“It’s impressive that you know how to use these guns.” Emmitt smiled at her as she watched everyone else leave.
“My friend’s dad is a cop, he taught me.”
“A cop?” The confusion on his face made her laugh as he mimicked Tony’s initial response. Ten years later and although everyone knew she wasn’t from the area, only a few knew she was from a different world all together.
“An enforcer of the law.”
“Oh okay, so a Fighter, like us.”
“Yes, he is.” They stood for a moment staring out at the quickly darkening sky. Days in Terrenia seemed shorter then days in her world because of all the trees. They made it look darker than it actually was.
“Would you care to go for a walk?” He asked her watching her face carefully. She knew he liked her, and he had on multiple occasions over the years asked her the same question. Her answer was always the same.
“That’s a very nice offer but I think I’m going to go inside. I'm worn out and want to rest for a bit.”
“One of these days you are going to accept my offer.” He grinned and headed down the stairs towards the village.
“Emmitt?”
“Yeah?” He turned and she saw the anticipation in his eyes. It only fired her up more.
“Please stop telling Ophelia about what we find on our scouts.”
“It’s really not that big of a deal, the other Fighters tell their wives.” He laughed it off and turned to walk away again.
“Their wives Emmitt. Up until recently you didn’t even know Ophelia. Please just for now, keep it between us.” She smiled at him hoping it would ease the tension.
“Sure.” He turned and headed after the other men.
“He's been confiding in Ophelia?” Gregory came up behind her.
“Seems that way. I know he doesn’t mean anything by it but-”
“It’s none of her business.” He interrupted. “You were right to say something to him, and I’m impressed with the way you handled it.”
“Thank you.” She turned and smiled at him. “So how was firing the gun?”
His face went serious for a moment. “It was interesting.”
“Interesting?”
“Well, I'm a bit intimidated by the level of power, but on some level I almost-”
“Enjoyed it?” She finished.
“Yes.”
“When we would go shooting with George I loved it. It made me feel powerful when so much of my life had been spent the opposite. You have to respect the weapon, but there is no shame in enjoying knocking down a few wooden targets.”
“You are such an impressive young woman. I am very proud of you, as I know your mother is.”
“Thank you, dad.” He beamed at her as he always did when she called him ‘dad’.
“I’m going to head in to bed.” He turned and headed for his bedroom. “Goodnight Anastasia.”
She was walking through the village when she saw Ophelia.
“Hi, Anastasia.” She purred. She wore her long blonde hair in a braid down her back and when she smiled up at Emmitt it was lust that Anastasia saw in her eyes.
“Hi Ophelia, Emmitt.” She nodded and grinned a little when she saw the embarrassment he wore on his sleeve.
Ophelia wrapped herself around his arm a little more and Anastasia felt a twinge of jealousy. Not because she wanted Emmitt, but because that’s what she would have wanted with Dakota had her life not begun so screwed up.
For a woman who had supposedly seen her entire village slaughtered, she was sure coming out on the other side well. Anastasia turned back towards the fence and started walking, wanting to put distance between them.
“Ana, wait up!” Emmitt yelled after her.
She stopped cold in her tracks.
“Anastasia.” She corrected him.
“Anastasia.” He repeated. “I'm sorry for that.” He pointed back to Ophelia who had turned and begun to saunter towards her cottage. “It’s only just started, I ran into her on my way back to the village and-”
“No need to apologize Emmitt.” She saw the hurt on his face that she wasn’t more bothered and knew that he had hoped she would have been jealous.
“You don’t mind that I’m seeing Ophelia?” She noted the dangerous edge on his voice and knew he was irritated.
“Not at all. You’re a healthy man, she’s a healthy woman. You can see as much of her as you want.” She didn’t know why she was suddenly feeling angry, but she knew she needed to get away from him as quickly as possible.
“Fine. I will then.”
“Good. Just remember our earlier talk.” She warned.
They stood staring at each other for a moment before he turned and headed back in the way Ophelia had gone. Fine, then they could keep each other company and leave her alone, she thought to herself.
She wasn’t sure why she was feeling so sorry for herself. She was glad Emmitt had finally moved on and was grateful that someone was keeping a close eye on Ophelia. She should be happy that they had found each other but something kept nagging at her.
Anastasia slumped down onto a fallen log and Kaley came to sit at her feet. “Oh Kaley, what are we going to do?” She ran her hand along her large head and Kaley began to purr. “The Brutes are closing in, portals are being opened into my world where the monsters are getting their hands on guns, and we are no closer to finding where they are hiding.”
Anastasia sat for a while just staring into the tree line when something clicked in her memory. When she had found Ophelia in the wreckage to her house, she had said she had been hiding in a cellar. That she hadn’t come across the Brute’s and that they had just passed by her cellar without looking in. But Ophelia had been bleeding Anastasia had remembered, pretty badly, and bruised. She had originally brushed it off believing she must have gotten cut climbing out of the cellar, but now she was wondering if she hadn’t missed something.
