Childish War

Her guys! This story is now fully updated and available on Wattpad. My username there is '-Chye-'. If you like Childish War, please support me on there as well  Of course, I'll continue posting here too for those of you without Wattpad

 

While I'd love to do a collab, I hardly even have even time and momentum for CW right now. I'll definitely let you know in the future if I have any, though ️ Thanks for reading in the meantime

 

Chapter 26

"That reminds me, you're one of Lauretta's kids too, right?" Tatum rejoined the conversation.

I nodded my head.

"So that makes two of you. Lance is also Lauretta's," Tatum gestured toward Lance across the room, "Ain't that right."

Lance nodded his head.

"Wait, why am I included in this?" I asked.

"Well, you're with us now, aren't you?" Tatum seemed faintly confused by my question. Did they expect me to join Callum's Daylight Army? I'd never seriously imagined I'd ever join one, but if I had to, I'd guess it would happen like this. By passive-aggressive force; the passive part being the expectant, naïve smile from Tatum. The aggressive part turned out to be Callum swiping Lance's assault rifle from the latter's hands.

"And if not..." Callum promptly released the safety on the rifle, aiming the barrel at my face, "BANG, BANG, BANG, in li'l Mara's cute, little head!" He simulated his words as he spoke them. Callum's forever-present grin grew wider.

"Knock it off!" Author lowered the rifle in Callum's hands. Callum groaned and tossed the assault rifle back to Lance.

"Then what...?" I managed to croak.

"We'll cross that bridge if we get to it," Author sighed, "Although Callum's on the right track."

I gulped.

"You don't have to be so scared, Mara! We're not so bad. Even Callum's a nice guy once you get to know him! We're like a family inside of a family. Plus, we offer three meals a day, beds to sleep on, and gun training from our very own Lance," Tatum gleefully chimed in.

"Heh, with you, it'd probably be better to leave the fighting to us. Fourteen-year old girls are better for running errands." Author spoke as he thought.

"Never hurts to practice," Tatum grumbled. Author shrugged, presumably standing as corrected.

I could not even put a word in for my own situation. Everything was being decided for me, and I couldn't think of anything to stop it. How very typical. Whether lucky or unlucky for me, I had left my own rifle back at the Night Owl HQ, previously named Pike's HQ. So any menacing appearance I had was gone with that one missing item. Sure, I'm not the best shot, but I was in no position to be demoted to errand girl. If anything, I was fresh from pre-Childish War gun training. Not that I that I had the guts to tell them that.

 

Chapter 27

"Ah, that's right. We should probably do that before we forget," Author changed the subject. The matter of whether or not I'd be an active combatant could apparently wait.

"What?" I tried to wedge myself into the conversation.

Author pointed to the three small dots under his left eye, "This. It's a symbol that you're one of us."

Indeed, all four of them shared some sort of black facial marking. Along with Author, Callum had three small dots under both eyes. Lance had that plus two bold lines streaking across the bridge of his nose. Tatum had two under her right eye.

The facial markings were too small to notice from far away, so they weren't messages to other siblings. Most likely, they were more comparable to mafia tattoos. They were a sign of permanent loyalty toward Callum's daylight army. Only Callum would come up with such a crude method of identifying his members, and only his Daylight Army would be so blindly loyal to follow through with it. In any case, I'd be completely ostracized and targeted by every one else. Not that I wasn't used to the feeling to begin with.

"So soon?" I gasped, grasping at any chance to delay the procedure; straws, to say the least. My face must've been in utter horror.

"I don't see why not?" Callum saw right through my poorly-made excuse. His Glasgow grin smiled me down, waiting for me to come up with another pitiful deception. I had none.

"Because I don't want to," I growled like a puppy to a grown dog.

"Suit yourself," Callum brandished his pistol, intimidating me into submission.

"Upupup," Author rose from his seat in the floral armchair adjacent from the bed me and Tatum were seated on, "I'll be taking that." He seized the gun from our insane brother. Author promptly shoved it in an extra slot in his belt. "Just give her some time, she'll come around."

