and hunched over, her body a tiny frame even beside my own. She stared up to my face with a gentle smile, making me wonder who this woman really was.
“You know what I mean, dear. Or you soon will. There is something out there, something that will help you with your journey. An item made especially for you long before you were even born. The stars guide your fate and know your future.” She tilted her head to the side. I narrowed my eyes, calculating every word she spoke. “He knows where it is, and he will take you there.”
“What fate? I don’t know what you mean,” I said. “What is out there, and who is going to show me where to find it?” I had grown tired of her riddles.
“Him, my dear,” she nodded behind me.
I turned around to find Max striding toward me.
“Hey, lovely,” he called out.
“Who are—” I said mid-turn, but the old lady had disappeared.
Standing, I looked all around me, but no one was there.
“Sawyer, what is it?” Max asked, reaching my side.
“Where’d she go?” I asked. The bucket of peas was also gone.
“Who?”
“The old lady who was sitting beside me,” I said. How could she have gotten away so fast?
Max scrunched his brow. “There wasn’t anyone here. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I was ready to scream. “The old lady with the black cloak on! She was hunched over and had white hair and leathery skin. She talked in riddles.”
Max’s face blanched.
“She was just here, and now she’s gone.” I spun again in a circle.
“What did she say?” Max whispered.
I stopped looking around and met his eyes. The look he gave me set me on edge. “She said something about an item in the forest I needed for my journey.” I shrugged my shoulders. “And that you would show me where it was.”
Max swore under his breath and rubbed his hands through his hair.
“What? Do you know what she means?” I asked.
He was silent for a long while as his head dropped into his hands and he ran his fingers through his hair. When he looked back up, his expression unsettled me. “Yes, I do. And I know where to find it.”
Chapter 41
“So let me get this straight. You are just now remembering some old lady you spent six years with in the forest.”
“Aelish—”
“Right, Aelish. You’re telling me you forgot about her all this time, and then all of a sudden she shows up and tells me some weird riddle, and you get your memory back from, what, ten years ago?” Max had spent the last hour trying to explain it all.
When Max had left Cytos before the war had even broken out, he was sent into this forest. The story he remembered, or at least the story he’d told everyone was that he had spent six years alone fighting off the Dred Wulfs, surviving nightmare after nightmare until he found the camp outside of Kuros and the soldiers who’d been looking for him all that time. But when that old lady, Aelish, started talking and feeding me riddles that still didn’t make sense, they woke up distant memories that Max had forgotten, or that she had made him forget.
“It’s how she works, Sawyer. She does what the stars will her to. She must have wiped my memory for a reason,” he tried to articulate, “I can’t explain to you how it works, or how she works, but I’m telling you the truth. It’s like someone turned on a light and I can suddenly see everything that was foggy and missing before.” He remembered it all; her saving him from the Dred Wulfs and training him to hunt and fight for six years before she told him it was time to move on.
“Why would she keep it a secret? Why not just let you remember it this whole time and trust that you wouldn’t tell anyone?” I asked.
“She told me once that no one is supposed to know their fate before it is time. Otherwise, it may never happen. So us meeting…finding each other, had to be real, not forced. If I had remembered all of this, I could’ve unintentionally changed our fate and altered what the stars had planned for us.”
“Did she tell you about me?” I nearly whispered. “About us?”
“No, no.” He grabbed my shoulders and turned me to face him. “She told me of a girl. A girl with amber brown eyes. A girl I’d need to help one day. That was all.” He was telling me the truth.
He pulled my blanket around my shoulders and squeezed me in closer to his chest. “She showed me something in the hut where I lived with her for six years. The place where she trained me.” He told me how it was a hidden sanctuary in the center of a clearing, surrounded by a wall of thorn bushes that were razor-sharp and protected Aelish and Max from the Dred Wulfs. “She showed me a box with a star engraved on the top. She never showed me what was inside, but she told me one day I was to give it to someone. And when the time came, I’d know for who it was meant. I now know that someone is you.” He looked me in the eye, and what was behind them begged me to believe him. And I did.
As I sighed, I looked out to the forest where angry howls could still be heard in the distance.
“How far?” I asked.
“A few days trek,” he said.
I nearly sighed again. “And you’re sure. You don’t think Coleman could be behind this at all?” I asked. I’d been weary of the old lady and this story in general, but it was Max who I trusted.
“I’m sure.” He nodded.
“Then I guess we leave tomorrow.”
~
“You guys aren’t going anywhere!” Murray bellowed when we told him we had to leave for a few days. We chose not to tell him what for. It was already confusing enough and the less questions the better.
“Yes, we are.” Max stepped forward. “We came to tell you as a courtesy, not to ask for permission.”
Murray’s was livid. He struggled to find the words.
“Are you sure about this, Sawyer?” Sam asked from my side. “That place gives me the heebie-jeebies, if you know what I mean.” He shuddered a little.
“Yes, I’m sure. We’re leaving at first light tomorrow. We’ll be back in about a week. And if it’ll make you feel more comfortable, we’ll bring a radio, but I’m not sure it’ll work that deep in the forest anyway,” I said. Sam scrambled to find a radio. At least he was on board with that idea.
“I don’t think it’s safe out there.” Murray leaned into me. “Even with your powers, those beasts are cunning and vicious.”
“I spent six years out there, Dad. I can keep us safe for seven days.” Max stepped between us.
Murray narrowed his eyes before they softened at the sight of his son boldly stepping in front of him. Something he’d never seen before.
�
��I won’t be held responsible for the foolish actions of you two,” Murray argued. His lips pressed together in a thin line, but eventually he let out a long sigh. “I’m not happy about this, nor do I give my consent. But I can see you won’t be swayed from your decision. You will take a radio, and Tenason will go with you at least until the edge of the boundaries where he can keep an eye out. Just to be safe.” Tenason nodded, happy to be useful for once.
“Fine,” Max replied.
He steered me away from the crowd, pulling Tenason with us.
“I’m going to go get some food and supplies,” Max said.
“I’ll get my bow and make sure I have some night-vision goggles, just to be safe.” Tenason gave us a nod, and the two men left.
I trailed behind them, but instead of following, I veered toward Lena’s quarters. Her tiny house was the closest to the control room so she was monitored. A guard stood watch in front of her residence at all hours. I softly knocked.
“Come in,” she replied.
The room was warm and cozy. Lena sat on the bed with her legs crossed and a book in her lap. It’d been a few weeks since I brought Lena here against her will, and it’d taken just as many weeks to build up her trust again. She likely would never agree with what I did, but with time, she had begun to forgive me. Both of us had been hurt by the other, but in the world we lived in, we didn’t have the luxury to stay mad for long. In the end, we both knew our intentions were always meant to save our people and that our friendship would likely have many ups and downs. But for now, things were good between us.