It takes a long time for the next Soldier to take over my security shift.
The next man looks to be about the same age as me, with warm brown skin and dark eyes that makes him look frightening and kind at the same time. There's something about his appearance that makes him look just that little bit older than myself. Maybe it's the stubble growing along his cheeks and throat. Maybe it's the way he presses his hands to his hips and scrutinises me with a raised eyebrow, looking at me up and down. Maybe it's something else entirely. "You're one of the privates too," he says.
I stand up a little straighter, adopting a nonchalant look on my face. "I am," I reply, holding my hand out for him to take. "Private Parker."
The man takes my hand, shaking once as he replies with a smile, "We don't go by surnames unless we're around the captain. What's your first name?"
"Jackson," I say. "Jackson Parker."
I heard a few of the Soldiers around here mention the captain as they passed the hallway I'm stationed at. I haven't seen him around yet. I'm not even sure if I want to see him again. I probably have to at one stage, but I'm not looking forward to it.
I wonder if he'll recognize me.
"Jackson Parker." He repeats my fake name slowly, like he's testing it out on his tongue first. Maybe he's trying to decide whether it actually is my real name or not. "Pleased to meet you, bud," he says, dissolving my lingering worries. "I'm Diego Lopez."
"Nice to meet you too." I smile once as I push away from the wall, trying not to look at the Freaks in the cells around me.
Diego takes my place by the wall, casually leaning against the cool stone as he makes a show of leaving his hand near the hilt of his weapon while he stares at the Freaks' cells beside him. After a few seconds, his smile is replaced with a frown as his eyes linger on the ones imprisoned before him. He's staring at them like they are dirt under his boots.
He's no different from the rest of the Soldiers here.
A sudden crackling from the radio at my waist bursts from the little speakers, startling me as I make my way out of the hallway, not knowing where to go.
"Privates England, Jones, Parker and Hayes. Meet me outside the front immediately." The voice on the other side of the radio is hoarse, but I don't think it's just a bad connection. This must be the much-talked-about captain. The same man that announced my execution. The same man who will kill me if he ends up knowing who I am.
Parker and Hayes. The names ring inside my head for a moment too long. Nox and I need to get to the front entrance now.
When I finally get there, the others are already outside. They turn their heads simultaneously as I emerge from the prison. I don't meet the captain's eyes, who is obviously the tall man at the front of the little group. It really is him. He hasn't changed one bit. He's still the same gruff-looking old man.
As I make my way towards him, I wonder if he can hear the beating of my heart against my chest.
"Private Parker, I assume?" the captain says, quirking a bushy eyebrow at me.
"Yes, sir," I reply, standing in line with the others, trying to keep my head down so he can't see me properly. Two females, and two males—Nox and I.
The captain claps his hands together as if to get our attention, but our eyes are on nothing but him. "For those who just started today, I am Captain Hartman." His eyes look pointedly at Nox and me. "Nice to meet you." His tone is too dry to be considered kind.
I immediately decide I do not like this man.
"Today, you four will be going hunting," Captain Hartman says, waiting until the two girls beside me say a quiet yes to themselves. "And you boys who probably don't know what we mean by hunting, we are going to search for Freaks and bring them here, or kill them if necessary."
It now makes so much sense. That's why Scar Face and Gravel Voice were looking for us. Leo knew that they were Hunting us, but he didn't know they do it during their day-to-day lives, like it's their job. And by the looks on the girls' faces next to me, I can see that they enjoy it, too.
These people make me sick.
I try not to swallow hard. I put a look of fake excitement on my face, nodding my head once when Hartman turns to look at me. His eyes squint at my face for a few seconds, but I'm almost certain he can't recognize me. When I first saw him, my hair was longer and I didn't have as much hair around my mouth or on my cheeks. The rain obscured my vision, so I'm pretty sure it did the same for him as well. As long as I stay away from him, make sure he doesn't look too closely in my eyes, I'm sure nothing will happen.
As Hartman's words sink into my head, I realize I would rather spend my hours guarding the hallways than go looking for the same people I'm trying to save.
"Let's go," Hartman says to us, snapping the words as he trudges forward.
And we all follow behind him.
* * *
We have split into pairs.
Nox has been paired off with Taylor England, into one of the blocks of offices around the town centre while Brianna Jones is with me, searching some flats next to theirs. Captain Hartman said that many Freaks like to hide in the flats—or apartments, is what he called them—since that's where they found most of the ones that are currently in the prison now.
All of the words that he said as they crackled from the radio made me sick to my stomach.
The Freaks in the prison now may have been found in the flats around the town centre, but that's not how it happened with me.
Brianna's bootsteps are the only thing I can hear as we climb up the stairs to the first floor, keeping ourselves as quiet as possible so if there are any Freaks in here, they won't hear us coming.
"Change your radio to station seven," Brianna orders, snapping the words at me as she turns the dial on her own device. I try to copy her, wondering what the hell channel seven looks like and how on earth I'm supposed to change the radio to it. Then I see a large number 7 on the little screen and I stop the dial, clipping the radio back onto my belt.
"I'll take this floor and you take the one above, got it?" she says, staring at me intently with her large brown eyes.
"Got it," I reply quietly, making my way to the next set of stairs.
I watch her kick down the first door she comes into contact with, the force so powerful the sound reverberates around the hallway as she bolts inside the room, her gun raised. Then she disappears from sight completely.
Brianna Jones takes this job too seriously.
I make my way to the second floor quickly, the hand-held gun in my grasp shaking so much I can almost hear the mechanisms rattling around inside it. I push against the door as I turn the handle, my heart pounding so fast and hard against my chest as the door cracks open.
