The War Among Us

Chapter 29--Challenged

"You know what you need?" Allison asked as we walked to our last briefing before we head out.

I raised an eyebrow, "What?"

"A date. With me."

I shook my head, "No, I don't have time. We leave tomorrow morning and I need to take care of some stuff before we leave."

She jumped in front of me and stopped me, "Please, Oli? Pleeease?"

I rolled my eyes, "I might have an hour or two free this afternoon before I have to go."

She squealed, "There's a shopping center in the town and an ice cream place."

I laughed, "Oh, so you wanted to go shopping?"

She smiled wide, "With you though. That's the key idea here."

"Okay, well, let's get this briefing over with. I think it's a report on the attack I had planned." I shudder with guilt and shame. I knew it probably worked.

Ally patted my shoulder, "Let's go, big guy. If you can be the dark prince for, like, 30 more minutes, we can go have fun as Oli and Allison."

I nodded, "Yeah." I walked into the familiar musty smell of the conference room. According to Fernando, my plan worked extremely well, but the vampires were slowly making a comeback. I couldn't help but feel a bit relieved by the fact that the vampires were fighting back a little. My mother cleared her throat, 'Oliver. What do we do?"

I sat up, "How are they fighting back?"

Fernando continued, "Well, they're lacing themselves with wolfsbane and they stay in during the day, only coming out at night. They have an advantage at night due to their enhanced vision and strength when the moon is out."

"Isn't that a werewolf thing? I thought we had better vision and were stronger at night? The moon's our thing."

Fernando shook his head, "Not exactly. The sun and moon are opposites, right? Well, the sun weakens them so the moon helps them. We get stronger on the full moon which is coming up in approximately 3 days."

"Huh, interesting. Maybe withdraw. I'm not sure what we do here." I was lying.

I sat back and let the generals discuss what they thought the werewolves should do. After the meeting, everyone got up to shuffle out. I got up, but my mother quickly grabbed my arm to hold me back. I ripped my arm away and Ally was by my side in a second and growling at the queen.

"You're a feisty one aren't you?" She cackled.

"What do you want?" I spit out.

"I want to know why you're even getting the vampires a chance. You're a werewolf, Oliver, so act like one and grow up."

I growled, "Watch what you say, you old hag." A general was by her side and growling at me.

She smirked, "So young. You're 28, right? Wow, I'm almost 65, I guess I am an old hag. Why don't you tell this old hag why you want to know the vampires side of all of this."

I growled again, "You don't need to know, but if you must, there's an ancient law in the vampire world saying I can't kill them without a sufficient reason. The only reason I can see on your side is vengeance, ignorance, and hate. It's not good enough."

"So you're on the vampire side?"

"Depends on their reason for killing the werewolves. Just know that I will never fight for you. I will not fight for the sake of vengeance."

"I have a feeling you're hesitating for a different reason. Am I wrong?"

I clenched my fists, "Feelings often misguide us."