Never Again

Chapter 15

Katie's - POV

We'd been training for a few months now and we were almost at the stage where we would start real fighting. Every time I thought about it I felt a strange jolt of excitement before nerves took over and I'd go back to being scared again.

I had got a lot of information about Drew and her time here.  I had built a bond with her as she was the only one I hadn't had any hostile behaviour from and was also the only one who, as much as I hated to say it, I was actually starting to care about.

"So, how are you feeling about the fights?" Drew asked, leaning back and relaxing on the bed beside me.

"Nervous." I released in a breath.

After an incident in the food room where I accidentally spilt some food on the main group of girls who always hung around together, she was the one who helped to calm them down and make sure that I was safe. After that, I couldn't deny that she at least was looking out for me, even if I didn't know her intentions as yet.

"Just remember that I'm always here for you if you need me." She said taking my hand and squeezing it.

"I won't." I said, turning towards her and smiling while squeezing her hand back.

The warm feeling she gave me reminded me of my friends at home. I felt sudden sadness wash over me as I thought about all my friends; especially my best friend Jessica. I really missed her.

When we had days off and could go back to our rooms it was absolutely freezing and I snuggled into her side for warmth. It got so cold that it was sometimes hard to move our fingers if we weren't keeping busy.

"You'll be fine." She murmured as I fell asleep.

                              ~~~~~~~~~

"Begin!" Ana's voice boomed out as we got into fighting stances and states, sizing eachother up.

I'd been partnered up with a girl around my size who still looked pretty scared after all her time here.

I was glad I wasn't partnered up with one of the bigger girls because even with the training we'd been recieving for the last few weeks, I didn't think I could complete with their raw strength.

It had been two weeks since we had started and luckily I hadn't been any of the ones demonstrated on. Ana thought using actual humans would give a much better representation of how the scenario would go in real life, which I agreed with. I just didn't want to be the one demonstrated on.

Fighting had always been something I'd wanted to be good at but never bothered getting into. Those factors, coupled with the fact that I had no choice resulted in me getting some joy out of it and improving at an alarming rate. Even faster than I normally would.

You might think me cruel for ignoring the girls who got used as training dummies but that's how life worked here and we all had to either deal with it or suffer the consequences and I knew which one I'd rather.

We'd been trained to look for people's weaknesses and think quickly of ways to exploit them. I used this to my advantage and studied my opponent fast, searching for any weak points. I didn't want to give her any time to descend into me.

Getting to her legs I noticed how she kept one leg straighted more than the other, so I quickly pounced on the opportunity and faked her with a high punch and while she went to block that I kicked her in her exposed leg.

She let out a cry of pain and fell to the floor. I waited for Ana to come over as I didn't want to do anything I wasn't supposed to do.

She walked over after checking on some of the other people and looked at the scene before her.

"Good job," She said, making no move to help the girl or make sure she was alright. "You're one of our brightest students."

Hearing that from her made me feel warm inside and I stood a bit straighter.

"Thank you." I said, in as confident a voice as possible.

She nodded and then asked me as she left to help the girl up and check if she was okay. I didn't really care as I knew she would've done the same to me if she had the chance but I didn't want to make enemies cause in here they were almost guaranteed to hurt you or your friends.

When I saw the pained look on her face as she stood up I felt a jolt in my stomach and a smile started to creep into my face but I quickly suppressed these feelings and carried on as if nothing had ever happened.

"Let me know if you need any help." I said to the girl, already walking away before I heard her answer.

We were told to go to the office once we had finished our training and wait outside so we could each go in one by one.

None of us knew what the hell we were going to do and that scared us. I tried not to show it but some were not as successful as me as they looked as if they were about to cry.

"Next." I heard from the office.

I hadn't expected it to be my turn this quickly as none of the girls had come out yet and the time had past very quickly.

I walked up to the door and felt a cleanness wash over me, replacing my nerves. I opened the door and stepped inside, ready to see what was needed of me.

"You're score is 98 out of 100." I heard coming from all around me. There must have been speakers. "You passed. You can carry on with your training."

I felt excited that I had done something right and didn't have to worry about the potential consequences that I would've faced if I had done badly.

"Exit through the door on your left. You're ready for the next step." The voice said, almost mechanically, like it had done this loads of time before and it was routine. "You'll be training for you first mission so be prepared."

My first mission?

I knew that this organisation trained girls to be killers but was I ready for that?

I didn't know and frankly I didn't have to worry about it as I knew that Ana and the higher ups wanted the best girls to succeed so they'd give them as good a chance as possible.

So while I didn't know if I was ready I was damn sure going to try and get there.