I sighed in relief. At least I had someone sort of on my side. On the side of not strapping me down to a table and forcibly tattooing my face, anyway.

"I'll give you a day," Callum compromised, eyeing me.

"That's a start," Author sat back down in his chair with a soft flump and gave a swift wink in my direction.

He and Pike were cut from the same cloth after all.

A/N: A moment of silence for all the times my mom peeked over and thought I was writing smut during this chapter.

 

Chapter 28

I settled among my enemies for the night. Tatum and I took the bed, while the Auhor camped out in the chair he was sitting in during the day. Lance slept soundly on the floor with his jacket pulled up over his face, barricading me from the door. Callum had snuck out of the room after the others had settled down for the night and was still nowhere to be seen three hours afterwards. The silence brought in new comments and pleas from my new, unwelcomed friends.

"Kill them!" They begged, "Do it while they sleep!"

It had been fairly easy to ignore them in the daylight when everyone was talking, but now it was pure torture.

"You're not their ally, right? You should kill them and escape while you have the chance!"

I glanced over to Tatum, who slept soundly; a soft breath escaping her lips every now and then. She put up no barrier between us, as if voices weren't trying to convince me to slit her throat on the spot. It would be so easy.

"Do it!"

I forced my eyes close. Just go to sleep, I told myself to no avail. The Night Owl lifestyle had taken its toll on my sleeping schedule. Around this time, which I estimated to be around one in the morning, I was usually wide awake. But now, I was positively exhausted after an unfortunately eventful day spent awake.

"Booooring," The mechanical voice complained.

"Then go away, please," I mouthed, careful not to make any sound to wake Tatum. This caused the voice to erupt into a choir of refusals. I opened my eyes again and sighed, choking back a few tears.

How could a mother subject her daughter to this constant harassment? I know my relationship with Lauretta is less then affectionate, but she'd always been a very neutral figure in my life. Only now do I realize she may be as bad as Father, who orchestrates this entire mess of a war. But then again, she's never done anything to shield her children from it; a guilty bystander.

I sat up in the bed slowly, swallowing saliva that had been accumulating in my mouth. Now is not the time to be emotional about this, I lectured myself. We've been over this already. Yet here I was, doing anything in my power to prevent my face from becoming a wet disarray of tears and snot.

She abandoned us.

She abandoned me.

Why couldn't she love me?

 

So you thought this story was dead? ?

Chapter 29

As the sniffs became more frequent, I sat up in bed. Careful not to make it squeak, I shifted to the end of the bed. Even if I was careful to not make sound, the mechanic voices were still making a ruckus so I didn't know whether I was successful or not.

I looked back at Tatum to make sure she was still sound asleep. Confirmed. I sighed a breath of relief and lowered myself to the ground. I tried to map out the maze laying between me and the door in the dark, but unlike owls, human eyes only have so much capacity for night vision. This would be a do or die, shot in the dark escape.

The carpeted floor squished silently under my feet. Silently, I hoped the wood underneath would be as forgiving. Pushing my weight off of the bed, I lowered my body to the floor. I muted a whimper, cursing myself for being so sensitive.

"Last chance to take them out." The robotic voice gave me a redundant reminder. I shook my head, trying to focus on the journey ahead of me.

I crawled my way across the room, each step seeming more significant than the previous. I only stood up to step over Lance and finally to open the door. It must be god given luck that both processes went over without a hitch. With all the delicacy I gathered during the escape, I closed the door behind me.

Immediately I collapsed into a soppy mess of tears and snot and saliva. I strained my throat keeping any sound to a soft whimper. Today simply must have been too much.

"Look who's come to join the club," I jumped at the sudden voice. I had been so preoccupied with my own pity party that I hadn't noticed Callum sitting against the wall. His voice cracked as he spoke, much more solemn than the frivolous demeanor it had earlier in the day. Thanks to the moonlight filtering into the hallway, I could make out his mouth curving into a painful smile and his face swollen red. Despite me knowing better, he didn't seem to be much of a threat at all. In fact, he seemed rather pitiful.

