Bad Blood

Chapter 2

I open the door to see what must be my room. The room has brown walls; it's not the color of a fresh batch of brownies. It's just a light brown. I walk in further and see the room is bigger than the one at my old house. Most of the walls are covered with bookshelves, and there is a desk to my left in a corner. A mirror stretches across the right wall. I peer out of the window to see the city. I walk over to the window to see it is not a window; it is a screen. I reach my hand out my hand to try to touch the screen.

"You may not want to do that," a small tiny voice whispers from the direction of the door. I turn to find a girl, no a child, standing in what looked like a maid's uniform. She wears a brown dress with a white apron around her tiny waist. Her hair is tied up into two tiny buns on each side of her head.

"Why," I question. She doesn't move from her hiding spot. She doesn't even look up.

"Well, you see, it's not a real window. It's just a hologram. I don't want to get your hopes up, but if you don't like the city picture, there is a remote on the other side of your bed. You can flip through the pictures by clicking next," she mentions. She still won't look up. I walk closer to her and put a hand gently on her shoulder. She flinches back.

"You don't need to be afraid," I coax. She lifts up her face, and I see what she was trying to hide: bruises. A dark purple lump above her eye causes her eye to be swollen. She has another one on her cheek. "Who did this to you?"

"It doesn't matter," she brushes the comment off. "You have a limp. What happened?"

"I was trying to get away from that devil," I answered.

She nods. "Take a seat on the chair, I can help you with that, If you want."

"Yes, that would be... nice," I say. She scurries off into the bathroom, I hobble into the chair by the desk. I roll up my pant sleeve to see that most of the swelling has gone down. She walks back into the room with bandages and some sort of spray.

"What is that?" I ask. She holds up the bottle.

"This, you mean?" I nod. "Oh, this is a healing spray. You put this on a cut or a broken bone or in your case, a sprained ankle."

She sprays her "healing spray" onto my ankle. I instantly notice the pain and swelling go down, and I begin to wonder about the contents of the spray. She helps me wrap it up with the bandages she brought.

"How long have you been working here?" I ask.

"I am not allowed to answer that question." She quickly responds.

"Okay, what's your name?" I ask.

"Bethany, I have to go now." She runs out of the room. She's quite an odd, fidgety girl, but probably a lot of that is from the abuse she's endured.

I take off my other shoe and walk over to the bed. I bury myself in the covers and close my eyes. My dreams were worse than reality. I saw a crowd, people dying, and me, in the middle of everything.

The sky was bluer than usual. I am what I recognize to be the city center. A riot was going on I saw them: Jay, and Bethany and the Hunter I met in the alley. I was covered in blood and dried dirt. My hair was cut just below my collar bones. A woman was standing next to me. She had gray hair with a stripe of black in her hair.

"The rebellion must fall," Jay shouts. He had Bethany kneeling down, he had a gun against her head. He pulls the trigger and she falls motionless on the ground next to him. "This is because of you!" he screams at me. Fear sinks into my bones from the hard look in his gray eyes.

My dream was interrupted by a loud knocking. I sit up in the bed, "Come in." Three men enter my room. Two are guards, and the other is the disguised Hunter from the alley. Without his disguise, I notice that he is tall and looks quite strong with short black hair to match his military appearance. His freckles do soften his appearance. The guards quietly close the door behind them. They stand at the door while the Hunter walks towards me.

"Miss Lily, I am Kit, your advisor." I quietly pull out the knife from my sleeve. "There is no need for that, trust me please."

"Trust you?" I scoff.

"Yes," He responds. His deep voice echoes in the large bedroom. "This was the plan to get you here in the public's eye through this marriage. To get people to like you. Because you are the rebellion, the people's hope."

"I don't understand what you mean, and why is it me?" I ask.

"Do you see the birthmark on your finger?" He takes my hand and flips it over. "This means that you were picked even before you were born."

"The birthmark is the crescent moon. How does it represent the rebellion?" I ask.

"Well, I am not sure, but it is important, somehow?" He mutters. "Give me your hand."

I reach out and give him my left hand. He takes out a knife from his back pocket and cuts my hand. It isn't a deep cut. It is just enough to break the skin to draw blood. I recognize the shade that pours out of my skin.

"See. You have black blood," he holds my hand up to see.

"Thank you, captain obvious. I think I know that I have black blood!" I whispered loudly.

"Black means you are the chosen one to lead the rebellion," he rolls his eyes. "Do you remember the deaths of hundreds of people in the City Center Massacre? They were all supposed to lead the rebellion, but Jay's parents killed them all except for two, me and you."

"What!? My mother gave birth to me! I saw pictures from the hospital!" I shout.

"Shh, please. No, your parents couldn't have kids, so they adopted you. They don't know you have black blood," he states.

"If we are the only ones left, are we siblings?" I ask.

"Um, no. Both of your parents lead the rebellion together. Your parents had you. My parents had me," he explains. "We're from the same group of people who had black blood for many many generations."

"Oh, ok," I respond. My brain is silently cheering because he is kind of cute. I hope I am not blushing. "Great talk. You can leave now."

"See you tomorrow," he whispers.

"Or not," I mumble quietly. Tomorrow I am getting out of here.