Born to Kill

5.

"... and another thing, Miss. Ernest-!"

"Oh, be quiet, Jack." The woman rolled her eyes at his dad and said coldly, "You can't argue your way out of this one."

The woman turned to face Elijah and immediately, he began to panic. The woman was extremely tall with her long black hair tied up in the back. Her skin was deathly pale, almost as if it had never seen the sun before, but the most bone chilling part of the skinny woman was her prominent jet-black eyes.

The grimace wasn't helping his fear either. "You must be Elijah Meyers?"

"Yes?" He responded hesitantly while studying the other men in the room who were all armed. "Can I help you?"

"Mr. Meyers, we're here to escort you to the annual debrief before the games along with your two volunteers." The woman, Ms. Ernest, announced. "The fights begin in two weeks and you, and your team need to be prepared."

Elijah could feel his stomach tumble and the voice in his head was screaming an astounding "No thanks!" But no words came out of his mouth and instead, his knees began to shake. Even with Cecilia's hand in his to comfort him, Elijah was afraid he might just pass out again which definitely wouldn't look good in front of whoever these people were.

Iris poked her head out of her room and Elijah desperately wanted to shout at her to go back to her room, but his lips were frozen. Looking around, she asked, "What's going on?"

With a small smile, Miss Ernest cocked her head to the side as she stared at his sister. "You must be Iris."

"Yes? Who's asking?"

"The FFAF Representative of New York." She responded, her eyes scanning Iris like a cat. "I've seen your work, Ms. Meyers. Where you lack in reason, you make up for in drive. You would do well in politics."

Narrowing her eyes, she gave Ms. Ernest the once over as well. Elijah begged her in his mind to just stay quiet, but then she decided to respond with, "Not when I'd be working with murderers like yourself."

By some chance, Ms. Ernest wasn't fazed with his sister's accusation. Instead, she smirked and said with a low chuckle, "You have to do what you can to survive in this world, hon." The amused expression vanished though as she turned to Elijah and asked, "Have you been receiving my emails?"

Elijah still didn't have the words to respond at first, so his dad beat him to it. "Kind of hard to do that when he's getting hundreds of messages from trained killers to take them onto his team!"

Ms. Ernest's confident aura faltered for a second, but she quickly shook off the shock and asked in a scarily calm voice, "You haven't chosen your teammates yet?"

"Not easy to trust criminals and killers, Lonnie!" His dad exclaimed.

Ms. Ernest stood up straight, her eyes narrowing as she sucked in a deep breath trying to remain calm. "Funny how I came here to speak to Elijah and yet you all are doing the talking for him...," She turned to her bodyguards and stated, "Get them out."

"What?!" Cecilia exclaimed as one man walked over to her to escort her out.

His dad, in his fury, yelled as another dragged him out. "You can't do this, it's my home!"

"Let me go!" Iris shouted as one grabbed her arm. He let go of her quickly as she glared. "I can walk by myself, you manhandler!"

As they all were ushered out by the men, Cecilia gave Elijah one last look over her shoulder before exiting. He tried to be brave and give her a reassuring nod, but part of him thought it might have looked more pathetic with his sad eyes and quivering lip as he tried not to break down.