SAM,

I’m really sorry for a month earlier.

I need your help. I have learned

that the H’s are coming home.

Please help keep them safe and, well, you know, don’t kill them.

They have come and need to meet Dan Everett, but they

might arrive wounded.

Darsal.

“Who are the Hs?” Zak asks, “And what does this have to do with 102? 102 what, anyway?”

I can’t help it. I grin. But I don’t know if I can tell Zak. Ask me two days earlier and I would have said yes, but now I’m uncertain. I don’t answer, but put two fingers in my mouth and whistle. It’s a loud, high-pitched sound that echoes through the forest on the other side of the creek. A long moment passes, but I know she’ll come.

A beautiful eagle soars overhead in large circles. I smile. Zak cocks his head to the side like a dog trying to understand something. I whistle again. The eagle gains height before diving. I don’t have a tidbit, but the eagle comes faster than lightning. Zak takes a step back. At the last moment, when the eagle is about to crash into me, I step aside. The eagle quickly turns, but slowly, and perches herself on my shoulder.

“Hey girl,” I whisper, gently.

She looks at me with her big black eye before fixing it on Zak. Her talons tighten on my shoulder. I wince, understanding what she means.

“No, he’s okay. Zak, this is Luna,” I say.

He only looks at Luna like he would at a complicated contraption.

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I fold the paper and Luna grips it in her talon. I whisper its destination before she flies off. I’m about to send her off when something comes to me. It’s a wild, frantic idea, but I’m desperate.

“Luna, then go find the author of the poem,” I say.

We both watch her silhouette disappear, following the stream up towards the Guardian camp.

“Well, that’s one way of sending a message,” Zak eventually says.

“I’m just built different,” I mutter under my breath.

“You never told me who the Hs are,” Zak remarks.

“If you say nothing, you might learn,” I reply slowly.

I smile, looking in the direction where Luna disappeared. I turn and ask:

“Zak, you know Sam don’t you.”

His jaw tightens before he sits down on the side of the river. I sit down next to him, but I don’t press for information. There is a long moment of silence.

“Maybe I wasn't so honest when I told you my story,” he sighs, “When I was a kid, life was hard, and it wasn’t just the training. General would hit my mother. I can remember the screams that would erupt from her mouth. It haunts me, but I could do nothing about it.”

“More than once, I tried to interfere, but, well, my dad is the General of the Scriptios. To get there, be the most bloodthirsty, fierce, hateful warrior, never to have been beaten in combat. That we share blood means nothing to him. He’s slammed my head into the wall so hard it made a hole.”

“He said that, uh, well, if I stayed in the Scriptio army he wouldn’t go within twenty feet of my mother. The moment I quit the army or ran off, he would, um, that throw knives could close the gap,”

“One day, I secretly stopped by at my mother’s house. It was just a five-minute visit, and no one saw, but the General somehow learned. He kept his promise.”

Zak says nothing for a long moment. I know why and only watch the crystal water lapping up against my ankles. Zak takes a shaky breath.

“I was in the forest, alone, when I heard footsteps rushing forward. Pulled out a knife and stood up, when I almost plowed over by a young girl. She couldn’t be older than four or five. I instinctively knocked her down. I nearly fell along with her when I realized she was no young Scriptio. She was a Guardian girl. It took me a second to realize that the girl was crying. Tears streamed her face. I remember little, but I know I won’t ever forget her eyes. Her big grey eyes, filled with so much pain, so much fear and loss. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t bring myself to kill her. So small, so lost. It’s all blurry after that, but I remember she listened. She didn’t want to tell me why she was crying, so I told her my story, leaving out the fact that my father was the General. She listened and then, slowly told me her story. One that to you might be very familiar. Little Carrie’s story,”

“I don’t know how he found out. Darsal, we’re both anchored to the Scriptios by the same thing. By Carrie. General has killed two birds with one stone.”