The first-time privates sleep separately for the first night.
The quarters are much smaller than the ones the other Soldiers sleep in. Since there are only five males in here, there are only five beds and five small supply trunks each. That's it. That's all we have in here.
I trudge over to the bed in the furthest corner of the room before anyone can say anything, the others following closely behind. Nox takes the bed next to mine as I open up the trunk at the foot of my mattress, shoving my belt along with my gun and knife in there without a care. It feels good to be rid of them at least for a good few hours. My head feels lighter without them nearby, without them in sight. Having something on your person that can easily kill someone does not settle nicely on my mind.
Something I didn't realize about the first-time privates is that Diego is one of them. I thought he was a step ahead of us. That's what it felt like when he took me off from guard duty. He smiles and nods his head once when he catches my eye, laying down on his bed on the opposite side of the room.
"I don't care what you say, Rhys," a boy named Marc says from his cot, laughing as he unties his bootlaces, "you're completely wrong."
Rhys shakes his head as he shoves his stuff into his own trunk. "I'm not wrong," he replies slowly, calmly, despite his sharp eyes glaring at Marc, "you're just being arrogant."
"No, I'm not." Marc moves to sit down on the edge of his bed, looking at Rhys as he sits down on the edge of his own mattress. "The radiation that wiped out the Earth five years ago took the adults and the young children. Not just the adults."
My heart almost stops. My fingers halt from where they were untying my laces, my back starting to hurt from where I'm hunched over my knees. I keep my ears open, ignoring every other sound until all I can hear is the conversation between Marc and Rhys.
"That still doesn't make any sense," Rhys replies, snapping the words as he runs a hand through his wavy red hair. "How could the radiation only have wiped out everyone but the adolescents?"
"How the hell am I supposed to know that?" Marc snaps, glaring at him with hard eyes. "Why don't you have a stroll out there and ask the Freaks? All I know is that it happened, okay?" He shakes his head slowly. "I mean honestly, dude, have you seen any small children around since coming down?"
As Rhys replies with a few mumbled agreements and curses, my mind wanders for a moment. All the years I've been a Freak, I've never stopped and asked out loud why it changed just us, the teenagers, and not everyone else. Now that I've come to think about it since it happened five years ago, it might be something to do with our growth, maybe even while we were going through puberty.
No one knows for certain. Definitely not the Soldiers who dropped down here from living in space to save themselves from it.
"Oh my God, you guys!" Diego exclaims from his bed, sitting up and glaring at the both of them in turn. "Why do you even care? We were all rich enough to be able to escape it. Why are you arguing about what happened to those who stayed on the ground?"
That's interesting. For the time I've been here, I've never realized they had to pay to go to space. People here, in London, never got that opportunity. We were never even told about the radiation coming. All I remember was the surface of the Earth getting hotter and hotter, then everything else around us just... died; our parents, our homes, our lives.
Not only did the Soldiers in America survive the end of the world, but they think they have the right to come here and take us from it, one by one? I'm not going to let that happen anymore.
I sit up straighter on the bed, watching the argument happen with my eyes but not hearing it with my ears. I open my mouth to interject, but I feel a sharp pain against my leg, snapping me away from the two Soldiers.
Nox glares at me and shakes his head from his bed, retracting his foot from where he kicked me with it. This is not your argument, Luca, he says into my head, the echo of his voice harsh and sharp, a warning almost. Stay out of it. We are meant to be keeping our heads down, not giving them a history lesson.
I don't reply. I shift along the bed and force myself to lie down atop the stuffy mattress. I hate the fact that it's more comfortable than the bed I slept on in the Ghetto. The mattress back down there was hard, but the pillow was as soft as ever.
The room falls silent and I'm almost about to try and fall asleep when I feel all of the Soldiers' eyes on me. I turn my head to stare in their direction, locking eyes with each of them slowly.
"I'm sorry," I say, moving position to see them clearly as heat creeps onto my face. "What just happened?"
Rhys turns around fully to face me, his expression slowly turning into a smile. "We just wanted to hear your opinion on this whole Freak thing," he says, then nods down at Nox. "Tim said that he doesn't really have an opinion, but what's yours, Jackson? You've been quiet this whole time."
I sit up slowly. For a moment I stay quiet, wondering if I should speak my mind to these strangers. It would be so easy to say that I don't have an opinion like Nox did, to brush away the conversation and let them continue their pointless argument.
But I'm not that kind of person.
Ignoring the look Nox is giving me from his bed, I turn fully to face them. "Sorry, Rhys," I say slowly, giving him a small, sad smile, "but I agree with Marc on this point. I think it is possible that the radiation could have killed everyone but the adolescence."
Marc shifts on the spot and tries to hide a smirk as he looks over at Rhys, then me again. "How, though?" he asks. "Do you have anything specific to prove Rhys wrong?"
I blow air between my teeth, the words ready on the tip of my tongue, but I stop myself. For so long I've wondered what, exactly, happened during the time of the radiation, but I've never said it out loud, not even during my time in the Ghetto. Never to the other Freaks. The subject was always so touchy, especially since it killed our entire family.
But before I know what I'm doing, I'm speaking my thoughts out loud, and it's already too late to stop.
"Our bodies are a strange and unique thing that no one can truly comprehend how they work," I say, trying to listen in case either Rhys or Marc interject me. They don't.
