Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 62
62
Mother and Father had all their things packed up and ready to go in less than a minute, and now all four of them stood by the door, awkwardly wondering what to say, what to do, how to act.
They were still waiting. Even as it was happening, they were still waiting. All of them. Kiana had been very near the breaking point for a while now, but this was taking it too far.
"Mother, Father," she said, not even pausing long enough to give herself time to think. "I know this is going to be a terrible night, and I know that you love me very much, and I love you. I know you want to keep me safe. But I can't stay here. I have to -"
"Well of course you can't stay here!" Mother interrupted. "What good will that do anyone?"
"I - what?"
Mother shoved her bag into Father's hands so she could put on her thick winter coat, quickly sliding her arms into the sleeves with a grumpy look on her face. "Believe me, Kiana. If I thought locking you and your sister in your rooms would do any good whatsoever, I would have done it ages ago. But we all know what happens when you're ordered to stay put, don't we?"
"That was an emergency, though!"
"And so is this, except this time, instead of sneaking out of the house for a third bloody time, you will be coming with me, and you will be sticking close, where I can keep an eye on you. We don't know what will happen tonight. The only thing we can be sure of is that it's going to be hell, so I'll need all the help I can get. Are the two of you up to it?"
"Yes!"
Mother tilted her head. "That was awful quick. Are you sure?"
"Yes," Kiana said again, without hesitation.
Mother nodded. "Good. Here are the rules. Number one, you will be limited to the basecamp and the medical tent. Under no circumstances are you allowed anywhere near the wall. I don't even want you to be in line of sight of that wall. If you can see it, that means a stray arrow could come flying over the top and hit you in the head. Understand?"
"We understand."
"Number two. Kiana, if you feel sick, you go and do your business in the woods. I don't want your vomit getting anywhere near the patients or their open wounds. They're going to be filthy enough as is."
Kiana felt that weird twisting motion in the pit of her stomach again, but she nodded her understanding. The fact that Layla hadn't been mentioned in that rule was not lost on her.
"Number three. You might see familiar faces getting hurt tonight. No, scratch that, you will_see familiar faces getting hurt. If you see Ander or Hezzi or Dan or one of the twins or your f- or anyone else on that table and you can't handle it, you need to step aside immediately and let me take over. But if you really want to help, if you believe you can make a difference, then you do whatever I say, _exactly as I say. If you don't, your friends will end up dying on that table, staring up at a bunch of incompetent vixens who were in too much of a tizzy to save them, and it will be all our faults. Do you understand?"
Everything about the situation was already horrifyingly real to her, and it had been for quite some time. Even so, listening to Mother speak this way, talking about watching her friends and family die in her arms, it made everything _more_than real, if that made sense. It felt like the very air around her was solidifying into a disgusting soup, making it difficult to breathe or even move. But most of all, it was the way Mother and Father were holding hands. She had seen them do that so often, but this time was different. There was a quiet desperation about it, and seeing them squeezing each other so tightly was even more real than the torch blazing on the mountain. It was the realization that something as eternal as the love between her mother and father, something she had always taken as a given, might not survive this night that truly drove it home.
There are monsters in this world, and they are coming for us.
Kiana swallowed the lump in her throat, took a deep breath, and grabbed hold of her sister's hand. "I understand, Mother. I understand it all."
Layla sniffed and nodded. "I understand, too."
Mother scrutinized their faces a moment longer, then, evidently satisfied, she nodded and Father opened the door to a biting wind that whipped their hair and blew a flurry of snow around their feet. "Come on," she said, speaking as if she didn't feel the wind or the cold at all. "We have work to do."
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