While Sarah and Hugo are arguing over who is making dinner, I go back to the room they'd shown me as my own. It is small and bare; it has a metal bed in the corner with a thin mattress and green duvet, a short wooden wardrobe on the wall opposite the bed, and a window looking out to the forest with some green curtains that match the duvet hanging limply to the sides. I go over to the wardrobe and open it up to find some clothes already in there – the same ones that everyone else is wearing; a green top, camouflage cargo pants, thick woolly socks, a khaki-coloured belt, and some khaki boots. I shrug off the clothes I'm wearing and step into the new ones. I buckle the belt tightly, and lace up the boots, finally looking myself up and down. The clothes are a little baggy, and the trousers a tad too long, but I work with it to make them fit. I retie my hair into my bobble to make it look neater, then I stuff my bag at the bottom of the wardrobe, not bothering to unpack any of the other things I have in it.
When I'm done, I walk back out into the living room to find Sarah sitting back on the couch, looking cheerful.
"Hey!" she calls, smiling, "Hugo's making dinner, he's a way better cook than me anyways."
I laugh and sit down next to her.
"You look great! The uniform suits you," She says, but peers closer, prodding my arm, "It's a bit big though, you're so small and cute! I've always wished to not be a giant." She sighs sadly.
"Uhm." I'm unsure what to say back, finding myself speechless yet again.
Sarah elaborates, "I've always been the 'tall girl', I'm envious of you shorties."
"Trust me, it's no picnic." I grumble, making her laugh. Then I ask, "So, Fraser – the chauffeur that drove me here – mentioned something about each squad member having a different skill set. I know mine has to be my gymnastics and acrobatics since I don't possess any other memorable attributes, so what's everyone else's?"
"Well, I specialise in hand-to-hand combat," she explains, listing off on her fingers, "I know multiple types of martial arts, and can take down almost everyone in training. Hugo's a geek for weapons; guns, bombs, blades, you name it, he knows everything about it. He can assemble and disassemble firearms quicker than you can blink, and he can assemble and arm a bomb in around five minutes – it's quite extraordinary. Then there's Marcus. He's..." She trails off, pausing to think.
"He's..." I prompt.
"He's not got a speciality, and if you wanted to give him one, it would be in the arts of how to kill someone. I think by now he must know over five hundred ways to kill someone just using his bare hands. I've heard it's disgusting to watch, but also mesmerising, you can't look away." She says, a solemn look on her face. "He also has an extensive military background; he was born into it." She explains further.
"Wow, really? How many people has he killed?" I ask, intrigued, but scared to hear the answer.
"Actually, not as many as you'd think with my description because he wasn't in the army long before he got pulled to do this instead. He has been training for this since he was a child because his dad is the director of MI6, one of the best agents to ever pass through any military operations organisation, therefore Marcus never really got a choice in what he got to do. He was on deployment before he came here, and he was one of the only soldiers in his unit to return – he was also the youngest, he's just turned twenty so was nineteen on deployment, so to experience what he did... They say he's killed maybe forty people so far using only hand-to-hand combat meaning no weapons, which I know sounds a lot, but in our line of work, is a small number." Sarah tells me.
"Forty?" I gasp, "I'm not sure I can even imagine killing one person."
Sarah looks at me oddly, "You may need to get used to it, kill or be killed, Patience, kill or be killed."
We move to a lighter topic of conversation until Hugo calls us through to the kitchen when dinner is ready, and even Marcus joins us at the table. We eat a bowl of soup of which I couldn't tell what the ingredients were, but it was amazing. Hugo and Sarah tell me the stories of how they were recruited, which were almost the same as mine, how a recruiter showed up and watched them, then offered them a spot – although they already knew about MI6 recruitment and were both in the army since the age of sixteen, so I suppose they were only similar in how the recruitment was carried out, not the circumstance of the recruitment. Marcus sat silently, eating his food, and gazing blankly at the table.
"So, Patience, what's your code name going to be?" Hugo asks as he shovels some bread in his mouth.
I look up at him, puzzled, "What are you talking about?"
"Your code name," repeats Sarah, explaining, "We all have them to use on missions so that we don't reveal our real names if our comms are intercepted; mine is Snake because I'm good at attacking as quickly as a snake injects venom into their prey, Hugo's is Flame because of his fascination in making things go boom, and Marcus's is Dancer, because when he's fighting, it is described by others that he looks like he dances with death. So, what do you want yours to be?"
"Huh," I say, stumped, "I have no idea, I mean I can't do that much."
"Oh, shut up," Hugo rolls his eyes, exasperated, "If you couldn't do anything you wouldn't be here. You're good at gymnastics, right?"
I nod. "And acrobatics."
"Well let's think of a name that has to do with that."
Everyone except Marcus sits in silence, thinking, and we sit like that for five minutes until Marcus gives an aggressive sigh and says, "You're idiots, you know that right? The name is obvious."
"It is?" Hugo asks, looking perplexed.
"Yes, you moron. It should be Circus Freak, fits like a glove if you ask me." Marcus smarts, smirking.
"Marcus!" Sarah snaps, while I feel myself flush a crimson red.
"I'm not a freak." I say through gritted teeth.