I continue, saying, "Teenagers go through changes, such as puberty. We all know this, as we've been through it ourselves. But maybe while the teenagers' bodies were developing into maturity, they absorbed the radiation while the adults and children tried to fight it away, ultimately killing them. Maybe the older and younger generations just couldn't handle it." I shake my head slowly, dropping my voice to just above a whisper. "But we don't know for sure." All we know is that the radiation changed us forever.
Silence stretches on inside the room. It lasts for such a long time that I wonder if I said something wrong. My eyes dart to the door as if expecting a swarm of Soldiers to come in and take me away or shoot me on the spot because they suspect me to be a Freak.
But nothing happens.
Then Marc decides to speak up. "Wow," he says, the word pretty much just an exhale of breath from between his lips. "I never thought of it like that."
I shake my head, hard. "It's just my opinion," I reply with a shrug. "I could be wrong. I am probably wrong."
"No, no." Marc shakes his own head and holds up his hand. "Yours is a very good point of view." He turns around to face the man he's arguing with. "Do you believe it now, Rhys?"
Rhys lowers himself down so he's lying on his bed. "I guess I do." He blows out a puff of air. "But being honest, I don't really care anymore. I'm too exhausted to continue arguing with you, Marc. Hit the lights, someone."
As Diego goes to flip the lights off, I feel Nox push himself into my mind again, so aggressively it almost gives me a headache.
What the hell was that? he snaps, the words harsh inside my head.
I almost smile. It was my own opinion, Nox, I reply. I'm sorry it wasn't as awe-inspiring for you as it clearly was for Marc.
You little piece of—
I slam a block between us in my mind, cutting off his words. Nox almost gasps at the sudden change, feebly attempting one last time to push his thoughts into my head, but I resist him, the strain too much for my head.
I smile even though it's dark in the room, lying back down on my own bed and ignoring Nox's eyes burning into the side of my head.
* * *
I wait until I hear four separate snores to finally make my move.
I leave my boots where they are, crossing the room and the beds and the Soldiers in just my socks, the soft material not making a single sound against the cold, hard ground. I even leave my gun and belt—I won't need them for what I'm about to do.
I wait to hear any noise as I place my hand on the door handle. I don't hear anything; no one shifts in their beds, no one gets up, no one calls out my name. They are all just snoring.
I slip out of the room quickly.
Some of the overhead lights are still on in the hallway, shining dimly against the dull brown floor. I blink a few times as I make my way down the corridor, trying to get used to the lights from spending so long staring into the darkness, counting the seconds until the boys fell asleep.
The prison has a strange air to it when it's empty. All of the emotions from the Freaks almost seem to lay stagnant in front of my face, haunting and reminding me to do my job and complete the mission assigned to both Nox and I before it's too late. Before the Soldiers get to them first.
The Freaks are close. I can feel them nearby. Some kind of energy courses through my veins when they are near. I felt it tenfold in the Ghetto, but I never realized it until now. It might have something to do with the energy in their bodies, I'm not exactly sure. Maybe it's just me and my anxious state of mind.
A plan slowly starts to form in my head, how I'm going to take each Freak out of here without raising alarm to the other Soldiers. I can't afford to make any mistakes tonight, not like back outside of the flats. One wrong move and—
I almost slide when I stop suddenly. I backtrack so quickly I hit my back against a wall, the sound echoing around the large space. I curse myself over and over again as the Soldier turns around from where they were guarding the Freaks. I start to turn around and head for our sleeping quarters again when I hear the Soldier speak up from where they're standing against the wall, guarding the Freaks.
"Parker?"
I stop.
My heart pounds as her voice travels down the hallway. I slowly make myself smile even though I don't want to, carefully turning around to face her.
"Brianna?" I reply, walking over to her. "Long time, no see. How've you been?"
Her hand is resting against the hilt of her gun, inching slowly to grab hold of it like I will pounce at her at any moment. "What are you doing out here, Parker?" she snaps. "It's past curfew."
I stop a safe distance away, keeping my body language calm, nonchalant. "I was just looking for the bathroom." I crane my neck to look down the hallway to make it seem like I'm actually looking for said room. "Have you seen it anywhere?"
She lets go of her weapon to cross her arms over her chest. "You weren't looking for the bathroom."
"Excuse me?"
"You weren't looking for the bathroom," she repeats, almost accusingly, squinting her dark eyes at me.
"Yes, I was." I laugh lightly, the sound filling the tense and awkward space between us. "If you don't believe me, Jones, then come and watch me pee."
She closes her eyes and cringes, shaking her head. "You're such an idiot," she says quietly, then opens her eyes and glares at me. "There's a bathroom in your living quarters, Parker."
Crap. She's right. How could I be so stupid? There was a door on the other side of the room when we entered. It must have been a bathroom. How could I have missed it? I curse myself again, my casual smile wavering to the point where I'm convinced Brianna can see it clearly.
I speak up before she can comment on it. "Of course there is." I wipe away the emotion from my face and smile again, a little tense this time as I back away from her, back away from the Freaks I'm supposed to be saving tonight. "I must be going blind."
Brianna opens her mouth to say something, maybe a retort, but I don't let her as I turn around on the ball of my foot and say, "Goodbye, Brianna," as I make my way back down the hallway, back to my quarters.
I run a shaking hand through my shorter hair when I make my way back into the bedroom. I slip under the covers without a sound, letting out a tense and irritated breath from between my teeth. I hate myself for my carelessness.
If I'm to finish this and save the Freaks, I need to be more careful next time.
One wrong move and it will be the end of me.