Chapter 2
I dug into Ayra’s head. She was worried sick about me and was completely oblivious to her surroundings. So, I withdrew myself from her mind and instead dug into Moira’s. I got lucky, Moira was paying attention to where they were, the dark wood of the table in front of her, the woman behind the counter, the street-sign she could see when she looked outside.
It wasn’t far from where I was, so I started to jog towards them.
They were in a coffee-shop filled with early workers.
When they saw me, I could almost see the relief rolling off of them. It was clearly visible on their faces and it already radiated through the bond.
But, at the same time that their relief came through to me, so did their worry.
Wondering why they were actually so worried, I let myself slip into Ayra’s head and through her eyes I saw myself properly.
I was a huge mess. There was a deep cut on my left cheek, my lip was split, there were scratches on my nose, forehead, chin and around my eyes. My hair was tangled and stood in every direction. My clothes were red with blood and there were tears everywhere. Under the tears, there were cuts and scratches. On one hand, a nail was half ripped off and on the other there was a deep gash in my thumb. And all over me, bruises were starting to appear.
I left her head, and felt the tension in the coffee-shop. The customers were afraid of me.
“Thank God! We were–” Ayra started to say.
But I cut her off. “We need to leave. Now. I attract too much attention. The owner is probably already doubling whether or not he should have me kicked out of his shop. We should find a hotel. There we can rest and talk. We all need some sleep. Come on, let’s go.”
They trusted me and my instincts, so they left with me without asking any questions.
We left in search for a cheap hotel.
Wandering through alleys and streets, I told them what had happened.
“There were six of them. One of them I killed just before you left. Luckily, they weren’t prepared for my speed, my senses and my strength. I managed to kill them all and after they’d died, I dragged their bodies into the light of the rising sun. They burned up almost immediately, thank God. They hadn’t even noticed what time it was, they were too busy trying to kill me.”
“And how are you?” Ayra asked, worried because I limped a little. Hm. I must have broken my ankle in the fight.
“I’m tired and my body aches, but I’ll be fine. It looks worse than it is,” I assured them. Meanwhile I focused on my ankle and healed it.[1]
“So, where are we going?” Moira asked. She was always more of a practical one than Ayra.
“To a hopefully small, but crowded hotel. We’ll have less chance to–” My voice broke as soon as I heard the footsteps. A lot of fast and swift footsteps.
“What’s wrong?” Ayra asked. “Bri?”
“No! This cannot be happening! Not now!”
“What’s going on? What do you hear?” Moira asked.
“Stay behind me! They’re close!” I drove them to a wall.
“Who are?!” Ayra shrieked, panicking.
Before I had time to explain, they had already appeared. Guardians. A lot of Guardian.
They tried to surround us, but I had already moved my friends and myself with our backs against one of the walls in the alley we found ourselves in.
The fact that now they couldn’t attack from all sides made me a little more comfortable with turning my back on my friends to act as a shield.
We faced the Guardians who’d now formed half a circle around us, making sure we couldn’t escape.
One of them stepped forward. He was stern-looking with a strong build. His hair was short-cut and dark blond. His moves were sharp and sudden, there was barely any elegance to him.
“Princess Islana,” he addressed Ayra with a bow. “We’re here to escort you back to Saint Jennifer’s Academy.”
“No way we’ll go with you,” I growled at him and the rest of the Guardians.
He looked down at me with first irritation and then shock. I channelled some of my powers into the ability to read minds.
In his head, I saw my face, my eyes burning with iron-hot fury, my lips drawn back, fangs extended. [2]
I got back into my own head before half a second had even passed.
“And what makes you think you won’t? You’re not going to be able to take us on, seeing you’ve missed five years of training. And seeing the cuts that are all over you, you’re not even able to take on a human.” Despite the shock he felt seeing my face, he was completely sure that he’d be able to defeat me.
The fool.
“Well, come closer and see how ‘weak’ I am,” I challenged him.
And starting to become an even greater idiot, he actually did.
Before he could come within a five meter range from us, I’d grabbed him and thrown him against the opposite wall. He hadn’t even seen me coming.
He slid down from the wall and with a slight limp, he stood and rejoined the Guardians.
“Hm. I guess I’m capable of fighting a human. And you. But even better, I’m capable of fighting Paha, because that’s what I did last night. We came across them on our way from the airport. Five of them caused these injuries. If you’d paid but a little more attention to us, you’d have known this and you might even have been able to help us.” I should have stopped there, but I was too worn out to watch my mouth. “But seeing as how you can’t even fight me, I suppose you couldn’t have helped that much.”
They didn’t like that. At all.
My words started the fight, which was what I’d been hoping for. I wanted it over with. I wanted my friends and me to get as far away from here as possible.
There were ten Guardians and they were strong, but they were nothing compared with the five Paha.
After a couple minutes of fighting, they backed up again.
Looks of exhaustion, surprise and wounded egos now surrounded us.
“Is that all you’ve got?” I asked them.
“How is this possible?” “This can’t be for real!” “How did she just do that?” I heard being whispered all around us.
“What are you, Brianna Shields?” the leader asked.
“Obviously, I’m a girl. And I’m a Vartija.”
“There’s no way you can be a Vartija.”
“Now, why would that be?”
“You’re as strong and fast as a Paha. And you look exactly the same as you did when you left the Academy. And you have fangs.”
“So? I’m no Paha. I wouldn’t have been able to be outside right now, had I been one. And who cares if I’m not a normal Vartija. It’s not like I’m actually normal at all, as I’m sure you’re aware of if you’ve read my file, which you must have to know that I look the same.”
“True, you’re not normal. You grew up with–”
“Why chat now?” I cut him off. I didn’t want to talk about my past. And I didn’t want Ayra and Moira to know anything about it. It would be too difficult for them to understand it. “I thought you were here to take us back to the Academy. Well, we’re not coming with you, so why don’t you just drop it and leave? And fighting wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do right now, because I’m sure you don’t exactly look too safe to the humans standing at the south end of the alley.”
The Guardians looked to the south, startled. They hadn’t noticed the humans. I’d heard them arrive. They hadn’t seen the previous fight, but still, the tension was nearly visible in the air around us.
“We’ll talk somewhere else,” the leader commanded.
“No, we won’t. I told you, we’re not coming with you. You can leave in peace if you like. You know I’d be able to fight you all and win. So really, leave.”
“Jason! Get those humans to leave. We can’t afford any witnesses.”
“So you actually want to fight to the last man. Okay, fine.” I extended my mind to the humans and very gently put the thought in their minds that nothing was wrong here and that they were running late and therefore needed to leave immediately.
Then I drew back and saw that the humans had left before this Jason had even set as much as two steps towards them.
“You wanted the humans gone, right? Well, they’re gone. Bring it.” I was tired of this charade and I seriously needed some sleep.
We fought again. They tried to hit me and kick me, trying to get me to stop fighting. But they barely landed any blows on me, whereas I knocked one unconscious and another I threw against the wall so hard, that he broke his leg and could no longer fight. Another sat on the ground, no longer able to fight because of exhaustion.
The rest didn’t stand much more of a chance. They would have all ended up unconscious on the ground while we ran. They would have lost, if not for one of the blows they did manage to land on me.
The blow was so hard, I felt and heard both my skull and the weapon break. The impact made me fall over. The blow hurt so badly that I screamed out. The pain was excruciating.
And then, not able to bear the pain, my mind left my head and escaped into Moira’s.
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