WHISPER- shadow and bone

Chapter 12

Alina and Adeline quickly walked the streets of Ryevost, praying they weren't being followed. Alina was walking so fast, Ada could barely keep up but the girls understood that to be caught was far worse than a few blisters. Ada's finger felt bare without the comfort of Ezra's ring but she knew she'd done the right thing. The boy deserved to have peace in holding something of his brothers.

"Watch where you're going, girl!", a soldier shouted as Alina crashed into him.

"Sorry"

"So far from Shu Han, aren't you?", he sneered.

Alina walked on and Ada finally turned the corner to see her sister and the man.

"Why don't you come inside?", he asked nastily grabbing Alina's arm.

Ada picked up a wooden board from the floor and ran over, hitting the man in the head with a sickening thump. She stood breathing heavily in wonder before a man bearing a knife came at her.

Alina fought the man who had grabbed her, blinding him with her light, cashing screams of pain to echo down the streets.

Ada had lost a fight before. She had vowed to never lose another again. Yet at the man swung his blade at her face, slicing her cheek she was afraid. Fear was an old friend she knew that, but just like friends do it always betrayed her, leaving her defenceless in the worst situations. But gathering her fear and moulding it into a weapon, she wielded it and fought back, punching and kicking until the man with the blade lay unconscious on the floor, inches from death. She ached to bend down and say sorry. She ached to heal him. But she couldn't.

Alina grabbed her arm and the two ran as they heard gathering shouts of soldiers starting to follow them.

"Stop! After them!"

"Come on, this way!"

"Where is she?"

"No, the other way!"

"You two, take that way!"

The girls raced, hearts beating and legs pumping into the woods that surrounded the town. Branches broke, twigs snapped and voices called, echoing like mantras across the weeping willows.

"Where's she gone?"

"There!"

Ada gasped for airy crouching down, covering her sister. They wanted Alina. They needed Alina. Adeline was merely an accessory to these peoples plans and she resolved that if they were found then she would fight until death to save her sister.

Death wasn't really something Ada thought about a lot. She hadn't considered her funeral, or who she would invite but thinking of it now she realised the chairs would be empty and the funeral would be silent as apart from her sister there was no one who cared enough to come in her eyes. The people she had loved in life had never returned the favour. The world didn't need another useless girl like her, she knew that.

"She must be here!"

"She's getting away!"

The switch from she to they showed Ada just how much she was needed. She was invisible, a mere whisper of a girl that was a waft of smoke, gently blown away until no one could see it anymore.

"We must be close"

"Keep looking"

"I saw them. I saw them run this way"