I check inside the flat for a few minutes, my heart lifting a little as I find no one in here. The apartment has seen better days, though. Almost everything has been looted over the years by the Freaks who have scavenged for food and supplies. Most of the furniture has been broken or flipped upside down or thrown into a random place, leaving behind shards of glass and chunks of rubble and wood.
I leave the apartment quickly, trying the next door over. I find nothing in this apartment either, but this one looks like a Freak has been here. Everything in these rooms have been burned, either from electricity or fire, I can't really tell. This Freak was either practicing using his or her abilities and this happened, or they were caught and fought the Soldiers trying to take them away.
The next flat over is locked. This makes me pause. I stare at the door for a moment, checking behind my back to make sure Brianna isn't there as I wave a hand over the handle, unlocking the door in a matter of seconds. Even though she isn't behind me, I can still hear her kick down the doors on the floor below mine. I roll my eyes as I remember Hartman ordering us to be quiet while wandering around inside the block of flats—or anywhere looking for Freaks, for that matter.
As soon as I enter the flat, something definitely feels wrong. I shut the door behind me and take more and more steps into the room, feeling a silence very different from the type inside the other two flats I checked. This silence seems to be filled with a tense kind of energy, but I can't tell if that's from me or from the Freak I'm sure is hiding inside this place.
It would be quite easy for a Freak to hide from the Soldiers if he or she has the ability to turn invisible, but those types of Freaks are rare to find. There was only one of those Freaks in the Ghetto, and I now have his ability.
If I could give abilities away like I take them, I could save all of the Freaks that are still in hiding.
I hear the faintest bang come from the bedroom. I enter that room quickly, eyes lingering on the battered wardrobe in the corner of the room, the only thing that must have made the noise I heard. The whole thing looks like it would have been white once, but now it's a gray colour, smeared with dirt and covered with dust from years of neglect. I tuck my gun back into the holster as I step over the glass and wood littering the ground, my heart pounding so hard and fast inside my chest I'm not sure if this Freak can hear it in the quiet room. I can almost feel the Freak inside this wardrobe. It's like I can sense how scared he or she is.
Sigma's ability would come in handy right about now. It would have made this mission so much easier.
I reach forward and touch my hands against the handle of the doors, but I pause. What if this Freak attacks me with their power? I remember the flat before this one as I carefully open the doors, bracing myself for what I see as more and more light spills inside the wardrobe—
There's no one in here.
And then I realize how stupid I am before it's too late.
I whirl around and grab hold of the metal piping before it connects with my head, my eyes shifting to the Freak holding onto it with a grip so tight their hands are shaking, turning pale within seconds.
It's a girl.
My eyes widen as she stares at me, her chest heaving up and down. I take a moment to study her. She's surprising clean and her long dark hair is without dirt but looks slightly wild as it frames her sunken face. She's wearing clothes that look like they have been patched so many times I can't see what the original trousers and shirt would have looked like.
I look back to her face, watching as her eyes fill with tears like she's come to accept her fate if I happened to be Brianna or any other Soldier.
"I'm not going to hurt you," I whisper in my normal accent, carefully prying the pipe from her hand. She steps back when I have the makeshift weapon in my hand, and she keeps moving backwards until her back hits the wall behind her. I stay where I am.
"Please," she gasps, her voice rough and hoarse. "Please don't kill me."
I place the pipe on the ground next to me, keeping her eyes locked with mine. Just as I straighten up, my radio crackles and Brianna's voice floods into the room.
"Found any Freaks yet, Parker?" she asks. "Over."
I notice the girl's eyes shift to the radio as I unclip it from my belt. I hold the girl's gaze as I click the button on the side. "None yet," I reply with the fake accent. Then quickly remembering, I say, "Over."
"Keep looking, then." I think I hear her sigh. "They've got to be around here somewhere. Over and out."
I shove the radio back onto my belt and turn to look at her again. I make sure my voice doesn't waver as I change back to my usual accent. "I'm not going to kill you."
"Y-yes you are," she stutters, despite what I said to Brianna over the radio. "S-Soldiers kill people like me."
I don't take a step forward as I say, "How old are you?"
The device strapped to my belt can tell me that, but I would have to draw her blood to do it. I'm not going to scare her by doing that. I don't even know how to use that damned device anyway.
"I'm n-n-nineteen," she whispers, her words stuttering even more like she knows the Soldiers kill the Freaks eighteen or over. Her eyes widen then, so wide I can see the colour of them even though her back is to the window where the only light is coming from. "You're going to kill me yourself," she then says, her words rushed. "That's why you didn't want her to know about me." She tries to back away again, but the wall is in her way. "You're going to kill me yourself."
I don't get the chance to reply and say that I won't as she raises her arm, palm out, and from her small, skinny hand comes a burst of white and blue light so blinding and so sudden my next move comes instinctively.
I catch the bolt of lightning with my own power, stumbling back a step as I stare at her, then the light in my hand. I would be dead if I was a normal Soldier. I form the energy into a ball and push my fingers apart, letting the light dissolve into the air between the Freak and me.
The Freak stares at me with her mouth shaped perfectly into an O, her eyes stretched even wider. She doesn't try to use her ability on me again, instead staring at my hands like she couldn't believe what she just saw.
"You..." she gasps, the word scraping against her throat harshly. "You're a Freak."
I take a step towards her, my heart lifting when she doesn't cower away from me. "Yes, I am a Freak," I reply. "And I'm here to get you to safety."