Rebellion

Saving humans wasn’t always easy for me. Sometimes, they could be really, really stupid, and they easily got themselves in trouble. For example, the girl we just saved from Annabelle: laying a hand on her was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen a human do. Now, she was going to be on every one of her minions’ hit lists. They weren’t going to rest until she was found and exterminated. And of course, now she was with us. Now we all had even bigger targets on our backs than before. But I guess that just comes with the job…

When the girl we just saved fainted, I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Humans could be so weak. I looked at my second-in-command, Jamison, frowning.

“J, pick her up quickly; we have to go now,” I stated sternly, and Jamison quickly scooped her up before we started running back to the hive. I swear, if they find out where our base is because of this girl… We ran into our dark alley and I checked behind us for any of Annabelle’s henchmen, or even Annabelle herself, before pulling back a large, heavy dumpster to reveal a hole, leading into an abandoned office building. After Jamison crouched down and went in with the girl, I looked around again before crawling in after them and blocking the hole back up. We hurried through the building to the basement, and followed the tunnels we made down there to our hive.

When we walked into our main room, I could feel the tension in the air as the members of our group started noticing the girl in Jamison’s arms. I sighed and put my hands on my hips after walking into the middle of the room.

“Alright, listen up: Annabelle’s trying to lead humans away into her clutches to allow her demons to get new bodies to inhabit again, so we have to start up our nightly patrols. This girl’s lucky we got to her in time, or she’d be dead by sunrise. We’re gonna take her to the infirmary, let her rest and hydrate her again, and decide what to do with her then. If any of you decide you’re curious and try to interrupt her recovery, so help me, I’ll end you myself. Now stop staring and get back to training!” I was met by a chorus of “Yes ma’am!”s and I finally looked over at Jamison.

“Come on, let’s get her to Hunter.” He nodded and we started walking back toward our small infirmary, where we usually went if we had injuries that were too severe for our bodies to heal up right away. We didn’t usually have humans to heal, but since this girl was with Annabelle, we had no idea what had happened to her, and we wanted to be sure she was safe. I had Jamison lay her down on one of our cots as I went to find Hunter, who was usually back in the medicine area, checking inventory.

“Hey, Hunt, we’ve got a human for you,” I said, poking my head into the small room. He looked up at me before standing, a look of confusion across his delicate features.

“A human? Why do you guys have a human? What happened?” he asked quickly, without any pauses in between questions. I sighed and rubbed my forehead.

“Look, no questions right now; your brother and I have a lot we need to figure out, and I’d like to get it done as soon as possible.” I was definitely feeling a little irritated tonight. With a wanted human now in our hands, the possibility of having our base discovered by Annabelle, and the many questions I was expecting to hear as soon as I walked back out into the main room, I just wanted some time to gather my thoughts and decide on what we were going to do with everything that happened tonight. Hunter frowned, understanding as he shut his mouth and just followed me out to the cot, where Jamison was waiting.

“Alright, Hunter, make sure she’s not broken anywhere, and if she wakes up, make sure to give her some water and some of those energy bars we found last month; she’s probably gonna need them. J, come with me; we have a lot to figure out.” I looked over at Jamison, who nodded. I looked back at Hunter.

“When she wakes up, I need you to find out everything that happened tonight between her and Annabelle, alright? We need to know exactly what her strategy is, especially if her plan is to make her army bigger.” Hunter nodded before pulling up a chair next to the cot to start examining her.

“Hey, Olivia?” he asked, stopping me from leaving the room with Jamison. I turned back towards him, really just wanting to leave.

“What’s up, Hunter?” I replied, trying to hide my annoyance. He frowned, sensing my exasperation.

“I was just going to ask if you knew why Annabelle was out getting humans by herself tonight… You said this girl was with her, right?” I froze, realizing I hadn’t thought about that yet. Annabelle was hardly one to do her own dirty work…

“I’ll let you know when I figure that out.” I frowned and walked out with Jamison in tow. He looked up at me, a bit worried.

“Olivia, you’re stressing yourself too much again… You’re eyes are completely black,” he said softly, in his gentle, worried tone that seemed to always be directed towards me. I looked back at him, my brows furrowed.

“Yeah, well, I have a lot to stress out about right now, J, and I’d like to get it all figured out before Annabelle’s next move. If you’re just going to worry about me, you can stay with Hunter.” He frowned and fell silent as I found myself rapidly blinking, trying to get my eyes back to their normal hazel color. He stuck to my side, despite my sour retort to his worry, as we quickly walked to our back room, where our city map was laid out. He was always such a worrier… But I guess with a nightmare like Annabelle terrorizing the human race, I should’ve been more worried, myself. Honestly, I just didn’t have the patience to worry, nor the time. Time spent worrying was time better spent acting, and in the world we were in now, acting was your only safe bet in order to survive.