I pulled my bow, and let fly, Jasper reached the arrow with his gift, connecting with it using kinetic energy to strengthen the shot.
The blonde jumped out of the way enacting a shield as she went that shine in blues brilliantly.
I pulled down lightening from the sky, connecting with her shields, sending sparks flying around her raining down on her men.
I stalked forward this blonde had to be in charge, she was barking orders trying to rally her few good men left as ours were crested the hill, screaming out war cries and allowing their weapons and gifts to flow.
CHAPTER 18
We sat back safely behind the tree line watching everything as it unfolded, trying to catch sight of our mom or dad with in the anarchy, the seen I her.
She was just as beautiful as I remembered her, she had flew up to the top of the large pines, dropping to the ground causing what seemed to be an earth quake focused in the direction of the militia.
My jaw dropped watching her display of power.
I looked to my sister to see her reaction reflected mine.
We watched as the group of assumed rebels quickly regrouped and followed the girl who haunted my every moment since our encounter.
“Reighlyn,” I whispered her name out loud in disbelief that this girl with all of this power was the very same girl we had crossed.
“What?” Avril said annoyed as anger flashing across her face as if she had been slapped.
“You love her? You’ve seen her once and you love her. You didn’t come here for mom and dad you came here hoping she would be here didn’t you. We’re a disgrace to our family. We are Militia, have you forgotten that?” Avril said to Garrett, who looked at his little sister as if seeing her for the first time.
He watched her fuming, his face a mixture of sadness, anger, and love.
These months had been harder on her than anything and the guilt of the horror and carnage she had seen was beyond the scope of his imagination.
She was forced to do some unspeakable acts, helping the General, Cora Wu, to torture rebels for information.
Cora had taken Avril under her wing saying she saw immense potential in her. Maybe Cora’s influence had changed her completely from the girl he knew and grew up with. He touched his sister’s face and pulled her into a hug, kissing the top of her head.
“Avie, we are not a disgrace, Mom and Dad will understand what we’ve had to do to survive,” he told her, forcing himself to believe what he said as much as he hoped she would.
“They won’t they’ll just see us for who we really are Garrett, killers.”
He stared at his sister for a long moment when he caught movement from the rebel forces as they march down the hill.
“Stay here Avril, and I mean it. I’m going down. I know Dad is here, I’m going to go see if I can spot Dad. I don’t want you to move, OKAY?” he said grabbing her face forcing her to make eye contact.
“Fine,” Avril replied, sitting putting her back up against a tree after Garrett released her.
Garrett turned to the battle before him, reaching behind him to his belt unclipping his Kusarigama and re-clipping the chain to his gauntlet, he grabbed the sickle head of his Kusarigama winding the chain in his left hand and marched out of the woods, spinning, slashing and cutting his way through the Militia--completely unseen.
CHAPTER 19
They were falling, blood was squirting, heads had literally rolled, entrails slid free, body’s fell apart top half finding the ground while the lower half still stood.
My stomach twisted, I could taste bile in my mouth and felt as though I would throw up at any moment, I turned to make my way toward the blonde woman I had seen calling orders, if I could get to her maybe then this would end.
I made my way along the tree line just inside the trees. I could see her fighting with weapons that shimmered blue like the shield she had enacted before, no one could touch her, it seemed as if her shield would react to harm throwing itself up on its own accord.
The gore wasn’t lost on me.
I had seen enough bloodshed in this one battle, my first of what I assumed would be many, to last me a life time.
I was saddened to think that this wasn’t an isolated situation.
It was and had been happening everywhere for months, we had just been lucky enough to avoid it for as long as we had.
Moving forward still, I could feel the blood soaking into my beloved earth--I wondered if others who were connected to her felt it too.
Suddenly arms were around me, someone grab me from behind dragging me back into the woods and away from my target and my people.
I screamed for help, everyone close enough to hear my please looked around as if they couldn’t see me, then my captor spoke. “I told you I would find you again,” he whispered in my ear.
“Garrett,” I said startled and more in confirmation not question.
His name sounded like watermelon tasted in July, sweet, juicy, delicious, and for a moment with his arms around me I forgot where I was.
“What are you doing here?” Garrett asked me as if we weren’t in the middle of a battle, with people dying around us.
“I could ask you the same, but then I already know,” I responded.
Garrett turned me to face him, I heard a chain rattling and looked to the source, his bloody sickle and chain, then I looked at his face and clothes, the was covered by the spray and splatter of blood from others.
My knees went weak thinking that this was my end. I would never see my Mom again, Blaine or Jasper…I would never fulfill my purpose.
He pulled me closer keeping me steady. “I haven’t come to hurt you; I came to find my parents,” he said, breathily.
“Your parents,” I echoed.
“Ben and Bethany Brewster, are they here?” he asked, scanning the field as he did before his eyes rested back on mine.
“They’re here. Your dad is out there. I don’t know where your mom is,” I told him trying to step away from him. I had to get back to the fight, they needed me.
