Tree of Evil

---Rayna---

The little boy gasped in awe. Most people did the first time they saw it. I’ve even seen some people cry at the sight. I think it is over rated. It is just a big giant tree, that dumb, stuck up, annoying, greedy, evil, people lived in. I am one of the few people who thinks that the Queen, King, and their children are that bad, but they took everything from me, so the least I can do to repay them is to hate them. The little boy ran forward across the great bridge and into the town with his parents. I just stayed and waited. I was supposed to meet my contact here, for the next assignment, but they were running late, very late. I tapped my foot and fiddled with the dagger concealed under my cloak.

---Brenton---

I was racing through the town, I was late, and if what I had heard about my contact was true then he might just throw me off the bridge to drown. I saw some people giving me strange looks as I ran through the town, but I pulled my hood lower and kept going. I couldn’t afford to be noticed right now. It was normal enough for one of the palace boys to be running through on errands, but if anyone tried to talk to me, or ask me how the royals were doing my contact was definitely going to leave before I got there. I was to deliver the biggest assignment in the history of the resistance, and that is really saying something, because the first members of the resistance have been dead for almost 30 years. This was our chance though, we were going to bring the crown crashing to the floor with this plan. And my contact was said to be the only one who could do it.

---Rayna---

I was about to leave when I noticed a figure walking towards the meeting point. I watched closely for a few seconds. It was hard to see the person from under their cloak, but it looked to be a boy a few years my junior. He was wearing the uniform of a palace employee, probably a boy who worked in the kitchen or something, but none of those details really mattered. I was looking for a sign that he was like me. I caught my luck break when his hood was blown back from the wind and I was able to see that his hair was colored a dark navy blue, unlike the bright greens that were the height of fashion at the moment. The blue was the exact same shade as my cloak, and my dagger handle. I decided to approach the boy.

---Brenton---

I was standing at the meeting point, I was trying to be inconspicuous, but I needed to find my contact. I slowly turned in a circle looking for someone wearing a sign, or who could flash me a signal to tell me they were on my side. As I was standing there a girl walked over. She was a lot taller than me, and probably 3 or 4 years older. But she was wearing blue. The girl stood at the railing and looked down into the water. I thought she might be my contact, because she was wearing the color of the resistance but she was a girl. The assignment was too big, too dangerous, there is no way the girl standing just two steps away looking midlessly at the water could destroy the tree, This girl looked too fragile, there is no way that she could destroy the tree that housed the royals and all their servants like me. She wouldn’t have the guts.

---Rayna---

The boy hadn’t said anything yet, he just gave me an odd look and continued to scan the crowd. So I guess if I wanted to find out who he was I would have to start talking.

“It’s a warm day, why don’t you take your hood off?” I spoke. The boy was startled by my voice, and jumped around.

“Oh uh, I, I was just, just cold, ya ya I was cold earlier, but I can take my hood off now if you would like, I mean I don’t care, if you want me to I will….”. 

“He is skittish, probably hiding something” I thought.. He slowly pulled his hood down and I got a good look at the blue hair. It was the perfect shade of blue, he had to be part of the resistance.

“So you like the color blue?” I asked.

“Yep! It is my favorite.”. “Ugh this kid is clueless, I’m trying to give him a hint to reveal himself, I’ll just flat out ask him what his organization number is”

“What is your number kid?”

---Brenton---

I turned to face the girl completely. She was staring at me with a blank expression. She had sounded as casual as if she were asking what my favorite animal was. But she had asked what my number was. My top secret identification for the resistance. Well I guess “top secret” might be a little overkill. If you were to meet someone you learned their number so you could know that you had meet the right person. There was no way this girl should know about the numbers unless…

“Are you just gonna keep staring at me or answer my question kid” She demanded more than asked.

“I’ll give you my half” I decided “you have to tell me the rest”.

“That's how this works, genius, did you go to 12 years of school to learn that or figure it out all by yourself?” she rolled her eyes. Ignored her and took a deep breath. I still wasn’t convinced that a girl could take this assignment, and I was worried I was giving my number to the wrong person. But there was only one way to find out.

“31837”

“26125” she replied without hesitation.

---Rayna---

The boy looked shocked and I’m not really sure why. He must have assumed I was part of the resistance, otherwise he wouldn’t have given me a number, so why was he so shocked that I knew the other half.

“YOU are the best in the organization!?”

“I mean probably not the best, but I am decent. I mean I organized the Stream of Rubble attack, and also was the spy that led the IAD assignment. Who told you I was the best?”

“Wait, wait, wait, YOU did the Stream of Rubble? That was the most successful attack the resistance has had” he said with astonishment in his eyes. I looked around and realized that a few of the people around us were giving us weird looks.

“We need to move, follow me” I said suddenly, the boy looked around and must have noticed the people as well, because he just nodded. We walked for a couple of blocks then I knocked on the door of a random building in town. We were let in by an older woman who immediately recognized me. She let us through and I lead the way to a secret set of stairs inside of a closet and then onto the roof.

“Okay this is a safe place, can you give me the assignment” I turned towards the boy,

“I still can’t believe you are the one they want to give this job too”.

“Why not? Look kid, I’ve been doing this for years, I promise I have the credentials to take the assignment, whatever it is.”

“It isn’t that I don’t think your experienced enough, it’s just.

“It’s just what?”

“Nothing, okay do you want your assignment or not?”

---Brenton---

I gave the girl her assignment, and then went home, I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that she was a SHE. I’ve always been raised to think that boys are the ones that go off and fight wars. And of course I knew that there were girls in the resistance, but I just assumed that they snuck messages around in their skirts, or kept hiding places for fugitives clean. I didn’t realize that a GIRL could have organized the IAD, much less run the thing. As all these thoughts were going through my head I was walking to my room in the castle. I passed a portrait. And it made me stop in my tracks. I hadn’t realized it but I had wandered into the gallery of the past. The walls of the giant room were filled with images of the past, the way things used to be before the current king a queen took over. Of course all the royals were made to look like tyrants and the people were painted to look like they were being crushed under the weight of the world, but there was one portrait. Everyone in the resistance knew that it wasn’t true, but the King and Queen wanted the people to think that they had been saved, not trapped. The one I stood in front of now, It was of a girl, a girl around my age. Everyone knew the princess, even if they didn’t know her name. There was a myth long ago that she survived the castle being taken over. I had never believed it, but the girl in the portrait, that was my contact, the girl I had just met, who had set up the IAD, and the River of Rubble. She was the princess who had once lived in these halls, and she was about to destroy them.

---Rayna---

I took my post, waiting, and staring. I was staring at the tree, the one that held so many memories. My childhood. The one my parents had lived in, the one my brother had lived in. The one the people looked up to. The tree that thousands of people went in and out of everyday. The tree that evil had taken over. It was finally going to burn, and the “king” and “queen” were finally going to pay for what they had done. And I was going to be the one to do it. I saw a red flag being waved out of a window and took one last look at what used to be my home. This was the last time anyone would see it alive.