“Are you okay?” I ask Anna.
She looks up at me with large brown eyes and says, “I don’t think I can be scared of things anymore.”
That brings tears to my eyes, and I drop the shin guard in my hands to hug her. “We’ll get through this,” I tell her.
I know, she thinks.
Anna is the only one who invites me to read her mind. She unconsciously views me as an extension of herself — the person who knows all of her secrets but will tell no one, the person who knows every little facet of her dark past but won’t breathe a word of it. We’ve grown extremely close, and I’ve revealed many aspects of my past to her. Her trusting eyes promise relief from the pain of keeping the poison of my memories inside of me, and her mind tells me she will never tell a soul.
“Hey,” Violet says gently, “we don’t have much time left to gear up.”
I nod and let go of Anna. “We shouldn’t be taking her,” I say angrily. “We shouldn’t be putting her in danger. She’s seven.”
“What other choice do they have?” Lara asks. Her dark blue eyes are hard as she snaps a breastplate into place. She looks up at me from across the room and shrugs. “It’s life. Sometimes people get shoved into situations they shouldn’t have to face because there are no other options.”
