The Last Wars by Bianca Gray (suggested reading txt) 📖

dropped it like it was something poisonous.
“Let’s just get out,” he said coming towards us. Snow stepped away from him like he was some awful being. Like I didn’t just kill that guard holding her. Well, at least I wasn’t eating them like Prince was. That was sort of…
“They didn’t feed me,” he said after a while. Okay then… Maybe that was the President’s way of torturing him…
“Snow, you go with Prince. We need to split up,” I said. She looked at me like I was crazy.
“GO!” I yelled at her as alarms started wailing. I took Nick’s hands and we ran into those woods that we had run into just weeks before. I heard hound dogs chasing after us, but they weren’t just regular hound dogs, they were much dangerous than that. They might’ve been bred differently. Who knows? All I knew was that those weren’t regular dogs.
“C’mon Nick! They have weird dog things chasing us. Hurry!” I cried out to him. He fell and just gave me a helpless look.
“Go without me, Annika. Just go,” he whispered.
“No, Nick I can’t!” I yelled at him. Why won’t he just get up for God’s sake?
“GET UP!” I yelled desperately at him. I tugged on him.
“Get up, Nick. Get up,” I said tugging on his arm. He just looked at me with his bright blue eyes. His beautiful blue eyes.
“Annika, go,” he said. I sat down next to him.
“Nick, I won’t. I can’t,” I said, a tear rolling down my cheek. I heard the dogs getting closer. That’s when I noticed Nick’s leg. It was twisted in such a weird way.
“Nick,” I said gingerly touching his leg. He winced in pain. Then he caressed my cheek, making me look into those bright blue eyes.
“Annika, go,” he said again. Then he kissed me with his soft lips. I never wanted this moment to go. I never wanted him to leave me. I wanted to stay like this, forever. He pulled away, but with a scream. It wasn’t a dog, like I thought. It was a mix between a saber tooth tiger and a bloodhound. The…thing had Nick by his leg.
“GO! ANNIKA FOR GOD’S SAKE JUST GO!” he screamed at me. I stared at it. I was so scared of saber tooth tigers. They knew I was. All this time they knew. Then Ebony leaped off my arm and attacked the thing. I grabbed Nick and decided to drag him. He screamed.
“What are you DOING?!” he yelled at me.
“I’m not letting you go,” I said. He just stared at me. Pain evident in his eyes.
“Annika, you have to. I’m slowing you down,” he said as the things surrounded us. I dropped his arm and sat down with him. I saw a hovercraft thing appear in the air.
“If you go, I’m going to,” I said, knowing very well that I couldn’t possibly die. He just stared at me like I was crazy.
“Annika, I have no importance in this world. It’s you. It’s only you. You are the One. You have to save countless of other people,” he said. I cupped his face in my hands.
“You’re important to me,” I said. That’s when the fire thing fell out of the sky. It made a circle around us, so we couldn’t escape. Then Nick passed out.
“Nick!” I screamed. His pulse was slowly dying. HE was slowly dying. He was losing so much blood.
“NICK!” I screamed, tears running down my face. Then I felt his hand on my face, his eyes looking at me. I felt so warm. And then he was gone. His hand dropped and his eyes just stared ahead. I screamed and put my head on his chest. No, no, no, no!! I thought. Nick, my precious Nick. My hands were glowing white again. This has to save him, I thought, it has to. I put my hands where his heart was supposed to be. The light filled his whole body. Then I heard it, loud and clear. His heart was beating. Then he blinked and his blue eyes filled with life again. He gasped. Then he looked at me.
“Annika,” he whispered.
“Oh, Nick!” I cried out. I engulfed him into a huge hug.
“I love you,” he said. I hit him upside the head.
“You better,” I said smiling. Then the smoke became so much. I started to cough.
“Can’t you do something about that helicopter?” he asked.
“Maybe,” I said coughing. I lifted my white glowing hands and then closed them into a fist. I heard a creaking metallic sound. And then screams as people fell out of the crushing helicopter. Then the helicopter seemed to explode and bits fell toward us to the ground. Yet, still, the fire was around us, and getting closer every second.
“What are we going to do?” I panicked.
“I don’t know,” Nick said looking around with bright new eyes.
“What can we do?” he asked looking at me. I looked back at him, knowing it was useless.
“HELP!” I screamed. It was the last thing I had. The last idea I had. Then out of nowhere, people came into our little circle of fire. A girl lifted a gas mask and winked at me. It was Fayre.
“Well, c’mon you two love birds. Let’s go,” she said. Daniel picked me up so easily and then threw me over his shoulder. Nick was thrown on his other shoulder. Then we were pulled up into the air, out of the smoke. We were put into some hovercraft thing and I couldn’t stop coughing. I coughed and coughed and coughed. Even Ebony couldn’t stay on my shaky body. So she just decided to walk around a bit, exploring the hovercraft.
