43

Alayna

Wednesday 30th September, Year 828

It has been a while since I had done anything that wasn't war-related. I used to love the guitar. Singing. Dancing. Laughing. So I escaped from Ben before he could get me out scouting in the mountains, hiding instead at my folk's place.

When my voice came out in a song, it didn't sound like me. It sounded brittle and broken, the lump in my throat choking the sound.

Cause you were only a glittering of light,

Even when you're a long way from sight,

Your kiss still burns on my lips,

But now it's her skin that your hands grips.

I miss the way you held my hand tight,

On our aimless walks in meadow sunlight.

Cause you were only a shadow like a ghost,

Who whispers of a weekend at the coast.

But your promise is on her finger,

Leaving me cold, like a dreary winter.

I still feel your tender touch,

But now it's her face that your hands clutch.

Cause you were only a voice on the line,

A memory frozen in minutes of my time.

But now the phone, it never rings.

And I'll always remember what it means.

I just want the sound of your gentle voice,

But now it's her laughter that's your choice.

Cause you were only a picture in the press,

Hand in hand with a beautiful caress.

Your smile is frozen in time,

The memory of you still shines.

Cause you were only a dream in my mind,

Who left me wanting for more time.

Your touch is fading from my skin,

But I can still feel where you've been.

And you were only a glittering of light.

As the last chord died away, I gingerly stood up from my bed, wincing as the stitches in my abdomen tugged at my skin. I couldn't help but inspect the deep, jagged marks above my hip, knowing they would be permanent reminders of that night. I'd not slept without lights on since—candlelight as we didn't have electricity at night now... We barely had it during the day actually. But whenever the dark crept up on me it felt like anything could get me. That I was seconds away from another umbrith sinking its teeth into me. A twenty-one-year-old, scared of the fucking dark... It wasn't really that shocking to admit that I was more like a broken little girl now.

Tears in my eyes blurred my reflection—a scarred, emaciated corpse. Nothing compared to Tiv's arm-candy. The thought gnawed at me for the twentieth time since dawn. I tried to remember if I was always such a pathetic mess before the war. I didn't think so. I listened to music. I sang. I danced. I felt things beyond despondent misery.

A soft breeze teased the edges of the curtains, carrying with it the earthy scent of pine and damp soil. As I approached the window, movement flickered at the forest's edge; a doe delicately stepped through the tree line. A spike of hunger twisted in my gut. That would feed us for a week. The hide could be used for new boots for the winter.

Wincing as my stitches pulled taut against my tender flesh, I fastened my worn hunting boots with swift but trembling fingers. Seizing my bow from its place near the backdoor, I tested its string with a practised pluck and eased out into the afternoon sun hidden behind clouds.

I studied the deer carefully from the top of the tree I sat in; it had been weeks since we'd spotted any game in the forests. My fingers ached as I held the arrow taught. I was shaking; not able to remember the last time I ate. If I missed, the animal would bolt. I knew I was late for the meeting Ben had called; Alex and Ghost had news from Thruck but it had taken me nearly an hour since I spotted the animal to get in a position where I could hunt it. In hindsight, I should have asked Mum to do it for me but after just getting out of hospital, I was stupidly impatient to get back to normal. Whatever the hells normal was for me now.

Loud hissing sliced through the air however I had sat undisturbed, blending into the leaves, reminding myself that death via Umbrith was quicker than starvation. My body continued to shiver uncontrollably, from hunger and physical exertion. I knew my aim would not be good enough to hit the unsuspecting deer but I was too hungry to let it get away. If I climbed down, the deer would hear and run but if I jumped from that height I would reopen the wound on my stomach.

I was really hungry.

Desperately, I flung myself from the tree. Landing on top of the doe, the steel of my blade found its throat. Agony flared along my side; hands clutched to my abdomen, I curled into a tight ball. When I looked down my once white, now tattered, vest was covered in fresh blood that didn't belong to the deer.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and rang Lucas, holding my side as I grunted in pain.

No answer. Great.

Reluctantly, I tried Aaron instead.

"Hi Birdie, where are you? Ben wants to hold this stupid meeting," he groaned. "Do you want me to make up a lie for you?"

He had been particularly keen to keep me happy lately; I had unintentionally been colder with him, having been unable to get the thought of Tiv kissing Blondie's hand weeks ago out my head.

You are a horrible person.

"Az, I saw a deer," I gasped, holding my side.

"Connor told you not to hunt," Aaron sighed warily. He got so sick of my shit all the time but very rarely said anything. He was good like that.

"I know. He may have been right. I need you to come and get me," I muttered grumpily.

"What did you do?" he sounded worried.

"Jumped out a tree. I'm bleeding more than the deer."

