“Jacob move,” I called out, seeing the sword of the assassin come down. The second assassin ran onto the stage with his sword in the air, yelling out his battle cry, and at that very moment I saw Jacob’s death and my heart fell from my chest. The one running slid and slammed his blade into the others and the fight was on. Jacob got to his feet with both of his black blades in hand, as he watched the two fight. Sparks flew as their metal met as they swung with precise measure. I would have never thought that I would have seen such shock on Jacob’s face as I did at that very moment. But it was priceless. You could tell that he wanted nothing more than to join the battle but he didn’t know where to begin or who to fight.
Blood sprayed across the stage as one of the black wearing assassins dropped to his knees. Several of us took in sharp breaths. Who was who, we couldn’t tell. Not until one finally spoke.
“I warned you to leave him alone but you refused to listen and now you will die.”
“The elders will make you pay for your treason, Monroe. You will not get away with this.” Then the breeder fell back, turning to a fine ash before his body could hit the ground.
“They can try,” he whispered and dropped to his knees.
Jacob took a step forward, and the assassin spun with his blade up so fast, it was almost too fast to witness. “Who are you?” Jacob had his right arm extended with the tip of his black blade at the breeder’s face.
“My name is Monroe and we were sent to find and take as many of you out as we could, all but her,” he turned his head and looked out at me, then slowly back at Jacob. “But…”
“But, what?” Jacob took a step closer putting the tip of his blade under the man’s chin.
“But, I know you from a past that you would have no memory of.”
“That is impossible.”
The man began taking the black wrap off of his head as he continued to speak. “I was nine when they came to our farm. Mother was with child when they took her and killed my father. I never knew what became of the child she carried, until now.” He took the last of his mask off and stood. His braided hair fell well past his butt and was as jet black as Jacob’s own. He was taller than Jacob and what I could see from where I was, looked very much like him.
“You have our mother’s eyes.”
“As you have the eyes of my twin sister,” Jacob replied. “I would argue, but I cannot. Looking at you is like looking into her soul.”
“I have seen her. She is very beautiful.” Jacob grabbed his arm.
“I kept Reed in the city. We never went back to the coast’s edge. No harm came to her or the others. Not that my eyes have seen.”
Jacob slowly released his arm. “If you are here then you know what is about to happen. Are you with us, or were you here to just save my life…brother?”
A grunt and then a cloud of ash that filled the air had us turning to look back at Derek, who was wiping his face. The large man was no more. “He tried to hit me!” Fala grabbed the two walking dead by their heads and smashed them together so hard, that his hands came close enough to make contact, as the creatures dropped like the dead they should have been. “All done,” Derek smiled through an ash covered face. “Just thought we would hurry and join ya.”
“Thought I was supposed to help find out answers?” Tammy snapped.
“He tried to hit me…really,” Derek snapped back.
“With what? One of those little men,” Tammy bumped her breasts into Derek’s chest.
“Get your woman, big man,” Derek looked over at Cates who just put his hand and nub in the air and went back to watching Jacob and Monroe.
“Please, I can handle myself, little boy.”
“It’s fine, Tammy. They could have been here forever.”
The man named Monroe turned his attention once again my way. Only this time he elegantly leaped off the stage and caused everyone around me to bring their weapons up. His eyes never left mine. I laid my hand on the back of Derek’s and brought his blade down and stepped up to meet Jacob’s older brother and get away from the family squabble. I extended my hand and he dropped down to one knee.
“Well, haven’t you heard? We don’t do that around here. We just say ‘howdy’ and get on with it,” I smiled keeping my hand out until he took it and got up. That just drove me crazy and all I wanted was to never see it again. “I’m Renee, the one everyone either wants to kill, or do whatever your elder folks want done with. How ya doin?”
“You’ll have to excuse her tongue. Renee’s slang deepens when the excitement rises.”
“Ya think, Jacob?” I smirked, shaking Monroe’s hand with him giving me the oddest look. “You should hear your brother try to talk like me and my boys.”
“Do we, or do we not, have a few breeders to find? The sun will not stay hidden all day.”
“Do I not need to make allegiance with my new mistress? I wish to not return…surely you know this?” Monroe’s eyes bore a hole into Jacob.
“Monroe, you shook my hand. That’s all you needed to do to show me you’re with us. More importantly, you saved one of us against one of your own.”
“You do not carry their blood in your body?”
I gave Jacob and the rest one of my ‘kiss my ass’ looks. “Not at first, but we had a situation and it kind of had to be done. But not because they had to.”
“Would you be offended if I said I would feel better if you made me one of you? I do not ever wish to go back, ever. I have finally found out what happened to the unborn child and I will never let him go, you see.”
“Jacob?” I needed help. I couldn’t make this one understand.
“I’m sorry, Renee, I agree with him. He is my blood from a time when we had a mother and father. He is no different than Jessica; only she has felt secure with me since our birth. Only Monroe knows what he has endured and I, too, would want to be marked. They will not be able to track him otherwise.”
“Can we at least do it after we find those sisters? This night really isn’t going to get any younger,” Garvin spoke up.
“Yeah, I completely agree,” I nodded and mouthed a ‘thank you’ to Garvin.
“Then you will?” Monroe asked again.
“You are mine and I will bite the crap out of you once we take care of this and I am not so full I could puke. Welcome home! Now let’s go take care of some sick cows.”
“Excuse me?”
“Welcome home big brother, welcome home indeed,” Jacob snorted as he walked by Monroe. ***
Cates went through the door at the back of the stage first, with Jacob, Monroe, Derek, and Garvin following. Tammy and I stayed back a bit, with Fala taking care of our back. Jacob wanted there to be room in the small space of the stone hall if anything should happen.
“I can’t get over how much they look like each other.”
“If Monroe didn’t have hair almost as long as mine, it would be hard to tell them apart,” I whispered.
“The oldest is taller,” Fala added. “But if they were sitting?”
Tammy and I both had to hold in our desire to laugh out loud. Fala was on the uneducated side when it came to the civilized world and spoke in the ways of a person who learned life in the wilderness. Most of us hadn’t gone to conventional school, but most had learned a great deal from their own personal existence around those who had lived in, what they would call, a more sophisticated world.
“I hope if they did go back to Martin’s they didn’t try to go into the lower levels,” Tammy spoke low and her words knocked every thought but Martin and Tanda right out of my mind.
“You would have to say that, wouldn’t you?”
“It just hit my mind.”
“Your maker set the locks from the inside, so you both worry for no reason,” Fala snorted as softly as he could in his beast form.