It was hard to believe that just yesterday they had been normal teenage girls; enrolled in high school, popular, well liked by their peers and teachers.
Oneta and Alma rushed around their room packing with the type of efficiency that rivaled seasoned veterans. Both girls had the bodies of athletes. Oneta stood six feet five inches and her sister Alma was an impressive six. They’d shared the same room their whole lives and moved around it as if in dance as they packed. Neither girl spoke as they packed.
The day before Isabel had called them down from their rooms. Sitting on the couch were three women that looked like warriors in the girls eyes. The women stared at them in an approving manner.
“Oneta and Alma, it’s time,” Marcus said.
Marcus had been a young man when he and his wife had taken the girls. He had been strict and firm with the girls but never mean, preparing them for the day when they would have to leave his house.
His profession called for him to be away, so he had made sure that they could defend themselves. He enrolled them in sports to make their bodies strong, did military type training when he was home and signed them up for martial arts classes.
“These women will take you to your family,” Isabel added.
Isabel and Marcus had decided not to raise the girls under the pretense of being their children, but had never had children of their own. They loved the twins but prepared themselves for the day they’d no longer be a family, or so they thought.
“Hello Oneta and Alma.” One of the women finally spoke.
“Hello,” they said together.
“This is Makeba and Aliyah,” the woman said, pointing to the two women on each side of her. “My name is Sati.”
“Where are we going?” Oneta asked, looking at Marcus and Isabel.
“We’re here to take you to your sisters,” Makeba answered.
“And our parents?” Alma asked.
“We’ve not found them yet,” Aliyah told the girls
“When do we leave?” Alma asked, when none of the women said anything else.
“Tomorrow,” all three answered.
The girls had no other questions, and the women offered no other answers. After a brief uncomfortable silence Marcus told the girls to go pack. The girls went to their rooms and pulled out their bags and did as they were told.
They’d shared a last dinner with Marcus and Isabel that was mainly in silence. It was Marcus that finally broke the quiet.
“I want you both to know what an honor it was for us to have been asked to be your guardians.”
“No parent could be more proud of their children,” Isabel added.
“Thank you,” the girls said.
There was no usual talk of school, or homework or track meets. No one really ate, just pushed their food around on their plates until dinner was over. Oneta and Alma cleared the table like always. But Marcus and Isabel went to their bedroom. Oneta and Alma followed suit once the kitchen was done. The girls didn’t speak to each other as they moved around the house, each saying goodbye to the only home that they had ever known. In bed they lay silently, each preparing for the next day, they could hear the sounds of Isabel’s muffled cries and Marcus consoling his wife. The night was long and the morning greeted four people who had not slept. They’d heard the door bell and the hushed conversation of the adults in the other room. Between the two of them they each carried large duffels with only the essentials.
“Ready?” Oneta asked her sister. Alma nodded.
Just as Oneta opened the door it was slammed in her face. The girls looked at each other, surprised and confused. Both their heads snapped back in the direction of the door when they heard a crash come from the front of the house. Oneta tried the door again but it didn’t budge. They heard Isabel yell and the girl doubled her efforts to open the door with Alma standing behind her bouncing lightly from foot to foot. Marcus may not have told the girls that he was preparing them for battle, but both were ready to fight and there was a fight going on in the other room.
Oneta stopped trying the door and turned, shaking the backpack off her arms. Alma dropped hers as well. Oneta had been trained to fight with a staff and she grabbed the long stick from the corner as she went to the window. Alma realized what her sister meant to do and was hot on her heels. Both landed in the side yard almost at the same time and took off for the front of the house. At the corner of the house they could see the front door. They were shocked still by the sight of the two people that came falling out of it.
Sati's hands were around the throat of a man. The fight itself was surprising, but was not the thing that had the girls standing side by side, frozen in place. The wings were what held them in their spot.
The man had large iridescent wings. They fluttered in short burst, at times disappearing they moved so fast. Sati let go of the winged man’s throat. Being as tall as the twins, she had a height advantage and she brought her elbow down on top of his head and then punched him in the side. He let go and Sati pulled out the largest knife the twins had ever seen.
“What the…” Oneta said and instantly had the attention of the winged man that hovered about three feet from the ground.
His focus now on the girls, he dove at them. Both sidestepped easily enough. As he went past them Oneta swung her staff behind her back before bringing it back around across the front of her body so fast it was a blur and then struck the winged man on the back of his neck. Sati was at their side before he hit the ground.
“You two have to get out of here.” Before she could say anything else the winged man got up.
“We’re not leaving Marcus and Isabel,” Oneta said moving away from the man.
He hissed at the group of women, showing a mouth full of pointed teeth which would have been unnerving for both of the girls if not for the confidence that only well trained people have.
“Go inside. We got this,” Oneta instructed her sister.
Alma ran to the house without looking back; leaving Oneta standing ready, holding her staff and Sati with the crazy big knife. She pressed her back flat against the front of the house and took a quick look inside, making sure that no one was going to come flying out. Marcus and Makeba were fighting another winged man. Aliyah had her hands full with a third. There was a racket coming from the kitchen. Alma took off to find Isabel.
Isabel was being backed into a corner by two winged people, a man and a woman. Isabel had in her hands, a large butcher knife and of all things, the metal tea pot from their stove. The woman advanced first and Alma watched as Isabel swung the knife cutting the woman’s shoulder and then smashing her over the head with the tea kettle. Following Isabel’s lead, Alma grabbed the first thing she saw, a lamp. Without stopping to take the shade off, Alma ran up behind the man and brought it down with all her might on the back of his head.
Shocked but not injured, the man spun around. Alma leaned back, trying not to be hit by his wings, and was hit with a blow that sent her flying across the room. Her back hit a wall, and if it were not for adrenaline she would have fallen to the floor. Instead she grabbed a pair of scissors that were lying on the small desk and straightened.
Her legs slightly apart and bent at the knees, she had a firm, but light grip on her weapons. She was ready for the advancing man. Just like the one outside he underestimated her. He advanced to grab Alma. She ducked under his arms, turned and slashed one of his wings. His scream filled the house.
Alma was advancing when she was grabbed from behind. The winged man that she had cut walked over and slapped her. Alma could hear Isabel moaning from somewhere behind her and only had a second to be glad that she was not dead before the winged woman spoke from behind her.
“The queen will not be happy if you kill her.”
“She cut me,” the man said, and while he was still angry, some of the fury had left his eyes.
“Dain, our job is to bring them back alive,” the woman reminded him.
“Take her, I’ll get the other,” D
ain said and Alma was being pushed in front of the woman, headed for the front door. She’d tried planting her feet and stomping on the woman’s, but it was no use. The woman was too strong.
As she was led through the front room she saw that Marcus and Makeba had succeeded in killing or knocking out the one they were fighting when she first came in. There was a look of pure horror on Aliyah’s face when she saw that Alma was captured.
As Alma and the woman exited the house, she saw the winged man that she’d cut go help in the fight Sati and Oneta were still in. Oneta was bleeding but still fought. She and Sati were tag-teaming the winged man. Sati screamed in her efforts as she lunged at him with her knife moving it in a large X. The man, backing away from Sati, was met by Oneta’s staff from behind. In quick succession she jabbed him in the back twice; first high at the base of his neck and then in the small of his back, before swinging the staff around, hitting him on both sides.
Alma struggled harder, but the woman laughed. She bent her knees and jumped in the air. Alma, held in the arms of the wing woman, saw Dain overtake Sati and then saw no more, relieved only in the knowledge that her sister would be taken prisoner and not killed.
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