When The Whistles Sound
an excerpt

Lightning took the human form of Army boots. Flashing down on the dirt like no one ever knew it was coming, stirring the dust, leaving a permanent imprint. Yes, it was definantly lightning. Nothing could ever frighten me more.

They were in three perfectly straight lines, maroon ropes around their waists, and expressions so blank I could not believe that they were separate beings. Their eyes were gray and half-closed. Long barreled guns hung in the ceremonial shoulder position; a raid mission. The leader looked no different, only stiffer with his maroon, gold, white, and green ropes being shown off around his torso.

My partner and I were mere feet from being discovered. We had not heard the raid party from the bend, but we were quick enough to dodge behind the bramble bushes when the first whistles sounded. It was going to be difficult getting back to the fort, even Clara understood that. I knew that the Army was heading north along the road towards an abandoned Resistance camp where our own hideout had relished what they left behind. I smirked defiantly. Those no good gun-flippers would not be finding much in the supply closets since we finished emptying them.

I kept as calm as I could while we waited for the soldiers to disappear from sight, then Clara led the way back to camp. It was risky traveling through the woods, especially now. We would have to take a long route around the abandoned camp to get back to the fort. If any Army cronies decided to take a little detour in the woods and we were caught, we would be most definantly tortured or killed.

Clara must have understood the thoughts that were paralyzing my sense of control. I was always leading Scouter, and even on partner patrols Clara respected me enough to let me give orders. But now, I could not even manage a run through the forest without her pulling me the right direction.

“Something wrong?” she whispered.

“Liam…”

“What about him?”

“Me and Josh sent him and Naomi to salvage wood and chairs from the old Resistance Hall today.” A branch lashed at my face, just breaking the skin, but I ignored it. I was feeling more pain then ever before with the thought of clever Liam and brilliant Naomi discovered by the Army, tortured and questioned. I knew neither of them would betray our makeshift family, but that would not stop the soldiers from surveying every scrap of land until they found us.

Clara’s green eyes widened, and from her silence I knew she was just as fearful. Maybe more, now that I thought about it. Clara was the second oldest Rebellion warrior. At seventeen she was given the privilege of teaching new recruits, and Naomi had been her first student. I remembered that day, last year in November, on Clara’s seventeenth birthday. The entire Rebellion was called to the beginners’ training clearing, where Josh, Clara, and Naomi were standing together in a line awaiting the ceremony. Josh’s voice had been loud, louder than I ever heard before with that eager stutter to his words.

He talked about Clara since the day she joined. Josh was twenty-one then, and he cherished the thought that if he had been any older he would not have taken in a seven-year old orphan who hardly knew why a man in a green suit took her Mama and Daddy away.

“I remember how she came into my quarters when she was eleven and wondered why Vera hadn’t returned from her scouting mission. It was a tough subject to deal with, but Clara never stopped asking questions, and by the time she turned twelve she had already discovered what we know today as Child’s Treasure Path.” At this, he put his hand over his heart. “Named for Clara, definantly. It’s only a pity this young woman standing before me hadn’t joined us sooner, before Vera was taken from us.”

The mentioning of Vera had both tore my heart in half and grew a new sense of hatred on that pleasant day. I was two years younger than Clara, and during that time Vera had not only been my trainer and mentor, but she had also been my mother. Of course, I knew that Josh had reasoned with every generation to be wary of kinship bonds. They cause too much trouble, and in a way I agree with him. The day I heard of Vera’s death by the same men who were only yards away from us, my mind had stopped working. My new trainer hardly knew what to do. I refused to talk, eat, or even get up out of bed for the first month. Josh, interestingly, reasoned with the Warrior Trainers that I was too young to have grasped the child-to-parent philosophy. When they argued Clara’s maturity at “such a young age” Josh had gently retorted that Clara never had to go through the pain at nine years old and see her relatives murdered before her very eyes. I had…

“Abby!” Clara snapped quietly, breaking me out of my reverie. “We can’t stay here!”

“But Naomi…”

“We’ll have to take a chance,” she replied slowly. Was that hesitance I heard? “It isn’t the right thing to do by any stretch, but rather they catch them instead of all four of us. Let’s hope they think they’re just a bunch of bandits, or better, Naomi heard them coming.”