The True Meaning of A Warrior

Chapter Nineteen: The True Meaning of a Warrior (STELLA)

"What did you do to Copper?" Zara demanded, shattering the stunned silence. For once, I couldn't bring myself to words, and I had to acknowledge Zara's defiant bravery.

"Not what." The sickly voice that I was getting familiar with let out a soft chuckle, so mockingly that I was tempted to hurl a throwing star at his face. Not yet, my mind decided. I don't think I'll be very good at this weapon, because I'd never used it before. And we don't want to get on his bad side. You saw how good he fought.

I watched despairingly as the leader brought both hands to the back of his neck again, this time with the locket clasped in his fingers. He quickly clink-ed the ends of the chain back together over his neck, and then let his hands drop.

The locket dangled from his neck, in a horrible ridiculous way.

"Not what. Is," repeated the leader, herding my attention back to the reality.

"But that's his necklace. You stole it from him! How did you get your hands on him?" Zara jabbed back through gritted teeth and clenched fists. "What did you do to him?"

A slow sinking of realization had crossed my mind, and I felt more miserable than ever. No...

"Oh, I didn't do anything to him. This necklace was always my gift. It will always be your nightmare. You'll see what I mean soon enough." And with that, he lifted his hands to his face and yanked at something hard. With a sickening ripping sound, his midnight-black mask fell off his face, and he caught it, stuffing it into the pocket of his cloak.

A slow, narrow-eyed smile rippled across the leader's face at our horror of realization. Even in the dim light, I could make out the familiar features. The honey-brown eyes and tasseled auburn hair of...

Copper.

It was like a spell had overturned us as soon as the mask had been ripped off.

Zara sank to her knees, her head lolling in front of her. Her two braids dangled at her side, and even their dangling motions seemed shocked and full of misery. Her dropped bow with the arrow nocked clattered to the ground. With her back slumped, her quiver of arrows slipped off her spine, and half the arrows spilled all over the ground.

Zara didn't bother to retrieve any of it. Concerned, I crouched down, trying to look her in the eye. Zara's face had gone a ghostly pale, and her eyes seemed distant, and faraway. It was almost as if she'd become a ghost itself.

I tried to find words, but no sounds came out of my mouth, so I straightened myself up into a standing position again, glancing over at Eve.

Her mouth was slack open, and her eyes were staring disbelievingly at Copper. It was almost as if she didn't want to believe her sight, as if...

A familiar horror and terror had dawned in Eve's eyes, and I knew she was being swept back to the time when she had first spotted Edera's body lying the dark, cold, eerie tunnels of the Dark. The same look in her eyes, the same expression on her face as those dark times...

I didn't really know Copper all that well. But I knew that Zara had genuinely liked him, and that he was part of the Survivor Mansion. But if he was the leader of the Dark, how had he managed to make his way into the S.M.? Unless it was all a trick...

I was having trouble wrapping my head around Copper's betrayal, so I definitely could not process everything that he'd done, all the tricks he'd made...

Right now, my emotions were in charge.

How could we let this happen? The leader of the Dark, under our noses the entire time. We could've changed everything. If we knew. And we didn't know, because we were stupid and dumb and...