Those words would come to haunt me, but at the time, they just broke my heart.
***
The voices carried through the kitchen and into the living room as I dropped my purse on the couch, my gift from Jax tucked inside. My parents rarely argued, and I shamelessly listened in concern.
My mom sounded frustrated, like she'd repeated herself too many times already and didn't want to say it again. "We've been ordered to stay."
"They've found us, Violet." My dad sounded equally frustrated, though he did his best to hide it. Of the three of us, he had the most patience.
His words sent a chill up my spine. Who'd found us? And why would anyone be looking for us to begin with?
"We don't know that for sure," my mom said, walking out of the kitchen, my dad following. When her blue eyes landed on me she smiled, but it didn't soften the anxiety on her face. "Hi, honey. We didn't realize you were home."
"I just got in," I told her. "What's going on? Who's found us?"
My dad, his dark hair a mess, looked at my mom, and she shook her head, her eyes pleading him to… what? I didn't know, but he didn't listen. Turning his attention back to me, he took a breath. "Come with me. I'll show you."
"Marcus, we promised to keep her out of this." My mom moved to stand between me and my dad, as if he was about to show me something dangerous.
His eyes were sad when he replied. "Perhaps we were wrong, Violet. Perhaps we've been wrong about everything."
Chapter 2
The Bunker
My dad walked toward the front door and I followed, expecting my mom to come, but she reached for the call button on her e-Glass instead as she brushed aside a lock of blonde hair. "If you're sure about this… I've got to tell the council we're leaving. I'll be right out."
My dad nodded sharply once, then led me outside and behind our house. Toward the bunker.
It had been built before I was born, dug deep into the earth with a circular metal door directly on the ground. I'd never been inside. Once, when we were little, I convinced Jax to help me break in so we could discover the secrets my parents kept there, but we couldn't dig around it, couldn't pry it open, couldn't do anything to penetrate the steel walls. It was the one mystery of my life. What was in the bunker, and why was I never allowed to see? Not even during the war did we use it, which seemed odd.
My dad always told me it was a safety issue. "It's just a bunch of emergency survival gear for if something terrible happens. There are guns and ammo and other weapons that I don't want you having access to."
Once I was old enough and trained in the use and safety of guns, I thought he'd relent and at least take me on a guided tour of the place. No such luck.
But now, now I was about to find out the truth, and that knowledge sent pinpricks of nerves over my skin. There are moments in life when you just know that what's about to happen will change everything. This was one of those moments.
I rubbed my hands together, forcing warmth back into them despite the heat of the early evening. "Dad, what's going on? Is this another training exercise?" I asked, though I knew the answer in my bones. My parents have always wanted me to be prepared for anything and everything and, from the time I was little, had often set up impromptu tests to see if I was mastering the skills they spent time teaching me. As I grew, those tests got harder, more unexpected and mysterious. But nothing like this.
"No, sweetheart. The time for training is done. Now, we can only hope you learned everything you needed to." With those cryptic words my dad brushed aside leaves and branches and dirt that hid the door. He kept his left hand clenched, and I realized he was holding something small and dark, but I couldn't tell what it was. Using a key he kept on him at all times, he unlocked the door and pulled it open, triggering an emergency light.
Shadows danced beneath me as I followed my dad down the ladder. Once inside, I prepared myself for something extraordinary, but was disappointed to find that it was fairly typical looking. Canned foods, extra water, guns and ammo, three cots, blankets… all the basics for survival for whatever apocalypse my parents imagined would occur. "Why didn't you want me in here?" I asked.
"Because of what you might find," he said ominously.
I picked up a can of beef stew and raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
He chuckled, almost sounding like my normal dad. "Not that." He opened an electrical panel and flipped some of the switches. "Stand back," he said.
I took two steps back, and then my breath caught in my throat. The wall in front of us began to open, revealing a secret room.
There were weapons laid on tables to either side of us. More guns, but also swords, knives, a javelin. Weapons I recognized from books but had never seen in real life. Weapons that had been polished, sharpened and well cared for.
Between the tables, to our right and left, were two large steel cases, each embossed with an intricate tree with the carving of a hand in the center.
My father walked to the one on the right and placed his hand in the carving. It fit perfectly, and streams of light began to form around his hand, filling the crevices of the carving like liquid, pooling out until it filled the whole tree. Once each leaf glowed with the light, the case began to unlock, clicking and moving through a series of internal gears until my father could pull the front panel open.
Inside, silver (according to Evie) armor polished to a high sheen adorned a mannequin roughly my father's size and shape. The armor was covered with a design of elegant, stylized branches.