Project Servile : Defect [Book #1] ✔ Complete!

➽ S i x : The Warriors

Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
- William Jennings Bryan

I was already awake when the chaos started. It was around four in the morning. I couldn't find my way back to sleep after leaving the library. Those two little words on a small scrap of paper sent my mind into territories beyond forbidden. So there I lay, wide awake and thinking about a very specific shade of green, when an ear shattering sound erupted. Red lights began flashing in time with the screeching.

By the time I bolted up from my bed, Becca had slammed her way into my room. I couldn't even ask her what was going on before she grabbed me and threw me over her shoulder, running faster than I could have imagined while someone was splayed across your back. Automatically I knew where she was going while we passed the library and many of the other rooms I've grown familiar with in the last week.

Nan threw the door open as soon as we were in front of it. She had her gray hair rolled in curls and a scarf draped over them. I noticed she had on a lavender sleeping robe which brought my attention to the fact I was only in a silk tank top and panties. I internally reasoned with myself that something horrible was happening, and I had been paraded through corridors completely nude before, I shouldn't have been concerned with my lack of clothing. Yet my face still flushed.

Either no one was aware of my embarrassment or they just didn't care because the next thing I knew, I was thrown into the arms of an inhumanly beautiful, deep terra-cotta colored woman. Her hair was in perfect spring coils that bounced off of her head with amazing height. I didn't get a chance to acknowledge more of her, as she sprinted and the room seemed to melt into a blur of color. It was only less than a fraction of a second and we were in Nan's upstairs quarters.

The woman carefully cradled me with one arm while using the other to knock a complex pattern on a blank wall. I was about to open my mouth to finally ask what was going on but the sound of an explosion shook the whole room. A part of the wall slid open and the woman threw me inside. I expected to land on the floor, however I found myself cradled once again in a pair of strong arms. I looked up to find the last face I expected to see.

Draven was set in a veil of shadows, but I knew his face. I'd even admit to looking up information about him in the last hours of my library visit. He was a part of the Guard, fourth in command and the intelligence coordinator, at least when that paragraph was written almost fifty years ago. There was nothing about my mother which was a disappointment, but not a surprise. I wanted to know more and last night I had made it my mission to search, but at this moment I was just awestruck by his expression. It screamed one word into my shocked system. Protector.

In the small, dark alcove we were crouched in, there were two others. One was a man I recognized as the person Draven argued with in the hall the first day I was here. Harley. He had a small beard that covered most of his lower face and his angular features were very sharp. His skin was a coppery brown that seemed to glow even in the complete darkness. The other was a woman with fire red hair that was pin straight and cut off at her collarbones. She looked so tiny and her skin was the type of transparent white that reminded me of Andrea. Her size didn't deter the look on her face, the same as Draven's. All of them had the same protective stance. I was positioned in the middle of them which made my stomach clench. Why was I being so heavily protected? Why was I the only one in here needing the protection?