Rebel Young

Part 6

I extinguished the inferno with a wave of my hand and rushed to the back door. A gunshot sounded right before I emerged into the yard. I watched wide-eyed in shock as Annabelle's limp body crumpled to the ground. No! Not my little sister too! Instinctively I aimed my own gun and sent a bullet into the lightly armoured head of Annabelle's attacker. 

A well-built man armed to the teeth with top grade weaponry fell to the ground. My bullet had left an obvious hole in his skull. He'd removed some of his armour to allow a higher level of visibility. Big mistake. 

A fight broke out behind me and I heard a few male grunts. There was the solid thump of bone hitting flesh and a muted cry of pain. Light footstep travelled down the hallway to meet me outside.

"April, you need to leave, now!" A deep voice commanded me urgently.

"But what about my Mum, and Annie-" I was cut off by Jack grabbing my wrist. 

He led me through the back gate and down a narrow alleyway.

"What happened back there?" Jack demanded.

"Enemy troops invaded the house, they had my mother, I couldn't just stand there and let them torture her," I reasoned.

"You shouldn't have put yourself in danger!" Jack yelled at me. 

"It was my choice! I wasn't going to leave my family defenceless!" I yelled back. 

"Don't you get it April! You're not just another nameless soldier anymore! Your survival is vital to the success of-" Jack suddenly stopped shouting.

Voices started up somewhere in front of us. Jack and I stopped in tandem and turned our heads to the noise. We must have looked like a pair of meerkats in that moment, alert and watching for danger. The enemy troops must have heard our yelling and wondered what the hell was going on. 

"Follow me," I whispered.

"Where are we going?" Jack asked.

"A place," I replied simply, "you just need to trust me."

"Fine," Jack sighed.

I turned back down the alleyway and headed back in the direction we'd just travelled. Poking my head gingerly around the corner, I checked that the coast was clear. A small brigade of enemy soldiers crossed the road further down. Once they were out of sight I beckoned Jack and darted across the road. 

The alleyway I led us down was surrounded on either side with dilapidated buildings. It was the location of this suburb's safe houses. The safe houses were a last resort sort of place for families in case of raids. 

I knocked four times on one of the back doors. From the outside the building seemed flimsy and weak. An elderly woman opened the door for us. 

"Winters, April, plus one," I told her.

She stepped aside to grant us entrance into the house. The walls of the small room we entered into were reinforced with military grade steel and a slim ladder led down into a bomb shelter. I deftly slid down the ladder and waited for Jack to follow before settling into the shelter.

The shelter was essentially a small room of two metre (A/N 6.6 ft) thick concrete with a few chairs and cabinets. It was identical to every other bomb shelter in the city. Underneath my own home was one exactly the same, except for a few hand-drawn images my brother and I'd created during a bombing raid when we were much younger. Annabelle had never been inside the bomb shelter, I doubt she even knew it was there.

"How did you know about this place?" Jack asked.

"Every family gets a list of the safe houses in their area," I shrugged, "Mum made Ethan and I memorise ours."

"Why was I unaware of these places?" Jack asked, crestfallen.

I didn't know how to answer Jack's simple question.

"Didn't your parents ever talk to you about this sort of stuff?" I asked Jack gently.

"If my parents were around I bet they would have," he grimaced.

"My parents abandoned me when I was a toddler, they left me outside a church and disappeared into the night," Jack slumped down into a corner as he reminisced.

"Jack, you don't have to tell me about them," I consoled.

"I want to, it saves you from asking questions later," Jack muttered. 

I slumped down next to him and listened to his story, transfixed by the sound of his voice, deep and melodic. I absorbed his tone more than his words, and, before I knew it, his murmurings had relaxed me into a light slumber.