“Don’t.”
Atlanta didn’t hear Uncle James. Well, she heard him but just chose to ignore him. She didn’t even try to acknowledge his ghost-like whispering. She scanned the destruction around her, falling on one pile of debris after the other. The sand slapped against her face, her hair blowing around her head as she took in the scene before her.
Her home was gone. The place she’d grown up in, fell asleep to the sounds of the maple outside scraping against her window, convinced her uncle not to cook and just order in. All that remained was a skeleton of a place that once used to be her haven; all that remained were ghosts of memories.
“Don’t.”
Atlanta turned to look at her uncle. James stood where the living room had once been. Three walls still stood, the third crumbled in a pile where parts of the second floor had collapsed. Only the couch remained, mangled under layers of dust. The rest of the furniture was gone.
“Don’t what?” she whispered, almost to herself.
James dusted a part of the couch and sat down, crossing one leg over the other. He watched her as she took in what remained of her home. Dried blood was strewn across the walls of the hallway leading to the kitchen, and from where she stood she almost laughed at the sight of the stove standing tall with no wall behind it.
“I know what you’re thinking,” James said. “And I’m telling you, don’t.”
Atlanta felt tears well up in her eyes. Her hands rolled into tight fists, and she could feel her body shake in a mix of anger, frustration, and loss. “This shouldn’t have happened.”
“But it did,” James replied. “That’s why I’m telling you, don’t blame yourself. What’s done is done. Right now, we have to think about what to do next. What to do to fix the situation.”
Atlanta’s eyes burned, her tears leaving dark streaks as they rolled down the dust on her cheeks. She could feel the wind picking up, the storm around her intensifying, as if growing with her growing anger. “I’m going to kill her,” she hissed. “I’m going to find her and rip her apart. First I’ll tear her heart out.”
James coughed, and scratched his beard. “I believe you, but let me remind you that there was very little you could do against Adelaide before. You need more than just your training.”
Atlanta looked at her uncle and frowned. “She caught me off guard,” she said tersely. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
“Yes, you will,” James smiled at her, a loving smile, a fatherly smile that made her heart ache for the real him to be there, not just a wraith her mind was conjuring. “You went in high on emotions, and that’s exactly what you’re doing now. This’ll only end the same way it did before. Except, this time, Adelaide won’t be as generous with your life.”
“I’ll be better prepared this time,” Atlanta insisted.
“No, you won’t,” James replied. “You haven’t even noticed the Werewolf behind you.”
Atlanta smiled at her uncle, her eyes darkening, a heat burning in them she had never felt before. “Actually, I did.”
In one quick movement Atlanta drew her sword, fell to one knee and spun around, swinging upwards. Her blade swished through the storm around her, the thick sand obscuring her vision, her senses taking over. A terrible growl sounded above her head, and a heavy thud followed. In the swirl of sand, a paw fell into view.
Her eyes burned hotter, and before she stood up she pulled one of her knives out of her belt and threw it towards the kitchen. She watched it fly towards nothing, spinning quickly in the air. Then, just as it flew over the threshold, a second Wolf appeared. The knife struck home and sent the beast to the ground.
Atlanta stood up and walked towards the fallen Wolf. Her uncle appeared in the kitchen, gazing down in confusion at the fallen beast.
“They were waiting for you,” he said.
Atlanta bent down and pulled the knife out. “There are more coming.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded, sheathing her weapons and turning to make her way back to the basement. From the corner of her eye she saw a shadow move, red eyes burning in the storm, then quickly disappearing. From the speed of the visitor, she knew it was a Vampire.
Since when do they willingly work together?
“They’re compelled,” James said as she opened the door. He was standing on the other side, leaning against the banister, scratching his beard and staring at the ceiling in contemplation.
Atlanta didn’t reply. She turned and locked the door from the inside. It would give them some time if any others decided to come into the house—or what was left of the house. She spun around and made her way down the stairs, Darian and Raul followed her. Once in the basement she opened a weapon cupboard and picked the ones she needed. Darian and Raul stood almost frozen as they watched her. She could sense their uneasiness.
She ignored them and moved past where they stood, opening the secret passage to the underpart of the basement. So help if anyone or anything’s down here. She doubted it, but the thought crossed her mind anyway. She stepped into the vestibule and fell to where the bikes were supposed to be parked. On her left was the table where James normally sat, either working on the bikes’ mechanics or creating sharper weapons.
She felt a surge of feelings creep up on her as she saw the shadow of James standing over the table, the sweat accumulating on the side of his forehead and his arms wrapped around the end of an arrow. She couldn’t tell if she was remembering him, or if he was actually standing there, her mind playing tricks on her as it had been doing ever since she had stepped out of the tunnels in the Dome.
“You’ve gotta stop popping up like that,” she mumbled.
“Apparently you still need me,” James replied.
She walked over to his workstation, examining the weapons he’d been last working on. There was a series of blades that were curved in various ways. One of the blades had its edges curved like a concave lens, its tip unsharpened, with a slit on the tip where another thick sheet of metal could’ve been fitted in. There was something about all the weapons that was peculiar, but formed a pattern that she was beginning to understand.
All the arrows and blades were lined with a green metal that glowed like an emerald but felt more like a steely knife. There were three guns that looked more like nail guns than usual pistols. They were surrounded by bullets that were cylindrical and thin on both ends. The bullets were like the edges of the rest of the weapons, made of the same green material.
She knew the green resembled some sort of magic. She remembered James had started working on these weapons at the same time she had first told him about the red, glaring eyes of the compelled attackers on the football field of Calen High. The connection was instantly made in her head. James must’ve been working on weapons that could possibly be of some effect against the hybrids. She glared at the table. She clearly wasn’t equipped with the knowledge of what they did.
What am I going to do with these?
“You have friends outside,” James replied. “I’m sure they could figure it out.”
“I don’t trust them.”
“You don’t have to.” James smiled. “Right now, it’s enough to help you survive.”
She felt her eyes burn again.
“Speaking of which,” James glanced behind them, “I think it’s time you actually got out of here.”