The Duns

Training For Death

Chapter Twenty-eight

Catherine

All the members of To Sotos already knew about this threat. Unlike Andrew, I know Aunt Elle does not like keeping secrets from her society. However, Andrew did manage to convince his entire organization to stand with us, whereas today evening, we lost almost half of our people.

Aunt Elle doesn't comment on this, she simply thanks the people who stayed to fight and then informs them that they have two days before they come and join us, two days to do whatever they wish to.

We then leave our beloved haven, its underappreciated security, its benevolence, and head back. But we carry along with us bags full of its strength and pride.

-

"How many?" I repeat, shocked.

"We have a total of 1000 people; all our men agreed to sign up, as did their sons of age and other family members." Andrew replies, hiding a smirk.

I sigh. "We got only half of the people, about three hundred."

"So..." Harry says, "three hundred plus one thousand plus two hundred from here means we have about one thousand five hundred men for a war. Go us."

"One thousand five hundred and ten." Peter corrects him. "If everyone here will fight."

A wave of nods swims through the room; this is something we all collectively agree on without needing to be told. I look down. There's no way we can fight this-forget win- with less than at least two thousand men.

"Actually, I think Andrew and Elle here can help us with that." Max says, reading my mind.

"What do you mean?" I ask, too bothered to tell him off for reading my mind again.

"Richard and I couldn't sleep last night so we got up to help the others. And when we were on our way, we happened to cross an open room door..." he slows down, waiting for any of them to speak up.

Aunt Elle did "... and you heard our conversation." She sighs.

"Yes." Richard says, "and it would be most helpful if you would share all your information with us right now because we're giving up our lives for this."

Max walks up to Andrew. "Spill, ma'am, sir."

"Oh god." Andrew says, stepping back, "Elle, do you think you can-"

"Yes, I'll tell them." Aunt Elle says. She now turns to us. "We only asked two hundred of the two thousand soldiers we have to come up here. I knew they weren't going to attack. If they did, we would call the others."

"Anything else?" Peter asks her.

"No." she says looking down. "That's the last of our secrets." As she says so, she glances at me, ever so slightly, for a split second, and I see a tinge of red on her face. She covers her face with her hands.

Andrew comes over and puts an arm around her, consoling her. What? And then, another thought comes back to me; why does Aunt Elle have powers?

-

Two months before the Battle

23rd June 2050

To say Peter has been trying to break our bodies would be an underestimated phrase.

Every day, every single day, we train our weaknesses first, and then in the evenings, our strengths. It's very much like competitive training when following a sport- strict food habits and nutrition, sacrifice, determination to continue every day's work out, and only one rest/free day- Sunday.

We have also been receiving words from Maximus, beginning about a month earlier, on the very night of introducing our new members. He congratulates us on our increase in the number of soldiers and asks of our wellbeing.

We mail him back a tiny snip of the suit Peter cut out of his first Snake kill.

No mercy. I tip my head back and laugh.

"What's so funny?" Peter asks, grabbing a chair next to me and placing his tray down on the table. We are at the cafeteria for our Sunday lunch meal and the entire place is empty.

Normally on Sundays, families spend time with each other together, not having enough time for themselves on the other days, so the space is empty except for the eight of us: Peter, Max, Harry, Oliver, Lucas, William, Richard and me.

"Nothing." I say to him, taking a piece of pizza from his plate (free meal!).

"Okay." He leans in and kisses me, right there, in front of them all. "Whatever you say." He winks. God this boy.

The others take a seat on our table around us.

"You don't mind us, right?" Lucas asks, sitting next to Peter, "we can leave, you know, give you some space."

I roll my eyes. Peter answers them, telling them to take a seat. Richard and William side down opposite us and Harry sits beside me, scooting over when Peter glares at him for coming closer. I roll my eyes again.

Max grins and sits down in between Lucas and William. Oliver joins us too, sitting next to Harry. All of us are here.

"So," Oliver asks, "Do they know?"

"Do we know what?" Peter counters, 'we' being him and I.

"Well, we wanted to tell you sooner when we told the others," William says, "but you two were...busy..." It's true. We were. Again. None of their business.

Max, once again, reads my mind. "Actually, it isn't any of our business, but Peter might find it interesting- what we found out with, not, not whatever you two- oh forget it."

"Can you please stop reading my mind!"

"Sorry." (He doesn't seem in the least) He continues, "Apparently, Andrew, or Igetis, whoever he may be during that particular time, knows who the next tetrakinita is."

Peter sighs. "It doesn't matter right now anyways. We all know he's keeping secrets-" he looks at me and takes my hand, "both of them are." He looks at Max. "I don't know how you figured this out, but it makes no difference now. I'm the tetrakinita right now whether I like it or not- and it's going to stay that way so I might as well stick up to it." He nods at Max, then at his food.

And for the first time, I notice how the circles under his eyes darkened, deepened even, how his eyes hang through the happy mask he puts up, how his limbs work slowly, as if trying to contain energy whenever he's not training.

I move closer to him, and hold his hand tightly. I say to him, "You're not alone, Peter. You never were and you'll never be." I place my chin on his shoulder, trying to tell him I'm right here.

"We're all right here, Peter." Richard says from across him and I am grateful for them- and I know he is too.

"Shh..." Peter says, suddenly alert. My head gets pushed off his shoulder automatically as he comes to life. "Oh, sorry." He says to me.

"What happened?" I whisper to him.

"Andrew." William says. "He is here- isn't he? I thought I heard something..."

"He heard us speaking." Peter says, standing up.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to talk to him." I nod at him and tell the others to sit down- Peter would want to do this alone. He smiles at me and I nod, understanding.

I continue eating my lunch, remembering to pack Peter's for later. He won't be able to last much longer if he continues eating and working and sleeping like he is now.