She snuck out through the gate and began to run towards the remnants of the village. She wasn’t sure what she expected to find, but she knew something had to be there. Some clue as to what was truly going on. Even if it was something that cleared Ophelia and proved her story so that she could at least move on from her mistrust of her.
Brady suddenly stepped into her path forcing her to stop.
“Brady what are you doing out here?”
“Gregory asked me to keep an eye on you.” Of course he had she thought to herself.
“I'm just out for a run.”
“You’re lying. Where are you going?”
She didn’t see any point in continuing to lie since he seemed to know how to read her. “I'm going back to the village where I found Ophelia. I want to take a closer look at things.”
“Then I'm coming with you.” He uncrossed the arms he had crossed over his chest and started to turn in the direction she was headed.
She started to protest but knew it would be no good. Either he came with her, or he went back and told Gregory what she was up too. Either way someone was going to be chaperoning her trip. She chose Brady. Better than listening to Gregory getting onto her about not listening.
“Fine, but stick with me.”
He smiled triumphantly and they started jogging.
“Why are you going back to the village?”
“I want to take a look at the cellar Ophelia said she hid in, get one more good look at the village.”
“Why?”
“Something feels off about her story and I want to see if my hunch is correct.”
“What hunch?”
“That she had never truly been hiding there.”
“You think she was lying.” It wasn’t a question and his lack of surprise made Anastasia wonder if Brady had noticed something as well.
“Do you?” She pressed.
Brady took a deep breath. “I think it’s strange that after all this time they leave one survivor. Not a group of them, but a single survivor. She seems young to have been the only living member of her
household and even if she had been, why had no one else been in there with her?”
Anastasia nodded. It was possible that her family had been killed, and that she had been home alone when the attack had happened, but with how social Ophelia seemed to be she doubted it very much.
After years of training she was able to keep up a fairly steady pace and was mildly surprised that Brady kept up with her.
When they came up on the charred remains of the village, Anastasia sucked in a breath. She could see the destruction a hundred times and it would still bother her. She had seen villages over the years that had been destroyed, but with each one the villages had been cleared of all supplies.
After a closer look Anastasia noted that the supplies were still here. The bodies had been missing as with the other attacks, but as she looked through the remnants of the houses she saw bags of flour and corn and even a few loaves of molded bread. How had they missed that? She wondered although she knew the answer. They had been distracted by their discovery of what they thought, had been a survivor.
When they came to the house that Ophelia had claimed was hers, she took a closer look then she had before. Trying to capture every detail she may have missed. She toed a board away and saw a burnt teddy bear in the wreckage. Could have been one of the village children’s, but then she saw a doll and a small wooden horse. A child had lived here, but Ophelia had made no mention of one.
“Is this it?” Brady stood over the cellar door and Anastasia nodded. Kaley paced the house anxiously as if she sensed something no one else could.
Anastasia pulled the door open and gasped. The smell of death wafted up from beneath the house and she knew immediately that her hunch had been correct. Ophelia had been lying.
Brady got one whiff of the smell and was doubled over vomiting. She tried to ignore the nausea, covered her nose and mouth with a handkerchief she carried, and descended down the stairs. Light was pouring through the cracks in the wood giving her just enough that she could see her surroundings, another lie. Ophelia had said it had been pitch black down in the cellar and that she couldn’t see anything that had been going on outside.
Three bodies lay sprawled on the ground. Anastasia’s heart broke when she saw the tiny frame hidden beneath the woman. A mother who had been trying to protect her child. Anger filled her chest and she felt herself begin to shake when she noticed a notebook lying in the corner. She bent and opened it. Blood was splattered on the page but she knew that she would never forget what it said.
The Brutes have come, as we were worried they would.
Melinda and I have hidden with Sadie beneath the house and
we can see the horrors going on out in the streets, our streets.
It is strange though, a woman has come with them this time but, she is not their prisoner, it seems as if she is the one giving the orders. What kind of monster would lead these beasts into a battle against innocent men, women and children? She has the look of Marie but that’s impossible! She was taken so long ago that we assumed she was dead. We Grieved for her. I pray she has not been turned into a monster just as the-
It ended there with its last letter incomplete as if he had flung the journal away. She stood and looked at the carnage around her. Ophelia had led the Brutes here, and Anastasia had led her straight into her own village.
Brady and Kaley jumped down below and before Anastasia could speak Brady put his finger up to his mouth.
She stood on her tiptoes and looked out through the slats in the exposed board. Three-dozen Brutes marched into the village with Maximus leading them. He had aged but Anastasia would have recognized his face anywhere.
“We wait here. Ophelia will make her move when the sun goes down and then we will attack.” He smiled. “Remember what the Master said. If you find the girl, she is to be taken alive. For now at least.” He smiled menacingly and Anastasia’s hand moved to curl on the hilt of her sword. He would not be walking away from her again. Anastasia began to lunge for the hatch but Brady pulled her back.
“You can’t take three dozen of them on and walk away Anastasia. Even with Kaley and I by your side, we can’t do it. We have to wait and when they head for the village we will go.”
“We won’t make it back in time Brady.”
“We won’t make it back at all if we try now.”
