The Protectors: Book 1 in the Protectors Saga (26 page)

“Wow," Avery said, rubbing her little sister on top
of her blond head, “it sounds like your day was a lot busier than
mine.”

The square dining room table had a purple and green
plaid tablecloth strewn over it, and in the center, sat a green
ceramic vase with bright bell shaped pink flowers sticking out of
it. There was a basket full of warm sliced bread, still slightly
steaming, a big pot of what looked like vegetable soup, a pitcher
of water, and a leafy green salad sitting on the table.

Avery sat down across from Cinder where a place for
her had already been set. Her mother ladled her a bowl of soup and
as the smell of spices and broth hit her nose; Avery could feel her
stomach lurch. Avery was too hungry to even bother with a spoon.
She picked up her bowl with both hands and slurped down the warm
salty broth and chopped vegetables. Cinder giggled as she watched
Avery attack the basket full of bread, slamming a large piece into
her mouth.

“Avery, honey, maybe you should slow down.” Her
mother told her, holding her own spoon above her untouched
soup.

Avery held up her finger to her mother as she tried
to swallow her large mouthful of bread, “Mom,” she swallowed hard,
“if you knew what Gumptin had put us through today, you’d be asking
me why I only downed my little bowl of soup, instead of the whole
pot. To which the answer is…I was trying to be polite.”

“Speaking of today,” her father said, slurping his
own soup up, “how did everything go?”

There were a hundred different answers running
through Avery’s mind, like, ‘horrible’, ‘I hated it’, ‘my life
officially sucks’, ‘if the Emperor doesn’t kill me, Gumptin’s
training will’, but, “Fine.” Was the answer she decided to go
with.

Her mother looked at her with concern, “Did Gumptin
say anything?”

This question puzzled Avery slightly. She wasn’t
quite sure what her mother was asking. After all, Gumptin had said
a lot of stuff, most of it insulting, and definitely nothing her
mother would be concerned with.

“About what?” Avery asked.

“About how your training was going. Does he think
you’re at the level you were before Earth? Is he going to make sure
you get an adequate amount of training before you’re actually
expected to go into battle? Does he know anything about the
Emperor’s plans? Do those plans include the Protectors? How does he
plan to get you better prepared this time?” Avery’s mother rattled
off her laundry list of questions without any pause, looking
intently at her daughter, fully expecting an answer for each
question.

Avery just stared at her mother, one dark eyebrow
raised. She stuffed another piece of bread in her mouth, stalling
for a little time. There was no way Avery wanted to discuss any of
that with her family. She wanted to keep all the conversations
involving her previous and possibly future death between herself,
the other Protectors, and Gumptin. She wanted to keep her family,
especially Cinder, removed from that worry, both for their sake and
her own sanity.

“We just trained, Mom.” Avery told her mother,
knowing full well it wasn’t the answer her mother wanted, “I don’t
think Gumptin feels there’s really too much to worry about right
now.” Avery lied.

The look on her mother’s face showed Avery she really
didn’t believe her lie.

Avery’s father reached over and rested his hand on
Avery’s arm, “Are you alright, sweetheart?” He asked.

Again, Avery didn’t know how she was supposed to
answer. Of course, she wasn’t alright; she had just spent the
entire day going through Gumptin’s boot camp from hell; she was
going to spend tomorrow doing the same thing and all for the
purpose of getting her and the other girls prepared to face the
psycho who had already killed them once.

“Why wouldn’t I be alright?” Avery asked, then
chugged a giant gulp of water to stop herself from showing any
emotion.

“Well, your mother and I were just worried that maybe
this all might be a little overwhelming for you.” Her father told
her, “That, maybe you might not be able to handle it as well as you
did before.”

Her father’s words caused Avery to prickle slightly.
It annoyed her that her father would suggest that her old self, who
had died, by the way, was more capable of handling anything better
than she could now.

“I’m fine.” Avery said in a clipped tone, not trying
to hide her irritation.

Avery saw her mother glance at her father, then back
at Avery, then back at her father, and then both of them glanced
back at Avery, concern written all over their faces.

