Street Rat

Chapter 19

Another one of my father's birds had been spotted this morning by the explosive twins. The bird had been carrying a message. My father had officially declared war on us, and unless I came peacefully he would attack in three days' time. The bird had never got back to my father. The explosive twins had blown it up. So far, that has been the only good thing about my day. I trudged down the hall. Everyone looked at me with fear in their eyes. They knew it was coming, so why were they so afraid now? I kept walking to the front. Everyone was gathered there, and they all looked my way when I walked in. I said nothing to them. There were no words to make their fear dissipate. It was war. That was as simple as I could put it. Toxic watched me like a hawk, while everyone was looking down at their plates ignoring my presence.

"So, what's the plan S?" Toxic asked me. I looked at him. I had no words. No plan. Nothing.

"I'll tell you later," I responded to him. Toxic looked at me skeptically, but he went back to eating his breakfast, so he didn't say anything else to me. I didn't really feel like eating this morning. I left the main room and made my way to the training room. When I got in there I saw that Kaviik was in there too. He was sharpening his blade, and he didn't even notice me in there. I cleared my throat and he looked up from his task.

"Why aren't you eating?" I asked him. He looked back down at his blade.

"I could ask you the same thing," he replied. I sighed and looked up to the ceiling.

"What am I going to do Kaviik? Dad is going to attack us in three days, unless I go to him earlier. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do, neither option is the best one to do,"

Kaviik shrugged his shoulders and continued with his task. He didn't answer my question. I grew frustrated, and I grabbed a few daggers from the stock of weapons and began to chuck them at the dummies. Not even caring if they landed on the dummies or someone real. The sound of the blades connecting to something calmed me a little. After a few minutes of that, I picked all of them up, and put them back. Kaviik was still sharpening his blade. I studied the blade. It was clearly sharp enough to pierce anything that you put in front of it, but Kaviik just kept sharpening it.

"You know that it is sharp enough right?" I asked him. He nodded his head in response.

"Why are you being so quiet?" I ask him. He looks up at me, and his eyes that have shown nothing but bravery over the years, were rimmed with tears.

"I'm afraid S. You don't have a plan, and our only options are to hand you over to the enemy, or we can fight our own father," Kaviik stated.

"I'll come up with something. Don't worry," I said.

"Don't lie Steal," he snapped. "Don't lie to me or anyone else! It's bad enough that we are going into war blind but saying you will come up with something when you clearly won't, just makes it worse!"

I blinked at his snaps. Kaviik has a temper, but he had never shown it until now. I didn't say anything back to his statement. I just nodded my head and left him to his sword. I heard feet behind me. I looked behind me and saw Nightmare.

"What do you need Nightmare?" I asked him.

"The hybrids you requested are finished. I came to get you, so you could pick out yours first," he stated. I nodded my head, and he led me back to his room. We arrived in the lab, and all the hybrids were in stalls, snorting impatiently. I scanned the stalls, looking at all of them. One of them growled at me when I came close to the stall door. I stopped and looked at the creature.

"Nightmare, what's this one?" I asked him. He walked over to me and looked at the hybrid.

"That was the one that came out wrong. I was thinking about just destroying it, but I didn't have enough time to construct another one like that," he replied.