Chapter 6.1

"Bella it's me!" I hissed, my hands up in surrender. Her hair was dishevelled, and she crouched in the footwell, a knife identical to that she'd given Theo and I pointed upwards in shaking hands.

She sighed with relief and lowered her weapon, readjusting herself so she could sit on the seat.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I saw some people coming this way, and I couldn't risk turning on the engine or they'd hear, so I just took off the hand brake and steered in here, it was the only thing I could think of. I couldn't tell if they were gone so I couldn't risk turning on the engine until you were back." She replied in a low voice.

"It's okay. Everyone is still in the sewers. I came out to find you first when you weren't where we left you."

She nodded and I climbed into the passenger seat. She was still rattled when she turned on the engine, her expression wincing when the truck roared to life. The sound echoed throughout the car park and we both held our breaths for a second before she pulled away. The truck crept forward, and she expertly navigated the obstacle course of abandoned cars, ignoring the no exit sign, we pulled up the slope and back onto the road. Sunlight blinded me, I blinked away dark spots in my vision.

Across the road, Theo was scrambling out of the hole, desperately pulling up child after child, basically throwing them out of the way before pulling up the next. I heard shots, a flurry of them, and Bella and I stiffened. I threw myself out of the car and ran to the manhole.

"One of those drones got to us while we were waiting! Sargent's down there trying to draw it away, but he only has one clip left. He has that girl with him, the one that can't walk." She yells at me, never stopped her hands and she frantically pulled children from the hole. They scrambled away before the next child could be thrown on top of them. Bella grabbed the children by the hand and escorted them to the back of the truck.

"Once the children are out, I'll go back down. Shadow and I will destroy it." But just as the words leave my mouth, there's a wall of flame; its heat washed over us and we recoil from the hole. Dread flooded through us.

"What was that? Oh my God…" her expression turns to horror, and I see panic seep into her. But the next second a small hand reaches up out of the darkness, and I snatch it up, pulling the girl out. Her shadow sits around her neck, in the light I see that it was a small fox-like creature with three bushy tails fanning out behind it. It eyes me curiously, then yapped a cough, splaying red sparks from its mouth. Her shadow breathed fire.

I chuckled with relief, just as Sargent's head appears and we all fall on our arses with relief.

"Bloody hell. You trying to give me a heart attack?" Theo breathed.

"The drone's fried, but I think more were coming so we need to get out of here."

"Agreed." I nodded. The girl and her shadow let me pull her onto my hip and we rush to the back of the truck. Bella was already there in the driver's seat, all the kids in the back, their scared, exhausted faces watching us for some sign of comfort, and then we were off, racing down the streets of Canderhan.

We were quickly out of the city, thankfully without any more trouble; some of the kids dozed, finally relaxing as we got further from the city. We didn't have any Garlantian pursuits, but I couldn't stop watching through the back window for anything amiss. It felt too easy; no one was seriously injured, and we'd managed to rescue all the kids, I just felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But then we were quickly back at the FDD safe and sound, all in one piece, and no sign of Garlantian soldiers, I thought everything was okay, and I told myself I was just being hypervigilant. The kids were excited, one boy chatted about how there was going to be tons of chocolate cake and jelly now they were here. The idea seemed to quickly escalate, each kid adding their favourite food until there was a long list of rich junk food that we certainly didn't have, at the end of the tunnel. They didn't seem to mind the dark or the slight smell that clung to the tunnel walls, admittedly it wasn't nearly as bad as the Canderhan sewers. Their shadows, who before hid around their necks or the creases of their clothes (if they were small enough), began to raise their heads, some of them now brazenly walked side by side with their human.