Chapter 171
**CAY POV**
Life has a curious way of changing the things you expect to happen in the most unusual ways into something you would have never guessed could happen, and there is nothing you can do but sit back and watch as it plays out in front of you. Sometimes, you are merely a spectator to the things going on all around you. Sometimes, you cannot change the ending.
The shape shifter army is here, its outside the city, not a week away as we had thought, and in more vast numbers than we expected.
I stare at Kiren from across the table, his face is clearly showing what my mind is thinking; we are all screwed.
The army won’t arrive for hours, maybe days, if we can hold out for that long, which isn’t likely considering we never got a chance to reinforce the walls or the gate.
“So what you are saying is that we are all as good as dead?” Kiren asks, clearly not enjoying the possibility that he will join the after life pretty soon. “No hope? No battle plan? Nothing?”
“There are thousands of them, and barely two hundred of us.” The mayor says, his round stomach touching the edge of the table as he leans forward. “It’ll be like expecting a miracle. You may as well write to your families.”
For someone who has plenty of money, he sure does have a lot of grease in his hair. I wonder if he gambled it all away. Some rich people do that. What they have is never enough, so they chase more and more. Eventually it causes them to lose everything.
“I don’t know about any of you.” I say, looking more closely at the map, “but I’m not willing to die here, there has to be something we can do.”
I turn to Jamie who’s been nothing but silent this entire time, his eyes scanning every corner of the map.
“Do you have any ideas?” I ask him, praying for something, anything that’ll get us out of this alive.
I didn’t come here to die, I came here to start a life of my own.
He turns to me, gives a slight shake of his head and looks back down at the map, his shoulder dipping.
Well, shit.
That isn’t good news for us.
I look back down at the map, my heart racing as my panic rises, “what about some sort of a deal? Or a ceasefire?” I ask, glancing at all of them, “there has to be something that the general of that army wants.”
“The destruction of our people, that is what he wants.” Snaps Derran, his eyes dark with rage.
“I asked for ideas, not more reasons to lay down our heads and give up.” I say, standing as I slam my hands on the table, “don’t you see that there has to be something, we can’t just sit here and wait to die.”
Tears spring to my eyes when they all remain silent, my spine hitting the back of the chair as I slump back down onto it.
We really are dead. Aren’t we?
I stand again when no one speaks a word, deciding that it was best to get some air before I blow up at everyone, anger will not solve this. It never does.
Anger is what got us into this, anger and hate.
It’s wrongful hate, we have never done anything to the shifters. They just don’t like the fact that we took in the mutants and not them.
They think we chose to save one race over the other.
I hit the cold air and take a long breath through my nose, trying to calm my racing heart, and my traitorous mind.
Part of me wants to try and sneak away in the dead of night, a few people leaving the city through the sewers would go unnoticed, but I cannot leave these people behind to die in a war that they never wanted. It isn’t fair.
Shouts come from my left, people running towards the main gate to the city, a loud echoing bang filling my ears. It makes my head ring and my eyes begin to sting from the smoke.
It looks like they are already here.
I follow the people who are running towards the random fires caused by the explosive, watching as they try and fail to put them out. This whole town is going to burn.
Soldiers are rushing in through the gaping whole in the gate, tackling people to the ground as they scream and cry for mercy.
The shape shifters don’t know the meaning of mercy, every town they comes across is massacred. No one is ever left alive.
My heart hammers against my chest as I walk forward, joining the small crowd of people who are waiting for their death. There isn’t any point in trying to fight, what was left of the town guard has already laid down their weapons.
I can’t take on an entire army on my own, it would be suicide.
Though perhaps coming to this town without the army at my back was suicide.
The women all around me are screaming and crying, some are begging for the lives of their children, and other are begging to be spared in exchange for their children. It’s a mess. Your true character truly does come out into the open when your life hangs in the balance.
What will my true colours show? Am I a coward too?
Should I save myself and just watch these people die?