"Are you okay?" I chirped. Whether I was actually concerned with his wellbeing was another matter.

"I'm used to it," He tried to laugh it off. His body rattled with wet breathes. Perhaps it was laughing, perhaps it was sobbing. The side of his face glistened as liquids dripped from his eyes and ears down to his chin. From the rusty stench that undercut the mildewed hallway, I knew some of it had to be blood.

 

Chapter 30

"Oh my god, you're bleeding?" I was too shocked to whisper. Callum's hand flew up to feel his left ear. The robotic voice in my earpiece said something about blood. By now, I had nearly mastered the art of ignoring it.

"I guess I am," He muttered, as if he wasn't already aware of the fact. I inched toward him. He was sitting across the door of the room where his daylight army slept unaware, knees tucked into his chest.

"What's wrong?" I whimpered. Callum shook his head. He continued his hallow laugh.

"Let me give you some advice, Mara. Be as boring as you can be. Don't attract their attention."

I was bewildered. Is that not what I've been doing this entire time? Is that not what my entire lifestyle has revolved around since the day I entered this mess years ago?

I must have looked as confused as I was, so Callum continued with a bittersweet smile. "Now I know you Nocturnal Siblings think that's your thing, but let me tell you a secret," Callum leaned in so close to my face that I could smell the salt in his tears and I felt his ragged, wispy breath heat my right ear. "I'm not the one you should hide from. You got yourself involved with something in-ter-est-ing, haven't you?"

Taken aback by his eerie demeanor, I inched away from Callum. My mind shot to Pike and the other Night Owls— I'd certainly count that as interesting.

"Is that why I have this ear-thing?" I mumbled.

"You can bet it is. Heck, even I got myself into some... interesting stuff and look what happened to me," He gestured to his bleeding ear, as if it were the punchline.

"What did you do?"

"Well, for one, I'm a prime candidate to win this whole war. But you remember those two girls— Marissa's kids, I believe— that died a month or two ago?"

I nodded my head. The twins, Céline and Luna, were just a year or so younger than me, so we had attended our classes together in preparation for the Childish War. Like me, they were Night Owls.

 

Chapter 31

"Anyways," Callum continued, "So that day, I was doing my usual rounds. All of a sudden, there was a bunch of screaming and I see this girl running at me. You know, the one with super short hair?"

"Luna?" I interjected.

"Sure... And this girl had a knife in her hand. So, naturally I try to block her attack. But the other girl came up behind me with another knife and I couldn't block that one too. Let me tell you, Mara, getting stabbed is not fun," Callum wiped away some of his remaining tears before pushing his sleeve up to reveal a dull scar just under his elbow. From what I could see in the dim light, the stitches were far from professional.

"It stings like a mother–.... it hurts. And then Author and the others come to check it out, cause they heard the girl scream, and find out I'm getting ambushed. One of them, I think it was Lance, shot warning bullets at them. That usually works, but not then. Luckily though, I wasn't stabbed in my right arm, so I grabbed the knife from the first girl and swung it at her."

He noticed my horrified expression.

"Mara, you gotta know I was in shock. I was just stabbed, for Christ's sake. And the blood— oh, the blood, Mara. It sickens me to this day. My blood, her blood, it made no difference. Killing another human being is no easy task. Physically, yes, but mentally, it's brutal. But that's not the point here, point is when I came to, they were both laying on the floor. The others must have shot the second girl in the confusion. And that's what made me interesting enough for this awful contraption."

"Wait," I was still working out the details of Callum's story. "You mean, you guys didn't single out Céline and Luna cause they grouped up?"

"Course not!" Callum exclaimed, "Where the hell'd you get that idea?"

"Well, I just assumed—"

"Mara, you sweet, naïve child. I'm only looking out for myself. I don't want to hurt my siblings as much as the next guy," Callum grinned innocently. He had stopped crying sometime ago, apparently engrossed in his own story too much to produce any more tears. But the blood remained.

"Do you want me to bandage that up for you?" I offered my assistance. Callum shrugged.