Bully Trials [Remake]

Chapter Eleven

I hear a woman's laughter right behind me. My smirk does a 180, along with my body to investigate who is sneaking up. It is Marina. That is the first time she has shown true emotion. I can't help but smile. "Hey, Marina! How was your last round?"

"Very sociable," She answers sarcastically, "hearing tons of victims and their dead sorrow bored me."

"Girl, how many people did you kill as a bounty hunter? Don't bounty hunters only arrest people?" I ask.

She shrugs. "They were killers anyway, and I'm the authority, so down they go. I hunt the right people while my parents were...assassins."

There are the Russian assassins, I thought, but I disregard them. I got a feeling that her parents were rough. I clear my throat. "I bet that they made you the you are."

"Pfffft, clearly. My two brothers and I were subjected to harsh survival challenges, chores and discipline. They were somewhat moral for not throwing a punch at us, but not moral enough not to throw knives at us. They would send us out into the cold and hunt for ourselves. I remember going to people's houses for food or resorting to theft. When I became an adult, I thought I was free, Jacelyn. My parents tracked me down and kept playing survival games." She clenches her fists. "I finally had enough and killed them. They lost my survival game."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that," I go. Laura and Maddie look at her with pity. "You don't deserve to be in the Bully Trials since you didn't murder innocent people, unlike your parents."

Marina sighs. "You know what my slogan is? Nikto ne yavlyayetsya polnost'yu chistym, dazhe devstvennaya dusha." (Никто не является полностью чистым, даже девственная душа.) She genuinely tilts her head before resuming, "No one is completely pure, not even a virgin soul. None of us here is riped with purity or having a halo upon our head. You murdered someone; you're here. The girl, Aimst, is here due to she killed her boyfriend out of self-defense. He was going to kill her. She didn't lie on the confession stand, so no one was hung when she said what she had done."

I thought the Bully Trials only punished those who murdered someone and never got caught. Something is not adding up here. Should I risk asking the council why those who weren't truly murderers until they had no choice are here or chat about it with Maddie and Laura? My eyes peer at the cliff. It's a good thing that I didn't say anything while in a dilemma. Jaymie, Drea, and Vampy finally look at all of us, ready to announce what exciting new adventure they will place us in.

"We know about jobs and activities ongoing in the modern world," Vampy states with a smile. His hands are raised as if he is running for the presidential election. You're not getting my vote. It's good that you know about the modern-day world because the way you look is from the 1800s. How about you dress like us, so we don't have to know you might be older than our great-grandmas?

He resumes, "How about crime-scenes? You are the undercovers– don't get revealed. Your task is to find a hidden body at a farm and dispose of it. Sounds easy?" Nah, dude, we know you are not putting us in easy mode. No one answers, just blank stares and cruel visions of what awaits us. Vampy waves his hand and off we go.

Marina, Maddie, Laura, and I emerge at the forest border. We can see the silos, the farmhouse, sheds, fields of corn crops with a giant scarecrow set in front of the house, and a barn. It's night with no stars and no moon, very weird.

"This place is large," Maddie comments while other survivors try to roam around the farmlands. "It's going to be a hard time to find the body."

"The body is probably buried," Laura assumes. "The guy said it was hidden. I am not expecting a mound of dirt."