“My sister and I…We had nothing to do with this. After we encountered you, we fled the militia taking a very long way here to try and find our parents.” He said, still not letting go of me.
“Let me go, I need to get back there are people depending on me and the longer you hold me up...” I said looking up into his blue/purple eyes, searching his face, memorizing it once more.
His hand slid from the top of my arm to my cheek, I leaned into it, wanting him to be near, and wanting to get away as quickly as I could.
He put his forehead against mine, and was gone.
I stood looking around dumb struck, how could someone just be gone.
Jasper ran up to me, grabbing my hand and pulling me into a full run. “We have to kill her, I don’t know what kind of gift she has, but she can make a weapon out of energy, I’ve never seen anything like it before. Every time I throw something at her she blocks it.” I could see the worry etched into the contours of his beautiful face. Jasper’s kinetic energy could demolish anything; it had never failed to meet its mark.
I saw Blaine and Luke on the far side of the field picking their way toward the blonde just like we were.
We all noticed how Militia members were falling like flies in front of us by some unseen force.
I didn’t know if it was someone’s gift that I was unaware of but I doubted it seeing the shock on Jasper’s face, he had been here the longest, he knew the people who resided at the caves. He knew their gifts.
Three Militia engaged us, I open hand punched the closest to my right in the chest releasing a blast of lightening as I connected.
I spun and kicked a fourth, who had come up from behind, connecting with his face landing a solid one two three before he fell to the ground.
Jasper finished off his two easily freezing them where they stood, shattering them easily with a round house kick.
He grabbed my hand as we moved. Any who came against us were frozen, fri
ed or fell into a sink whole.
We made it to the main camp.
The Militia had taken their time to set up actual tents, they were confident in overcoming us, over confident.
CHAPTER 20
Almost there, I told myself.
They didn’t know what had hit them or where to hit back.
They couldn’t see me. I was invisible, but that didn’t matter, they couldn’t have touched me physically if I stood before them fully corporal.
I could stop time, or slow it down for short periods of time; they were nothing to me, ants to crush.
I was close…Cora…the reason my sister is a wreck, one of the reasons so many died.
They took gifted in to use us like fodder, only the higher ups mattered and those with rare gifts, like me.
They were cataloging us like cattle. Collecting us like rare paintings and artifacts, to use and manipulate to their wills. To shape the new world, they called it The Genesis Project.
Their philosophy was a new world for the gifted ran by the gifted, by a regime, the ones who started this travesty, but they were wrong.
Every person had the right to live, not just those who inherited gifts.
I refuse to stand by while they lay slaughter to so many innocent people.
I coiled the chain connected to the sickle jerking it back to me, spinning it behind me to connect to the face of a man who was running, meeting with others as they tried to surround their precious general from the unseen attacks.
I could see her, surrounded, retreating, calling for cover while they escaped or tried to as the rebel force came on at them strong.
I could see Reighlyn, running toward the general hand in hand with another man, I hesitated for a second. She was mine, a primal territorial rage coursed through me.
I growled in frustration, turning back to my intended target the tall lithe form of General Cora Wu.
Running, not wasting time killing other militia, my total focus was Cora.
I dodged around men and women alike. Militia and Rebel, ducking their blows intended for each other, dodging lightening and blasts of fire, jumping over sinking pits of earth as it crumbled from under my feet, she was with in my grasp.
I started to spin the sickle head in my right hand, aiming, I released.
The sickle bounced off a shield showering those around in bright yellow sparks.
My heart sank and I dropped to my knees, Avril, she had gone to her.
She had chosen Cora; she’d chosen the Militia, over her family.
This made absolutely no sense. Why? Why would she do this? Unless she was with Cora this whole time and used me to find Dad and Mom, to find the Rebels. I felt sick to my stomach knowing that I was a pawn to her, my sister.
CHAPTER 21
Yellow sparks flew everywhere, igniting little fires where they landed.
Jasper and I dropped to the ground for cover from the brunt of the yellow sparks and little fires; I bounced back to my feet to press on toward the intended target, the blonde, Jasper at my side, Luke and Blaine coming in to our right.
I noticed another woman, no a girl, standing with the blonde, holding a shield around them like a safety bubble.
I’d seen her face before, at the moment of my recognition, I heard Ben scream in agony, begging his lost daughter to come back to him.
I looked to Ben seeing he was in no immediate danger then to where he was looking; the girl standing at the pale blonde’s side was Garrett’s sister, the girl from the fuel station.
Ben’s daughter.
Ben ran for her, screaming her name, calling her to him as he closed on their position, but she stood firm, tears rolling down her face.
“I love you Dad!” She screamed.
He dropped to his knees weeping. The pale blonde cut the air with her hand, grabbing the girl by the hand as they stepped through the cut she’d made into the physical and were gone in the blink of an eye.
I dropped to Ben’s side hugging him as his strong shoulders bobbed, in anguish.