"You sure? I'm just not sure what a tiny, clueless circus freak is going to give to this team, you know?" Marcus grins for the first time since I arrived, enjoying his taunting.
"I'm not clueless and I'm not a freak. It's not my fault that your head is so far up your arse that you struggle to see that not everyone has to be a cold, horrible person to have talent." I spit back.
Marcus leans forward in his chair, his hair falling into his eyes, and utters, "Talent? Let's see how far dancing in a leotard gets you when you have a gun to your head, Freak."
Before I know what I'm doing, my hand rushes for his face, palm exposed, ready to slap the living hell out of this arrogant twat, but just as my hand is about to connect with his face he catches my wrist, squeezing tight.
"Don't try it, Freak." He whispers a warning, before releasing my wrist, shoving it back towards me and standing up from the table, walking out of the room.
When he is gone, I turn to the gaping faces of Sarah and Hugo, who are sitting in stunned silence.
"What?" I snap, not meaning to be rude to them, but I don't like being condescended upon.
"You just tried to slap Marcus." They both say in astonishingly creepy unison.
"He deserved it." I state with a shrug.
"No one does that to Marcus and gets away with it." Hugo stares, continually stunned.
Sarah has a worried expression on her face, "I mean this in the nicest way possible, Patience, you need to watch your back." She warns.
"What do you mean? I didn't actually get to hit him unfortunately." I huff, folding my arms, and slumping back in the chair.
"Patience," Sarah repeats my name with urgency in her voice, "No one, and I mean no one goes against Marcus, and you just tried to hit him within three hours of meeting him. He has the fun hobby of breaking people who try to stand up to him just because he feels like it and knows no one has the balls to stop him. If you react to what he says, he won't let you being in his squad deter him from humiliating you too."
"I'd like to see him try." I reply nonchalantly.
* * *
Ending the first evening of my time at camp in a not-so-great way, I climb gratefully into bed and crash as soon as my head touches the pillow.
The next morning, I'm awoken by a loud piercing siren. I open my eyes groggily, barely lifting my head from the pillow before Sarah comes barrelling into my room.
"What are you still doing in bed?" She shouts over the shrill of the siren.
"What is that?" I croak, squinting at her.
"It's the morning drill alarm, we need to leave now or—" Sarah is suddenly cut off by a loud crack, and a series of shouting. She pauses for a moment, expressing a look of puzzlement before swearing under her breath and grabbing me by the sleeve of the jumper I had been sleeping in, dragging me into the wardrobe and following in behind me before slamming the door shut.
"What—" I start but Sarah clamps her hand over my mouth, and puts a finger to her lips, quietening me.
I strain to listen for what is happening outside the wardrobe, hearing a lot of banging, something smashing, someone shouting. Sarah removes her hand from my mouth, and I feel her moving her hands next to me. Through the cracks of light seeping through the gap in the doors, I see a flash of metal and Sarah poking the object into the wall. She starts turning it and keeps turning until I hear a click. Sarah puts away what I can now see is a pocketknife and pushes on the wall, which gives way easily under her touch.
Just as I'm about to look and see what is through the hole in the wall, the door to my room is flung open and we can hear the sound of heavy boots making their way across the floor. Next thing I know I'm being pushed through the hole and Sarah is jumping out after me. I fall the few feet to the ground, rolling down the embankment that is positioned directly beneath the hole.
I come to a stop at the bottom of the hill and look up to see Sarah turning the knife in the same spot as before, the hole being covered and disappearing as though it was never there, replaced by the logs that built the cabin. I know that if I looked away, I wouldn't be able to tell you where the hole had been.
Sarah turns and sprints down the hill after me, roughly pulling me up by the collar of my jumper as she runs by me, pulling me on to run with her.
We sprint past rows of cabins and into the trees. I follow Sarah blindly until we stop, gasping for breath. I have the biggest stitch, and my legs are aching, my feet still bare and covered in scratches. I turn to Sarah who somehow looks as though she has just gone on a relaxing Sunday jog.
"What the hell was that?" I demand, glaring at her.
"That was the morning drill, I told you. If we're not ready and out of the cabin before the higher-ranking soldiers go past, they come in guns blazing and hunt you down – they have cameras at the entrances and exits so can see who is in their cabins and who isn't," Sarah glares back at me, "And we were."
"Seriously?" I ask, confused.
"Yes, this happens every morning, get out or get caught, get caught, go home. Those are the rules, and you were almost going home the day after you got here if it wasn't for the secret escape Hugo built into all our wardrobes." Sarah explains, her eyes darting this way and that.
I study Sarah's face, her extra glances, and bluntly state, "I know there is something you're not telling me."
She raises an eyebrow in surprise. "Look, I'll answer your questions after, but right now we have to look for Marcus and Hugo. This is a team exercise and judging by the sound of the siren, it's supposed to signal a whole day drill, so stay on your toes, follow my lead, don't ask questions, don't engage with anyone who isn't us, and do not mess up. Got it?" Sarah rants, the most serious she's been since I arrived.
"Got it." I nod nervously.
"We'll find you a pair of boots when we can but until then do you think you'll be good? I'd give you mine, but my feet are a lot bigger than yours, and it would make you clumsy." She pauses, then adds, "Clumsier."
"I'm good." I grunt, taking a deep breath.
"Okay then, follow me."
And we run.