"You're unbelievable," he grumbled. "Where are you?"

"About twenty metres into the forest behind my parents," I whispered.

"Ah, come on! I'm calling your dad," he said.

"No! He'll freak out again. Him and Mum are already going mental at Ben for me getting hurt to begin with. Just come and get me," I begged.

He groaned, "I'll be quick."

"Thanks, love you," I grunted.

"You too, you idiot."

Luckily for me, everyone was already in the training room as I arrived. Aaron cradled me with careful strength as he carried me to where Charlotte and Yalma stood ready. Charlotte set to work with deft stitches while Yalma administered Venenum—dabbing the silvery-blue ointments on the wound with gentle fingers that did nothing to numb the burning sting of the potion. I downed the rest of the bottle, relaxing slightly as the pain ebbed away. Meanwhile, Ben's features cycled colours; white shock gave way to crimson rage as he glared over me.

"You're thick sometimes," he snapped.

"You won't be seething when we can eat later," I mumbled, lacking my usual ferocity.

"Thanks." A reluctant smile broke through his concern; he was starving too. "Yalma can fix you up here while I talk to this lot then I'll take you to the hospital to see Connor."

I had been out of action for a week but was promised another cool scar across my abdomen when the Venenum had finished working. Paul wasn't as lucky; he had lost a lot of blood. Today was his first day back and he was not happy at all. He wasn't on shift but he had spent the whole day hanging around in case any more of our members decided it would be a good time to change into a colossal flesh-eating monster.

The realisation that one of our members was dead and we had not noticed was embarrassing, to say the least. We never found Renee's body and had no idea if we had killed her shapeshifter, there were just too many Umbrith at the base that night. It had cast a dark cloud over the entire group, we were all tired, hungry and now paranoid. It did not help that the creatures seemed to know the moment our group was separated. We were beginning to really question our knowledge of the Umbrith. Were they so smart that they could coordinate attacks? Even Ghost hadn't heard any whisperings about it. We had figured there was no spy in our group. We wanted to think we were just unlucky. But a familiar had removed Yalma's protection around our base on the night Umbrith attacked me and Paul. Someone was helping Lambent. Someone strong.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

I could not remember a lot of what happened after the attack but Paul relayed snippets to me. It turned out I was correct and Yalma could shoot protective barriers out of her hands. As it turns out, Yalma was more of a healer than a familiar and preferred not to use magic at all. She claimed it was safer for her and she was not very good at practising magic anyway. It was not a surprise.

When Ben returned from Thruck after our attack, 'anger' failed to accurately describe his feelings. Needless to say, he took a large group of rebels on a hunt that night and eradicated sixteen creatures. Literally chopped them into bits apparently. His anger mellowed slightly after that and the Umbrith must have been fearful for their lives because they did not try to attack us again.

The other main thing that had changed since the attack was our security. All the entrances had security cameras from Dan's place which he had hooked up to car batteries. Having someone tech-savvy in the group was literally a life-saver. He fixed the cameras up to his old monitors which we could use to watch the outskirts of the sports hall, allowing us to see anyone or anything approaching our increasingly un-secret base.

After Yalma was finished with me, Charlotte yanked up my disgusting bloodstained top and made a makeshift crop top, allowing her to wrap my entire midriff in gauze and bandages.

"That'll do until you see Connor. Please, for my sanity's sake, do not jump out of any more trees," she begged.

"No promises," I grinned.

I felt good as new after the Venenum numbed the pain but knew the effects of that would wear off in a few hours.

"You got more Venenum I can have for home?" I asked.

"I have already dropped some at your parents and Aaron's," she smiled kindly.

She always seemed so relaxed compared to the mess that was our lives. Wriggling my bandages, curiosity itched at my insides. "Yalma, why don't you use your powers more often? You could help so much."

Something flashed in her dark, golden eyes but I couldn't quite read it. "It's complicated," she said.

"Try me," I encouraged.

Yalma sighed heavily, looking like her mind was a million miles away. "I don't like using my powers because they’re rather unique and drawing attention to them might lead my mother to find me."

My curiosity grew with that odd answer. "Why would your mum finding you be a problem?"

The silence dragged on while Yalma collected her thoughts. Charlotte wandered off to go talk to Alex—I got the sense she already knew this story.

When Yalma finally spoke, she was quiet, "I am from Peva in Lambent. Our port city held fast to many old customs and traditions. I loved it there, however my life changed forever when my mother killed my father."

"What? Why?" The shock left my voice barely above a whisper.

"They were Fated," Yalma explained, eyes darkening. "Quite clearly not Fated lovers, though I supposed they both believed it at some point. My father was consumed by this bond; it led him to madness. In the end, my Mother took his life. She told me she believed it was her life or his and she feared for my safety if he lived."