Garrett stood before his father, covered in blood, the sickle hanging from his back dripping as he knelt down in front of his father clutching him.
Ben’s silent cry turned to a wail.
For the daughter he had lost, and the son who found him.
CHAPTER 22
Jasper left us and began helping search for survivors, when the call came up that the Militia had left behind a lot of items of use.
I was ecstatic, the more we have the more we can use to gather Intel to find out who is really behind this whole mess and stop them.
The Militia apparently didn’t intend to leave, let alone lose; they believed us out numbered 5:1, uncoordinated, and easily beaten.
How wrong they were.
I could see Jasper, Blaine, and Luke talking to one of the guys who was running messages from down the hill back up to us. They began making their way down the hill with the guy toward what looked like huge crates near the tents.
I sat on the ground next to Ben, shoulder to shoulder, who was in shock due what had happened.
I’d never been aggressive in my life, out spoken…Yes…But to full on attack people when I was clearly out-numbered and out skilled. No, that wasn’t me, at least not who I was.
But no one deserved to die like those who had fallen today.
I looked back to Ben sitting on the ground; Garrett still hugged him, he locked eyes with me searching, drinking me in his gaze as if he had been stranded in the desert and I was the very last drink of water. He looked down right thirsty.
Jasper called my name as he approached.
“You may want to sit back down for this, he said all serious.
I complied. Jasper knelt down in front of me. I knew it had to be bad news.
My heart pounded in my chest. My mouth suddenly went dry, horrible images of my mom flew through my head, that was until Blaine and Luke walked up with a man I remembered from my childhood, a man I had thought dead until recently.
I couldn’t breathe; it was like my body forgot how to function in his presence.
Standing before me was my Father, Dillon D’Crey.
I could have been a statue for all he knew, I didn’t move one inch, not even to blink.
He was bloody and beaten, and wearing a Militia uniform.
I watched detached as he walked to me, tears streaked through blood and dirt on his swollen face.
He fell to his knees before me, reaching out his hand to touch my face. I flinched, as his fingers brushed across my face.
Garrett and Jasper both moved closer to my side.
“Reighlyn?” He asked, searching my face for recognition, desperately.
Everything was buzzing, there was so much that I wanted to say.
“Dad?” I whispered, and he began to bawl like Ben had been, but for the daughter he found instead of the one Ben had lost.
“Your Mom, where is your Mom?” He asked breathlessly.
“Inside with the others.” He nodded, understanding that my mother would have stayed in the safety of the caves considering she had no gifts and was better suited to caring for wounded, then shooting a bow or wielding a sword.
He stood reached out his hand to me waiting for me to accept it, when I looked to Jasper and then at Garrett, who both reached down to help me up.
I looked up at the three men and took my Fathers hand for the first time in years and we helped each other in the caves, hand in hand as if I was still his little Princess, and he was still my wonderful King.
We walked inside the caves making it to the common rooms where the wounded and Militia wounded alike were laid out on make shift bedrolls.
The stench of burnt flesh and blood was horrid. It was by far the worst sight and smell I had ever encountered, I could taste the metallic blood in the air.
I almost gaged as I looked around.
I didn’t know if any of the people who resided with us in the caves had perished, or would due to the extent of their w
ounds, but I silently prayed they wouldn’t.
Ben walked in and led us toward his offices and living courters, taking a different route than the one he had taken Mom, Blaine and I.
Garrett and my Dad were behind us with sacks over their heads as Jasper propelled them both forward with a hand on each of their shoulders.
They both had been here before, like the majority of us had. What they remembered was the vast glory as well as the emptiness that was the Sonora Caverns; Ben didn’t want them to see how we had made use of the natural features and who was using where and for what.
At least until it was determined they were not left or sent to infiltrate our little community.
There was so much at stake, more people, more gifted people, were flocking to the caves. It seems that a lot of people knew of the prophecy, and even those who hadn’t heard of the prophecy knew or had heard of the rebellion and they were following groups here as well.
I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders walking to Ben and Bethany’s, with my Father behind me.
We came to the “back door” of Ben and Bethany’s. Ben tapped twice on the door. Light spilled from the door as it opened and Lilly stood before us, she had been waiting from us apparently knowing what had happened up top other than the fight.
Ben stepped aside motioning for Jasper to come up and go inside ahead of Garrett and my Dad.
Inside we found again that there had been enough chairs set out for our little group.
Ben took my Dad and Garrett by the arm leading them to two chairs set in front of an empty fire place, the rest of the chairs were facing the two meant for Dad and Garrett.
Bethany came in; helping Ben set my Dad and Garrett in their predestined seats.
Ben and Bethany took the two front chairs set to the left, I sat in one of the two set off to the right with Jasper by my side.
Lilly and Luke sat behind me, Blaine walked up the isle taking a seat behind my Dad and Garrett, and I guess Ben thought he could keep them in check or maybe shock the truth out of them.
The Genesis Project Prophecy of the Seven Page 8