This Is Not The End.

Chapter 27

Collapsing on the bench, I let out a sigh and put my head against the tabletop.

"How'd it go, Misery?" Jack grinned as I sat opposite him. I glared at him at the sound of what I knew would be my new nickname. Out the corner of my eye, I could see Kai waiting in line to get some food.

"It went well, thank you," I sneered, which made him laugh.

"What did the evil dictator want?"

"Oh, my God, can we not call him that?"

Jack leant forward over the table, "Did he recruit you for his evil dictator, child abusing organisation?"

"No. I'm in the rebellion against the evil dictator's child abusing organisation."

"You're no fun, Jones,"

I breathed out a sigh of relief as he said my name. A week ago, he refused to call me anything other than C003 – now even thinking about the number made me groan – but here we were. Jack Farren and Skye Jones. Fuck the numbers, the system, and SWORD.

Kai slid back into the bench next to me and offered me a spoon for his lumpy soup. I politely refused. He shrugged and swallowed a chunky spoonful to Jack's and my horror.

"How was it with Dad the Dictator?"

"Oh, my God!"

They both laughed and I resisted the urge to punch them. The only reason I didn't was that we had limited time to the raid, and I was not having a broken team.

"So!" Beck grinned as he hit Jack when he found the final seat at the table, not that it stopped Cara, who made herself fit next to him and Jack. "How's it going, team?"

"Oh, this is gonna be so unbearable," Jack rolled his eyes. I laughed.

I locked eyes with Beck, and it was almost a race to see who would look away first. I wasn't mad at him anymore – I didn't know who I was mad at for a moment and it was a weird sensation – but he didn't know that.

"Never mind, I don't know how anything could top this,"

Kai glared at Jack and took a spoonful of soup. He shut up.

"Okay," I said, sighing and turning to the idiot. "Can I talk to you?"

Beck blinked once at me, "Me?"

"No, the sixty-year-old woman behind you,"

"Well, I mean if she's willing-"

"For the love of God!" I stood up and he stood with me. "Please don't be difficult,"

"I am difficult,"

I didn't care at that point. I walked away from the table and hoped Beck was following. When I heard Jack say, "I swear if you even mention hide and seek..." to Cara, I knew he was behind me.

I didn't go far, it wasn't exactly a private conversation I wanted to have, but it wasn't one I ever planned to have in front of Jack and Kai. Technically, it wasn't a conversation I wanted to have, ever.

Beck leant against the back of the food truck with his usual air of arrogance and ability to piss me off with a single look– again – but I pushed past that. This was bigger than us.

"I'm sorry," I said, throwing out the words with the unusual sensation of saying them. In the past five years, I'd never been sorry for anything. This time it was different.

"Why are you apologising?" he frowned, "I'm the one who brought a decaying child into the compound,"

"Okay, so you apologise," I folded my arms at him, eyebrows raised.

"I'm not so good at that one," he said. As soon as I opened my mouth to retort, he pressed on, "But I am sorry, like, actually,"

"Damn, you really are shit, aren't you?"

"I told you,"

"Believe it or not, this isn't why I brought you here," I said, "I need our lessons to go back to normal,"

"By the raid?" he raised both his eyebrows, "You want me to get you good at being a Snuff in less than two days?"

"How could you possibly tell?"

He thought it through and nodded, "I can do it. If I get Sam and Cara to help me..."

"No more life or death situations, okay?"

"Pinkie promise cross my heart and hope to fly,"

"Fly?"

"What, you wanna hope to die out here? No thank you, that shit happens on a daily basis." he beamed as I let myself laugh, running a hand through his hair to keep it back from his face. "I'll figure something out, and get Maryse to make us a fuckton of coffee – you've got a long two days of training ahead,"

"I'd say I'm excited, but I don't want to lie to you,"

"Well," he nodded, "That's a first,"

I rolled my eyes playfully as I started heading back to the bench, but he reached out for my arm and pulled my attention back to him, "Skye, we're good right?"

For a second, I hesitated. He got on my nerves more than my dad did, and I'd just found out he was a part of the organisation who made my life hell, but Beck could change. As long as we both knew how bad he could be, we'd be fine... right?

"Yeah," I nodded finally, "We're good,"

As we walked back to the others, he eyed me suspiciously, but I hardly noticed or cared. I slid back into the bench next to Kai and Beck found his place next to Cara after she'd stolen his seat beside Jack. Cara never ceased to amaze me with her choice of clothing – today's being just another colour explosion. What struck me, though, was a plain silver necklace with a small three-mast ship pendant. As soon as she caught me looking at it, she stuffed it down her top and avoided my gaze. I tried to catch Beck's eye, but he was as oblivious as ever, and I soon had to give up because of it.

Kai passed me a piece of stale bread which he'd apparently 'salvaged' due to the rationing and I actually ate it. Mealtimes were often something I tended to overlook, my appetite wasn't as big as it was pre-SWORD, but I appreciated the offer. Bite by bite I managed to swallow the bread and keep it down for once, which made Kai feel the need to fist bump me and cheers with his soup spoon.

With the raid creeping closer and Beck's promises of allowing me to embrace my full potential, or whatever, I couldn't help but let myself breathe easily for once. Everything was falling into place in the right way so that I could ignore everything that was going so horribly wrong, and for once we were happy to look past how awful it was, because we had something going for us, and we were proud of it. Our team would carry the raid, and I was at the front of it.