The grim story weighed heavily between us. "I'm so sorry," I said gently.

"Thank you," Yalma nodded slowly. "She fled with us to Harroworth. Murdering a Fated enemy isn't exactly illegal however it is exceptionally hard to prove. And... I am not sure I believed her when she told me I would have been unsafe had he lived. I found I couldn't forgive her for what she did so I left to live in Outer Harroworth."

"And now?"

"Now," she continued, "for over thirty years, I've lived here in, estranged from Lilou—"

"Lilou!" I gawked. "My old Health professor?"

"That is her," she smiled sadly.

"But she's the same age as you?" I sputtered.

"She has the power of regeneration. She does not age like you or I. She is past eighty now."

I shivered, remembering how Lilou once told me her version of that story. She romanticised it a fuck-ton more than Yalma's had.

"Thanks for telling me," I said quietly.

"It's something that stays with you," Yalma murmured before giving me another small smile. “I would rather use my magic to heal than to harm.”

“You do, daily,” I smirked around the room full of people who had some kind of scar Yalma had patched up. “You should use your powers more. Even if Lilou found you, she’d have to get past every single one of us just to have a conversation with you.”

“And how lucky I am to be afforded such affections,” she smiled kindly. It brought me up short for a second as she honestly sounded like she didn’t deserve any of it.

She stopped talking and I zoned out. Everything got hazy as my mind reeled—being Fated sucked. Turns out it wasn’t always as rosy as Louise and Riley painted it out to be. Then Ben's voice cut through my thoughts, snapping me back to the real world and the crap we had to deal with.

I took my shoes off and got comfortable, sitting on the desk behind him. Disinterested was putting it lightly; I was starving and exhausted with every intention of going straight back to Aaron's after to sleep. Whatever the rebels in Thruck were doing to the Lambentian scum did not interest me at all.

The grainy footage on the old monitors buzzed and flickered, casting an eerie greyness over Michael, Lucas, and Ghost. We did not know how long the battery would last, meaning we could be without cameras very soon, unless Dan could hook up more. It was stressful. Riley and Louise trudged into the room and sat on the floor. Riley immediately draped a tired arm over her shoulders, pulling Louise close. They looked haggard from endless alertness, their faces gaunt and shadows under their eyes. This war was finally proving too much for us. Apparently losing Renee was the straw to break the camel's back.

"Now that everyone is here we can get this started," Ben announced wearily, fingers massaging his temples where veins throbbed subtly with strain. "As you're all aware the in-house riots are stopping but this isn't through decay of interest. Someone is attacking rebel groups that are vying for control in the big cities."

At his words, Lucas's hand instinctively went to his stubbled jaw that had not seen a razor in days; he leaned forward, his spine rigid with tension.

"A group has been travelling up from the south destroying the minor rebel groups and targeting their leaders. At first, we thought it was possibly down to the Umbrith but the Lambentian Guard haven't been harmed and a guy down in the southern city of Cooperage reported a near miss with the group from Lambent four days ago," Ben explained.

"What does that mean? A near miss?" Michael asked.

"Well, he told us several trained killers in masks came and murdered half of their team. The only thing he could see was their eyes which all had the golden ring in them. He escaped with two women and the rest were taken captive or killed…" Aaron replied. "They said the Lambentians were prepared, they knew exactly who their leader was and went straight for her. They weren't messing around; she's dead."

A tight silence followed—faces turned pale, eyes dropped to hands clasped tightly in laps or fixed onto the concrete walls. Fear darkened Sydney's normally steely gaze; Louise's fingers twitched involuntarily against the cold concrete until Riley wrapped his hand around hers—apparently they shared emotions sometimes. It looked like they were sharing fear at that second. We all did. Well, almost all of us. The only one of us who seemed unfazed by the news was Ghost who picked at her fingernails like she was bored.

I forced my face to remain impassive even as my heart skipped erratically. The thought that Ben might be walking into a carefully laid trap clawed at my insides.

"What else do we know about them?" Leesa probed.

I had not noticed her behind me. She smiled at me and grabbed my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"Not a lot to be honest. There are anywhere between ten and twenty of them. They dress completely in black and only their eyes can be seen so it is obvious they aren't from Vakoso. Most importantly, they know what they are doing. They can fight and shoot. They are fully kitted out, much more so than us. Everything they do has been strategically planned and they have a lot of information about the groups they strike."

"Are they only targeting groups that are rebelling against our war?" Riley asked.

"Pretty much. But the groups rebelling are doing anything from disagreeing with the way their city is being run to actively taking up arms against their city's leaders," Ben responded. "Either way, they're Vakosian and Lambentians are killing them."

"Why aren't they targeting the groups in charge?" Michael asked.