That was enough for Avery. It had been far too long
of a day for her to sit there and deal with this.

After one more chug of water, Avery informed her
parents, “I’m going to bed.”

She stood up out of her seat, walked over and gave
Cinder a kiss on the top of her head, “Night, Cin. Goodnight Mom
and Dad.” Avery told them.

As Avery clumped slowly up the stairs, she heard her
sister chanting, “Goodnight…sleep tight…don’t let the bedbugs
bite!”

The moment Avery entered her room; she ambled over to
her bed and collapsed on top of it, not even bothering to get
undressed.

The last thoughts that passed through Avery’s mind as
she lay on her stomach, face buried in her puffy pillows, were of
her parents questions and concerns. She thought they were
reasonable fears and didn’t totally blame her parents for bringing
them up; she just couldn’t share them. Avery was sure that deep
down inside of herself somewhere she had to be scared; it just
hadn’t become a real thing for her yet. She wondered if she was
foolish, or just really dumb for not being scared of the Emperor.
Then, she thought that maybe it was a good thing she was either
foolish or dumb, because if she allowed herself to fully comprehend
what she was going to have to face, she would run screaming into
the nearest hole.

Avery sighed heavily, turning her face towards the
night sky, framed by her balcony doors, before mumbling to herself,
“I can’t believe it’s only been one damn day.”

Then, she quickly fell into a deep dreamless
sleep.

Chapter
8

The next week was a blur of exhaustion and pain to
Avery. Gumptin had them up at dawn training harder and harder each
day. It horrified Avery and the other girls to discover Gumptin had
actually taken it easy on them the first day.

Along with their normal training routine, Gumptin had
somehow managed to incorporate two hours of study time in the
library for the Protectors as well. Gumptin had them learning about
different beasts and Demons. They studied maps and were lectured to
about the history of Orcatia. Avery and Bunny took to the studying
easily, just as they had at school back on Earth. Of course, for
Avery it was more of a fear of failure than actual interest in the
subject matter. Skylar, due to her flightiness, and Avery
suspected, possible ADD, got about a third of what Gumptin taught
them. Even though Sasha seemed to spend more time painting her
nails and applying balm to her lips than paying attention, she
still managed to impress Gumptin with her ability to retain almost
everything he told her. Jade, however, was another story. She and
Gumptin butted heads more sitting in a library discussing a book
than they did when Gumptin was screaming at her to push her body
beyond its breaking point. When Jade wasn’t playing around with one
of her sharp knives, she was either sleeping, eating, or trying
unsuccessfully to get Avery, who was trying to pay attention, to
talk to her.

Mid-week, Gumptin incorporated the Protectors’ horses
into their training. They had to learn to use their weapons while
on horseback, an exercise that left more than a few injuries. The
worst of the injuries having been inflicted on Avery, who was
grazed on the arm by a wayward arrow shot from Sasha’s bow. It
happened while Sasha was on her horse, Belle, about to release her
arrow aimed at a distant target. Belle was at a fast gallop when
she jumped over a log, causing Sasha’s body to jerk forward as she
shot. Avery, who had been chatting with Jade and not paying
attention at the time, heard the slight whistle of the arrow a
split second before it reached her. She leaned to the right, the
arrow grazing her arm and sailing into a nearby tree, as opposed to
landing in Avery’s upper chest. It was all Avery could do to put
aside her own rattled nerves and stop Jade from tearing Sasha down
off of her horse and throttling her.

Gumptin, however, found the bright side of the
incident by praising Avery for her speed and defensive maneuver. It
was the first time since Avery had been told she was a Protector
that she was actually grateful for the abilities that came along
with the position.

Even though Gumptin had been quick to praise Avery
and call the whole situation a valuable training exercise, he was
also quick to make sure that from now on the girls all stood behind
anyone who was shooting sharp objects.