“Where are we going?” I managed to choke out.
“Somewhere further away,” said Lilly.
“Away from President Rose’s reach,” said Venus.
“But what about the others?” I asked.
“What about them?” asked Lilly.
“We need to save the whole country! We need to have everyone out of President Rose’s grasp!” I said.
“We agree, we do,” said Lilly.
“But…?” I asked.
“We shouldn’t right now,” said Amelia. I didn’t see her and hearing her strange accented voice made me jump.
“For now, we’re going to take refuge in MY country. Where my father is. Until further notice,” said Amelia.
“YOUR country?” I asked.
“Once called England. Now called Britland,” she said.
“Britland?” I asked.
“I don’t get it either. Mixing Great Britain and England together or something. I didn’t name the country,” Amelia said rolling her eyes. We were taking refuge in some unknown country that all spoke how Amelia spoke. We were going to take refuge in a place called Britland, which honestly in my opinion just sounded totally and completely STUPID. I guess my face was a total open book because Amelia just glared at my distaste.
“Again, I didn’t name the country. Besides the name it’s completely awesome. There aren’t so many things to rebel against there. We’re a perfectly good country. Unlike yours,” she said, defending her own country. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Britland is so wonderful. So superb. Just the place where everyone wants to be. Yeah, ‘cause I want to tell people that I’m from “Britland”. In my head I mimicked Amelia’s accent (very badly) and said, “Oh, ello there! I’m the One, named Annika. Oh, did I mention that I’m from Britland? What a wonderful place. Just absolutely wonderful. So peaceful. Nothing to rebel against there!” I saw my dragon snicker because apparently she can hear all my thoughts. When we finally landed in Britland, a man with graying hair and bright green eyes like Amelia rushed us into a huge home. I was guessing it was her father.
“Come, come. Hurry,” said the father.
“What? What is it daddy?” asked Amelia. For once, I was jealous of her. She had her mother and her father. She was able to keep them. My childhood was stolen of that. I didn’t get my mother and father. They didn’t keep me. Suddenly I was snapped back into reality when I heard Amelia’s father say, “President Rose followed you. She’s here, in Britland.” I heard Daniel snicker when he said Britland. You had to admit. It was a pretty funny name. Amelia’s father glared at Daniel.
“Mister, I don’t think you know how serious this is,” he said.
“No, no, I do sir, I do,” said Daniel straightening up. Snow rolled her eyes at him.
“So, what do we do?” I asked him. Before he could say another word, a lady came down the stairs in a scarlet red dress.
“Surrender,” she said smiling with perfect white teeth and fiery red hair. Her copper eyes twinkled.
“Zanita…” whispered Venus. Zanita smiled at Venus and twinkled her fingers.
“Hello, there, Venus. Didn’t think I’d follow everyone here to Britland did you? How are you? You look well,” she said. Then she took out a gun and pointed it at all of us.
“Remember that prophecy thing? About how a few of the One’s companions would get a supernatural power? Remember that? I’m sure Amelia’s oh-so-good mother told you. Well, guess who has one,” she said smirking. Then she held out her hand that glowed dimly and suddenly, Nick was flying towards her. I held out my white glowing hand and pulled on Nick. Neither one of us were touching him. He was floating in mid air, and screaming in pain. We were pulling on his very existence. Then from behind me someone stabbed my back. I keeled over in pain, letting go of Nick, and Zanita had him in her grips. She put the gun to his head. I took out the knife out of my back and realized that the twins were here. They just walked up the stairs toward Zanita. Their eyes were different. Instead of the pretty big brown eyes they had, they were crimson red, like President Rose’s. I threw the knife at Zanita’s head but she stopped it with her dimly glowing hand. She could control things with her mind. But guess what, so can I, I thought. As I was lifting my hand to crush her head in, the gun in her hand went off, and then blood spurted out from Nick’s head. His body went limp and he fell to the ground with a sickening thud. It was silent. Zanita shrugged.
“Whoops,” she said. Then before I could cry out or kill her, she disappeared. The twins were gone too. I ran towards Nick.
“Nick! Nick, c’mon! Don’t leave me again! Don’t!” I cried at him. I slapped his face.
“Wake up! Wake up! NICK! WAKE UP!” I yelled at him. I shook him and shook him. Soon enough Daniel was holding me back. I was aware of me screaming, tears streaking my stained face. But I couldn’t hear anything. And then, upstairs on the railing I saw her. I saw President Rose. And I saw her smug smile on her face. The two words I couldn’t bear to think came into my mind. Two words that would crush all hope. And I knew. I knew, unfortunately, that it was true.
She won.