The Undecided

Chapter one

Sweat beaded an dripped off of me, but I took no notice. I drove my legs harder and harder until it felt like I was flying. The only thing keeping me grounded was the searing pain in my legs- but I didn't care.

Finally, I had to stop because a constant beeping had started to pierce what had been silence.

I sat on the railing along the side of the walkway, and lifted my wrist to look at my watch. I pressed the flashing green phone-shaped button and a hologram of my personal trainer appeared in front of me.

"Sierra,"

"Emmi,"

"I told you not to run so hard. You are pushing yourself too far and you could seriously hurt yourself."

"I've said it before and I'll say it again; I'm fine!"

"You might feel fine, but internally you might not be!"

"You never know, I could be fine inside and out. You might just be bluffing because you're scared I'll be able to beat you when we have our next race."

"You'll never beat me, Sierra Beretto."

"just you wait and see."

She started to say something else, but I ended the call before she could finish. I stood up, and began walking in no general direction. I decided I'd done enough training, so I began the walk back to my house.

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I stepped into the shower, and immediately felt all my muscles relax under the steady, warm flow. I tilted my head back, and felt the hot water seep over my closed eyes, down my nose, run over my lips. With my eyes still tightly shut, I groped around the walls until my fingertips met the cool plastic of the nearly-empty shampoo bottle. Halfway through rubbing the bubbly mixture through my hair, I heard a click that I instantly recognised as the door opening. My sudsy hands flew to my exposed anatomy and I opened my eyes. my mum's petite figure was standing there.

"Mum! A little warning next time, please! You know, it's really not that hard to knock!"

My mum smiled sweetly and batted her eyelashes. "Ok Shnookums."

She knew I hated that name. I screwed up my face and turned away, setting the bar of soap that had been in my hand on the rack.

"All I wanted to say was you got a letter in the mail from the Refinery office today, and I thought you might want to see it."

Oh, right. That.

"Ok. Has the Implementers office one shown up yet?"

Mum frowned. 'Implementers? You are looking at both?" My mother was a refiner. She was an applications officer at the Organisation of Newly Joined or Deciding Refiners. (NJD for short). Her job was to review the applications, and reply to the applicants with advice on which party they should join. She also was the one to give the news that they didn't fit into society how the government wanted them to and was most likely going to best fit into the Undecided.

"Well, I want to review my options as best I can before making the decision."

Mum nodded. "Ok- fair enough. Do you want me to review your application?"

"Oh, uh... it needs some work."

Mum frowned again. "Ok. Well, I'll leave you to it. Dinner will be ready by the time you're out. Oh, and remember your Father and I are leaving for the New Arrivals conference today."

"How could I forget?"

Mum smiled at me and lingered for a moment, the stepped out of the doorway. I closed my eyes again and a click of the door was an indication that she'd gone. I stepped back into the heat of the water, and finished washing the soap out of my tangled hair.

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I was woken up by a beeping next to my head. I opened my eyes and saw flashing red and green lights coming from my watch. A call.

I blinked a few times to get rid of the post-sleep blur, then squinted at my watch searching for the name of the caller.

MASON

Mason. What the hell was Mason calling me at 11:56 at night for?!

I didn't know what to do. I combed my frizzy bed hair with my fingers in a futile attempt to tame it, then just settled on tucking it behind my ears. I adjusted my pyjama top and took a deep breath.

I pressed the green button.

Almost instantly, the gorgeous face of Mason Miller shone before me.

Except, this time, he kind of wasn't gorgeous. There was a racket behind him, a plastic cup in his hand- and A look in his eye that I knew meant he was far gone.

He was drunk.

And, who knew- his eyes were kind of red and his pupils slightly dilated.

"Mason, you're-"

"Drunk!" He finished my sentence for me.

Oh shit.

"Mason, where are you?"

"I'm at Sharon's. This party totally rocks, dude!"

"Ok, you sound like that turtle from finding nemo. What did you-"

"Come and get me, gorgeous! All my friends are totally pissed and cant drive for cuh-rap."

"You want me to pick you up from a party because all your sober drivers got drunk?"

"Yes. Then you have me to take you to the castle?

"Mason... what castle?"

"Your huge ass mansion. Duh."

"You want me to pick you up and take you back to my house?"

"Uh, yeah. Once again- duh! Now hurry up Sierra!"

This was a sick ass joke. But my keys were already in my hand.