by Shelly Crane
“Please tell me who you are,” I dropped my voice to hide my desperation.
“Oh right, I suppose it’s too late now to go back….” The elderly man turned his full attention on me and for the first time I noticed the color of his eyes were a dull red, as if they had shined like rubies at one time but were worn down with age or exhaustion, I wasn’t sure. “I’m Jupiter, your weapons trainer, and this is Seth. He’s your Counterpart. You obviously weren’t supposed to meet for years yet, but tonight you decided to push up our schedule.”
“I didn’t mean to!” I gushed, suddenly feeling very guilty for saving my own life. “They attacked me. They came out of nowhere and they just…. ganged up on me as if they were waiting for me to do something! I honestly, I didn’t have a choice.”
“Then they must have known already,” Jupiter sighed and then lifted his hands to massage his temples with surprisingly delicate fingers.
“That’s what I thought,” I agreed, finally feeling as though I had been heard. “But wait a second, why are you here? Where is the Protector? Why isn’t she here to save me?” Realization flooded my thoughts with questions that I should have been asking from the beginning.
“You are the Protector, Stella,” Seth answered gently.
I opened my mouth to argue but Jupiter cut in quickly, “Sidra is dead. We found her earlier this evening. She…. she was murdered.”
“And her Counterpart?” I gasped, not able to completely comprehend the gravity of what they were saying.
“Nisroc was murdered right along with her,” Jupiter replied in a barely audible voice.
“So that really does make me….” I couldn’t finish my thought. I could barely hear them anymore as the world seemed to close in around me and my heart pounded out a deafening beat that heated my eardrums and seemed to shrink my lungs.
“The Protector of Earth,” Jupiter finished gravely.
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