The stakes are higher than ever.
It's been months since the four managed to temporarily defeat and escape Laurel, Amber, Kali and the others but the four's problems are far from over. Forced to live with their guilt and still plagued by nightmares o...
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Edana's POV:
"You're too tired to admit that we may not win?" Kessal phrases it as a question but I know that he's asking Kalli something bigger than her. Bigger than all of us since we're all still reeling from what came before. Reeling and recovering as best we can. "Why would you suggest that?"
She sighs and I see that my cousin's looking towards the floor with a troubled expression. One that being trapped as we are in this situation does not help suggest. Because it seems to say to me, at least in part, that she's considering giving up. Giving up and letting go to ensure Amber won. But that would be a disaster, Kalli knows that we all do. So why would she consider it?
Opposite me, Kalli sighs and draws my attention back to the room at large since Braeden and I had stopped arguing after Kessal had said what he did. "I'm not saying to give up, that's not what I'm suggesting at all. I'm just being realistic in saying that we have to consider that we're fighting a battle that's too much for us. Look at how far it's come already? Our parents failed. So did our grandparents. Both generations of which the people drafted into this war had years' worth of experience more than us. And they still lost. What's to say we can break the cycle."
"But surely we have to try?" I suggest in a hushed tone that seems to befit the current conversation, one that speaks to late-night confidences between friends. That speaks to words hesitant to be spoken since they could destroy a world. Ensuring the death of those in or on it. "Surely we have to try, else everything that's happened because of the people who have come before us would be for nothing?"
Kalli gives me a tired look and tries to smile but her eyes remain troubled, despite how hard she's trying to figure out how to explain to me whatever was on her mind. I can see how hard she's trying as well. How hard she's trying to figure out whatever she has to say. How painful it is for her to relive or explain. But someone had to say it. If not me then someone else gathered here where we're all still in shock from how much we've already had to see. To experience more than we needed to. Or fairly should have done.
I can see how hard she's fighting to find a positive spin on whatever dooming information she's received or thought of. Because that is what she's hesitant to explain to us. No good news at this point in the game we're playing would make her stutter and stumble like this. Make her pause and try to figure out how to explain it to us. She's trying to avoid telling us bad news, news that could - and will - change how we fight this next part of the battle between our side and Amber's. To make us think more carefully about how it's done so we don't end up cornered and lost.
Abruptly my vision shifts and a hazy vision overshadows me. A girl and a boy - both of our group - holding something that's angled away from us. Something that I can't see from my vantage point removed from the situation. Almost as if they're holding bodies. Bodies of the people dearest to them. Like a mate or family. As the words cross my mind I shudder once and shake my head to dislodge the vision, feeling it recede to the back of my mind where it remains under lock and key. Something that makes me dread to see what the future has in store for us.