"Because the Lambentian's group isn't big enough to take out the ones in charge. Dalby, Thruck's leader, hasn't had any trouble. Neither has Droyd's or Cooperage's. But the consensus is that Lambent is wiping out the leaders of these smaller groups hoping to cause more discord and infighting, creating more of a divide. Just because they haven't attacked a group in power yet, doesn't mean they won't."

He was right. A strange silence followed. This group sounded like they actually had a chance of taking us down. They had been successful so far with other rebel groups. As I looked around at all of the scared faces in the room, worry and concern set into my bones. My eyes reached Paul, his jaw set in determination and hands curled into fists at his sides.

"So we're completely screwed then?" Leesa chirped sarcastically.

"I have no idea, honestly. They sound dangerous but all the information I have given you is second-hand from Alex and Ghosts' contacts who I don't really know down south so I have no idea how reliable it is," Ben sighed warily.

"He's never let me down before," Ghost shrugged.

"Either way, we have an advantage because we have the biggest group in the country, but only you guys know about this place so even if they capture any of our people, unless it's someone in this room, they're not going to get any reliable information. We finally have a full armoury and ammo again which gives us a much better chance of staying alive, even if they're better equipped. And we're underground; it's not an easy place to scout out and there's no building blueprints because it's so old. They shouldn't know much about us... Hopefully," Ben sighed. "Regardless, we fight."

"We fight," Paul repeated. "So what are we going to do to kill the bastards?"

"Well there isn't much we can do but wait for them to come and make sure we are prepared when they do. I’ll set up scouts around the east and south roads into Harroworth tomorrow. We haven't had anyone rebel against the Harroworth Rebels in months but that doesn't mean the groups don't exist and if these fuckers get to them, it'll cause more messes for us to clean up. We need to stick together. Make sure you're never alone. We don't want any more Toms on our hands. We have cameras on every door-"

"We have no idea how long the cameras will last! Let's leave and find them! I'm not waiting here to be slaughtered!" Paul interrupted.

"Leave after what happened last time I did? Paul, I'm not putting you or anyone here in a position where you are massacred while I'm gone!" Ben protested, glancing at me.

"This is ridiculous! So we just have to wait like pigs for slaughter?" Paul roared.

The room went silent as Paul and Ben glared at each other almost like they were having a conversation that nobody else could hear.

Aaron protested softly, "Dad, this can't be up to you. You don't have a clear head."

"Not you too! Son, we could be waiting here in uncertainty for weeks while these murderers kill more Vakosian people! Do we just wait in fear until they get here? Look around at us, we're barely holding together without the stress of waiting to die. If we don't go looking for these bastards then they will come to us and we will lose like the other Vakosian revolutionaries have!" Paul shouted.

"Guys, there are people in black masks at the front door," Michael said emotionlessly, the cold light of the camera monitors reflecting on his face.

What?

Silence fell immediately and every head swivelled to the screens where we gawked, open-mouthed. With desperate urgency, I shouldered through the crowd and pressed my face close to the grainy images. Michael was correct. Five black-clad silhouettes were at the front door above us, masks covering their faces, all of them were armed. They knew exactly where to go to get in.

The sight of armed intruders snapped Michael out of his momentary stillness. He grabbed his gun and bolted. Then the momentary silence was over. All at once, chaos erupted. We darted in different directions through the maze of corridors shouting plans at each other. A flurry of urgent voices and scrambling feet punctuated the clangs and thuds as weapons exchanged hands.

Ben's voice roared above the din, carrying a harsh command that cut through panic like a knife through silk. "We only need two alive. We can play them off against each other for information. Kill the rest. We know this place better than they do. It's a maze. Hide in the shadows then strike. Get their guns and get them alone—and get the damn masks off them; I want to know who they are!"

I snatched a knife from an open crate. My insides constricted against my ribs as I sprinted towards the armoury, still barefoot.

Then the world exploded.

Concrete lashed out as I was abruptly thrown sideways. It took me a few seconds to register what had happened as I lay, sprawled on the floor. Dazed and breathless, my senses whirled until my eyes found Leesa, still and buried under rubble where once a wall stood. The car park up and beyond the wall was in clear view. Whoever was coming for us had done their homework and knew coming through the front door wasn't an option—it was a distraction. I felt cool air rush into the base mingled with the heavy scent of burning fuel. Soldiers dressed in black flooded into the base from the hole at the top of the wall, a lot more than five people. I flung myself away, trying with every ounce of strength to drag Leesa's body with me.

Ghost yanked me from the smoke and pandemonium, "Save yourself now and her later. She's safer if she looks dead."

I fell backwards out of the room, dazed as a thick cloud of grey debris filled the air. That's when the shooting started.