Haven's Army

Chapter 1

"No!"

We were in some sort of alleyway. A bright circle shone brightly overhead but the alley was dark. It was warm on my skin and bright like hope. The ground was made of some sort of solid, gray substance almost like brick, but one large piece. Nathan was banging his fist on the back wall where the portal had disappeared from seconds before.

He turned to me. "You! I trusted you to bring Nina through. Where is she?"

"Nathan, she can take care of herself," I told him calmingly. I was already feeling extremely guilty. I didn't need him yelling at me.

"Yeah she'll just fight all those Angels," he said sarcastically. "How will she do that? She's crippled!" He turned and pressed his forehead against the bricks.

"Look, Nathan, I'm really sorry. I tried to get her out but I couldn't get to her. She told me to go along ahead. The portal was closing."

He turned back to me and stood right in my face, towering over me. "You should've tried harder. Nathaniel gave his life to protect her. She's worth that."

I stood up straighter. "I know and I'm sorry. It's too late now. What's happened has happened." In reality, I felt sick to my stomach about what I'd done.

Nathan turned away again, staring at the wall.

"That's all we ever hear out of you two," Kathryn said from behind me. "Bicker bicker, fight fight, yell yell."

Suddenly, something silver flashed past with a loud roar, then disappeared. I drew my knives in case of another and crept toward the end of the alleyway. A few seconds later, another flashed by and disappeared.

"Stay here," I told Kathryn. "I'm going to take a look."

I slowly walked toward the edge of the alleyway and turned a sharp left. As I did, I ran into a boy. I brandished a knife at him. He was probably my age about the same height. He had somewhat short brown hair and his skin was darker, similar to my own. The girl next to him was taller than me but not by too much. She had the same hair and skin. I decided they must be siblings. The thing that really got me, though, was their eyes. The boy's were a stormy gray and the girl's were an icy blue, much different from their complexion.

They both looked terrified.

"Please don't hurt him," his sister pleaded.

"Are you going to hurt me?" I asked.

"We don't even have weapons," the boy replied shakily.

I lowered my knife, then flicked my hands to make them disappear. They looked surprised.

"Why do you have all those cuts?" the boy asked.

"And what are you wearing?" finished the girl. I could already tell she was kind and this was one of the harsher things she'd said in life.

"What if you tell me your names first?" I asked.

"Well," said the boy, "I'm Daniel and this is my sister, Amy. I'm fourteen and she's seventeen. We're only teenagers, so we can't hurt you."

I thought about that term for a moment: teenagers. I concluded that they probably meant the time between being a child and an adult.

"So are we. But we're in a war, fighting to save our...world, I suppose. I'm Charlotte. I'll go talk to my friends. Stay here." I walked back around the alleyway corner. Kathryn was waiting for me.

"Hang on," I told her. I got Peter and Andrew, figuring they were probably the most sociable.

The first thing Daniel said when we came around the corner was, "So, you're actually fighting a war?" Then he saw Andrew's arm. "What happened, man?" Daniel asked.