Lost Hope: Book 6: Future of Hope

Chapter 24

"So you're Viperfang's esteemed apprentice, are you?" The words were a hiss in Violetshadow's ear, and it took every muscle in her her body not to cringe away from the she-cat's bad breath. Instead, she forced a small nod, which earned her a grin from the pale she-cat.

    "Well, how special are you? You must be very good then...." Ivythorn backed away a few steps and gave her an up and down look. "You look awfully young to be leader of EchoClan."

    And you're awfully old to be killing your former apprentice, Violetshadow thought, but she just met Ivythorn's gaze levelly, fighting not to betray her thumping heart. Ivythorn then passed her gaze over Dahliapetal. "And who are you?"

    The splotchy she-cat straightened nervously. "My name is Dahliapetal. I train... uh, trained under Viperfang."

    "Mhm." Ivythorn's tails twitched in an almost irritated way. "And what did Viperfang do to convince you to be a Dark Forest trainee?"

    Dahliapetal opened her mouth to respond, but Ivythorn clearly wasn't interested in her answer. "Not to worry since you'll be training under me now." She turned back to Violetshadow. "From now on you'll be my star pupil. That is, if you're a star at all."

    And then she pounced.

    Violetshadow jolted awake. She sat up, her dark eyes blinking frantically, and then began to pace around the leader's den   

    Viperfang was dead. Viperfang was already dead. Viperfang was just killed by another dead cat.

    The words churned and churned in her mind until they didn't seem like words, instead, just piles of mush that formed senseless sentences. What was happening?

    Ivythorn had been Viperfang's mentor when she was alive, she knew that much. She hadn't heard anything else about the mysterious she-cat, but she knew one thing for certain; she was dangerous. More dangerous than Viperfang, and more dangerous than Violetshadow could ever hope to be. And she was going to kill Violetshadow if she didn't do what she was told.

    An overwhelming panic started to come over Violetshadow and she wanted to scratch out the emotions right from underneath her pelt. This was all wrong. All of it. She couldn't quite figure out why, but nothing was going like how she imagined, and she'd imagined quite a few things. And although she'd achieved her lifelong goal of ruling over EchoClan as its leader, instead of feeling fulfilled, she felt like something was missing.

    She had to get out of here.