After the weapons training on horseback, Gumptin had
them practicing different maneuvers in the saddle. They had to
throw their bodies to the side, holding onto the girth of the horse
with their legs while picking up items off of the ground. It didn’t
start well when Bunny completely slipped off of her horse, Ajax,
and rolled hard onto the ground. Skylar ended up swinging around
past the side of the horse, down to its underside. She hung there
until Gumptin shouted at her to command her horse, Dancer, to stop,
an idea that had completely escaped her. Steel, Jade’s horse, whose
personality matched her own, decided to stop mid-run when Jade
pulled down on his reins a little too aggressively for his liking.
This sent Jade flying over his head and landing hard on her butt,
still clutching the reins in her hand. Jade cursed aloud, then
immediately got up and gave the reins a quick hard tug to let Steel
know he better not dare do that again. For Steel’s part, he just
snorted and turned his head away from Jade.

The rest of the day went on pretty much the same,
filled with injury and humiliation, and no one performing up to
Gumptin’s standards.

The day after their first training session involving
the horses, Avery was convinced that her legs hurt her more than if
she had actually broken them falling off of Phantom. She could
barely stand, let alone, run, flip, kick, and heaven forbid, squat.
Of course, that didn’t stop Gumptin from having them work just as
hard as he had them work the previous days.

It was the morning of the seventh day since they had
arrived on Orcatia, and Avery still wasn’t accustomed to the
ridiculously early morning schedule Gumptin had them on. Every
morning her father would have to come into her room and make sure
that she was up and getting ready. Avery hadn’t once been able to
get up in time on her own.

That was why, on the seventh day, when Avery groggily
awoke, snuggled under her thick comforter, she was surprised she
hadn’t needed her father’s voice to rise her. Avery stayed hidden
under her warm comforter for a few minutes, relishing the coziness
of her bed. When she finally did muster up the will power to peek
her head out from under her comforter, the burst of blinding
sunlight that hit Avery’s eyes sent her scurrying back under the
covers. Avery cursed the brightness that had left white bursts
floating in front of her closed eyes, until a panicking realization
popped into Avery’s mind. She realized that it was the sunlight she
had seen, and if she had seen the sunlight that meant that it was
past dawn, which meant that she was late for training.

“Gumptin!” Avery shouted in horror, throwing off her
comforter.

She jumped out of bed so fast that her legs hadn’t
had a chance to wake up yet, and she collapsed to the ground. She
picked herself up quickly, pulled on a pair of lace-less boots over
a pair of knee-high socks, snatched a hair tie off of her dresser,
and dashed out of her room, still wearing the black boyshorts and
‘Evil Dead’ t-shirt she had slept in.

Avery was so panicked as she rushed down the stairs
and ran towards the door, that she made it half way across her
living room before, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Jade
sitting on her couch, munching on piece of toast, and playing a
game of ‘Go Fish’ with Cinder.

Now, Avery was really confused. She stood completely
still for a few seconds, staring at her front door, trying to
figure out what was going on. She quickly abandoned trying to
figure it out for herself and turned to Jade.

“Morning sunshine,” Jade said, lounging back on the
couch and trying to suppress a laugh as she looked Avery over,
“nice outfit.”

Avery dismissed Jade comment with a shake of her
head, “Jade, what are you doing here?”

Jade sighed, “Getting my butt handed to me by a seven
year old.” Jade threw her cards down on the table, signifying she
had had enough of their game, “I know you’re cheating, kid.”

Cinder shook her head, “I’m not cheating; you just
suck.”

Jade had known Cinder since Avery’s parents had
brought her home from the hospital. She considered Cinder family,
which meant she could say things to Jade other people wouldn’t
dare.

“Get lost, tater tot.” Jade told Cinder, giving her
an affectionate little kick on the bottom as Cinder ran off to the
kitchen to join her mother.

It had always amused Avery, watching Jade’s softer
more playful side come out around Cinder, but right now, she wished
Jade would focus on her and her question.

“Jade,” Avery asked again, “what are you doing
here?”

Avery’s father walked out from his study, holding a
copy of the village paper, “Hey, sweetheart.” He said to Avery,
“Oh, by the way, Gumptin came by early this morning, a few minutes
before I was going to wake you up. He said he had an errand to run
and to meet him in the library at eleven. I thought I’d let you get
some sleep.”