➽Eight: The Warriors

                                    

                                          
"Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."
-William Jennings Bryan

                            

                                
                            
                              
                                  
                              
                              
                                
                                  
                                  
                                
                              
                             
                            
                            
                          
                          
I was already awake when the chaos began. Just before dawn, I lay in bed, unable to find my way back to sleep after leaving the library. The two simple words on that tiny scrap of paper had sent my mind into forbidden territories. As I contemplated a particular shade of green, an ear-splitting sound shattered the stillness. Red lights began flashing in sync with the screeching alarms.
Before I could fully process what was happening, Becca burst into my room, slamming the door against the wall. I barely had time to ask what was happening before she scooped me up and threw me over her shoulder, moving faster than I could have imagined possible while carrying someone. I instinctively knew where she was headed as we passed the library and several other rooms I had grown familiar with over the past week.
Nan threw the door open as soon as we reached it, her gray hair rolled in neat curls and a scarf draped over it. She wore a lavender sleeping robe that made me acutely aware of my attire: only a silk tank top and panties. I tried to reason with myself—something terrible was occurring, and I'd been paraded through corridors in far worse states. Yet, despite the urgency, my face still flushed with embarrassment.
Either no one noticed my discomfort or simply didn't care, for the next moment, I was swept into the arms of an inhumanly beautiful woman with deep terra-cotta skin. Her hair, styled in perfect spring coils, bounced incredibly high as she moved. As she sprinted forward, all other details were lost, and the room around us dissolved into a blur of colors. We found ourselves in Nan's upstairs quarters in less than a heartbeat.
The woman cradled me gently with one arm while using her other hand to knock a complex pattern on the blank wall. I opened my mouth, ready to ask what was happening, but an explosion rattled the entire room, silencing me. A section of the wall slid open, and with a swift motion, she threw me inside. I braced for a hard landing but again found myself cradled in solid arms.
Looking up, I was met with the last face I expected to see. Draven stood cloaked in shadows, yet I recognized him instantly. I'd even spent the last hours of my library visit digging up information about him. According to the paragraph written nearly fifty years ago, he was part of the Guard—fourth in command and the intelligence coordinator. There was nothing about my mother in those texts, which was disappointing but unsurprising. I yearned to know more about her and vowed to search more profoundly, but at that moment, I could only focus on the expression on Draven's face. It screamed one word into my stunned mind: Protector.
Two others were in the small, dark alcove where we crouched. One was a man I recognized from the first day—a face etched in my memory from his argument with Draven in the hall. Harley. His angular features were sharply defined, and a trim beard covered most of his lower face. His skin had a coppery brown hue that seemed to glow even in darkness.