She knew he was right and while she may have been willing to risk her life, she wasn’t willing to risk his or Kaley’s.
“Fine. We wait.” But the fear that gripped her heart felt more suffocating then the stench of the dead that surrounded them.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
After what felt like an eternity, they climbed out of the cellar. Brady took a deep breath of fresh air while Anastasia studied her surroundings. The Brute’s had marched out a few minutes prior just as it had started to get dark.
“Go girl.” She said to Kaley. Kaley took off into the darkness ahead of them.
“Here,” She handed Brady her sword and unsheathed two large dirks from her waist. “You are going to need this.” She knew he could handle one but still hoped that they made it to the village before he had to fight.
They crept along through the dark as Anastasia attempted to lead them around the Brutes. Their numbers had grown Anastasia noted as they passed yet another small grouping of them stomping through the trees. They weren’t even trying to be subtle and the fear that had been blooming inside of her burst. The fact that they weren’t worried about anyone escaping must have meant that they had the entire village surrounded.
Brady crept alongside her, a boy who had become accustomed to sneaking around through the woods, he moved with the same stealth she did. Kaley had yet to return to them so Anastasia knew she had must of gotten stuck behind a grouping as well.
She watched as the numbers in front of her shrunk to half a dozen as the others moved deeper into the woods to join their brothers. Anastasia recognized the tactic from her studies with Gregory, these were the lookouts. She looked to Brady and held her finger over her lips signaling him to be quiet. She motioned to three that were on the left and then pointed for him to take the ones on the right
Anastasia lunged for them and with her knives managed to take down two before the others had noticed. Brady had taken one down and was working on the other when Kaley joined the fight. Together the three of them finished them off and moved forward.
When they reached the fence line Anastasia’s jaw dropped.
“Oh no, God please no.” She whispered as she took in the scene before her.
Fires had sprung up everywhere in the quiet village and she heard the screams of her people as the Brutes tore through her home. She didn’t think any further, she launched through the gate and threw herself into the attack.
She wasn’t sure how long she fought. She caught glimpses of Brady with her sword. He swung it with a finesse she hadn’t known he had, apparently the training sessions with her and Gregory had paid off. Kaley was covered in blood and still clawing her way through the beasts. Anastasia sliced and jumped praying that with each Brute she dispatched she would get one step closer to Maximus.
She spotted him leaving his old cottage as he wiped blood from a blade. Anastasia growled and ran for him, dodging fighters as they sliced at the Brute’s. She jumped over fallen bodies with nothing but Maximus’s face in her mind. But when she caught Ophelia out of the corner of her eye she forgot her mission of vengeance and ran off after her instead. She was headed straight for Gregory’s house laughing.
Gregory was more important than her revenge, she would have it, but it could wait. Had it not been for the six Brutes who had cornered her, Anastasia may have made it there in time.
She burst through the open door and saw Gregory crumpled in front of the fireplace. Her mind flashed back to the night Annabelle had died, it had been such a similar scene. She started to walk towards him when she saw Ophelia leaning against the table using a bloody dagger to clean under her fingernails.
“Took you l
ong enough.”
“You bitch.”
“There’s no need for name calling now is there, Anastasia?”
“Why did you do it? All those people you helped them kill. Why?”
“Because of you!” She yelled and then started laughing wildly. “Everything that has happened has been because of you.” She repeated and stalked over to Gregory. She kicked him over and Anastasia sighed with relief when she saw he was still breathing.
“Anastasia. You. Shouldn’t. Have. Come.” He choked out. She saw the blood dripping from his mouth and knew he wouldn’t have long if she didn’t get him some help.
“Silly really if you think about it. I don’t think you are really worth all the trouble.” She squatted next to Gregory and lifted him slightly by his hair. “This one is definitely not. I don’t understand why my father was so interested in him joining our cause. Seems to me he would have been a liability.” She dropped his hair and his head fell to the floor.
“I'm going to tear you apart.” Anastasia turned her dirks in her hands, taking her stance.
“Oh please little girl.” Ophelia rolled her eyes. “You are no match for me. Besides, we haven’t finished our little chat!” She said lightly.
“What’s left to say, Ophelia? We get it. You’re a psycho who’s working with a psycho, for another psycho who is bent on world domination. That about covers it don’t you think?” Anastasia said sarcastically as she sidestepped closer to Gregory.
“Hardly.” Ophelia smiled baring teeth. “See, the way I figure it, I owe you a thank you.”
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?” Anastasia took another step towards Gregory.
“If it weren’t for you, then I would never have been taken to my true father. You see when he originally started searching for you, your parents moved to another village. This one actually. The Brutes tore through every village until they came across mine. I was the right age, looked similar to the description so they took me back to Vincent. He scolded them and ordered them to kill me but changed his mind at the last minute because he decided he had always wanted a daughter. I was raised and taught to fight, to be better then I was.” She continued cleaning her nails, not bothering herself with the steps Anastasia was taking to get closer to her. “Because of their mistake I was able to become what I am today. I went back to my old village. You see I wasn’t lying that was my house you found me at.”
The Phoenix (The Prophecy #1) Page 9
