Marked

Chapter Thirty-One

The next morning Rachel paced the small confinement of her room, from wall to wall and back at least a hundred times. She'd hardly slept a wink and when she had, nightmares had plagued her.

When Yalina finally entered Rachel's room her face was hard and she looked determined not to cry.

"What did she say?"

Yalina's shoulder twitched. "She said she never imagined I would throw away years of training over a boy, that she was disappointed in me and had thought I knew better than to jeopardize our mission."

"You are all so brainwashed." Rachel groaned, throwing her arms up in the air.

"You need to stop saying things like that unless you want to end up on the outside of these walls, with no protection."

"Are we really protected here, Yalina? If you or I or anyone else ever find ourselves in a run-in with the poachers, you better believe Abby is going to abandon us just like she abandoned Hector."

"It's done, Rachel. It's over. Learn to live with it." They stared each other down, neither of them really knowing what to say next. The hallway loomed up behind Yalina, bathing her in white light, her black hair looking blue under the fluorescence.

"I'm not giving up." Rachel brushed past her towards the door. "This isn't over, not for me."

Yalina caught her arm before she could leave. "Don't do anything stupid that could ruin the mission we've worked all these years to complete."

"My only mission" Rachel said through gritted teeth. "Is to stay human."

She yanked her arm away and strode into the corridor, her mind spinning, calculating, trying to find a way to do just that.

The dining hall soon greeted her with its usual buzz and trivial small talk. Everyone went about their day normally, except for one corner of the room where a crowd clustered around a heavy-set woman. She appeared to be crying, her shoulders weighed down with mourning.

In front of her was a board with several pictures tacked onto it. The newest additions, right at the bottom and surrounded by candles and flowers, were pictures of Hector and of a pale man, with a long nose and curly hair. Aaron.

Rachel wavered near the food line, listening as people came and went, giving their condolences and uttering words they thought were comforting. Her eyes remained glued to Hector's picture on the wall, unable to look away. 

Where are you?

"I'm sorry this happened to your son, Cora. He fought well for us."

Unwittingly, Rachel's feet carried her over to the board with the pictures, her skinny frame slipping through the crowd with ease.

So many faces stared back at her, so many people who had been sacrificed in the name of a mission she had yet to see come to fruition. What were they all waiting for, anyway? How close were they to achieving this so-called mission?

"His sacrifice will not be in vain, once we complete our mission."

Rachel scoffed. 

This made the man who had spoken raise an eyebrow in her direction.

"You got something to say, young lady?"

Rachel slipped her fingertip under Hector's picture, making a thumbtack pop off and land on the floor with a clang. She stared sadly at his solemn face, wishing so badly that he was there in that very moment. He would know what to say.

"What is your mission?" She asked him.

"To bring down the capital, of course." His lip turned up at the corner, as though he found her funny. His belly stretched out in front of him, a tell-tale sign of the bunker people's privileged lifestyle. Why would they ever want to see the truth, anyway? That would mean having to say goodbye to their life of comforts.