Sarah patches me up, cleaning my cut and bandaging over it so I have a thick white bandage encircling my waist. I decide to lie down for a while, my body completely exhausted from the past couple of days – hours even.
When I wake up it is dark outside, the stars twinkling outside of my window high above the trees. I stand up with a yawn and look over at my alarm clock that tells me that it is just past midnight, meaning I have slept for around half the day – and honestly, I could sleep for longer, but my rumbling stomach protests that idea.
I pull on my shirt and trousers, not bothering with shoes. I make my way out of my room and into the kitchen, the house silent, the others in their rooms, probably asleep, just as tired as I am. I peer into the cupboards and fridge, finally deciding on a quick sandwich and a glass of diluted orange juice.
As I sit on a barstool eating the sandwich I made, I think back on today's events.
I had fought a group of men – a group of soldiers.
I had won against one of those soldiers.
I had held my own long enough for my squad to save my arse.
...
Pretty successful day if you ask me – and I'd managed to pull off those Taekwondo moves I've been practicing all week.
I smile to myself proudly as I turn to rinse my dishes off and walk back to my room. I change back into my pyjamas, looking down at my bandage dressing, which I notice doesn't have any blood seeping through which is a bonus.
I close over the curtains, shutting out the light that shines into my room from the moon and the stars and settle back into my bed to drift off to sleep.
* * *
"Stand the fuck up." A voice snarls in my ear.
I blink slowly, my eyelids heavy for some reason. I move my arm and wince when it scratches against something sharp. I finally manage to open my eyes, the confusion of why something in my bed is sharp clearing my groggy mind.
Except, I am not in my bed.
I am back behind the training building, on that tarmac, except it is no longer smooth, but jagged and covered in rubble.
"What the fuck?" I mutter, slowly beginning to lift myself up when I feel a hand roughly grab my hair and wrench me to my feet. I gasp in pain, tears stinging my eyes as I try to blink through them to make out the blurry figure stands in front of me, my hands grasping at the one holding me.
"I told you that you didn't belong here." The voice taunts, and my vision finally clears to find James in front of me, his front still dripping with blood, the X scored grotesquely on his body.
"You thought that your little boyfriend could save you?" James teases, pulling the hunter's knife out from behind his back. "Well, where is he now?"
James lets go of my hair and I'm finally able to look around me, my heart banging a hard rhythm in my chest, the tempo only quickening when I find myself blocked in on all sides by the other three men, only darkness behind them. There's no sign of those picturesque fields now.
I can't believe my eyes. Two of the men have blood slowly leaking from a small gash on their collarbones, while the other one's face is a sight to behold. His nose was smashed in, so much that it seems to be deflated against his skull, the skin hanging loosely, swaying as he moves. There is blood smeared all over his face and his shirt is stained red. He opens his mouth to smile, and a gush of blood pours from his mouth. He doesn't seem to notice, none of them do.
I stumble back in shock, only to hit my back against a hard chest, an arm wrapping around my neck and squeezing tight. Laughter echoes around me, but that quickly turns into strangled gasps as everything fades slightly, blurring.
When the men come back into focus, the one with the mashed face has disappeared, leaving the other two back in the grasp of Hugo and Sarah.
Except, it isn't Hugo and Sarah – not really.
It is them, but it isn't, simply because the grins they wear on their faces are animalistic and twisted – wrong.
I seem to only be able to watch as they squeeze the men's necks, the knives they hold to their necks being pushed further and further into the skin. At first there is only a small trickle of crimson, but then, everything is red.
The pained tears in the men's eyes go from being clear, to running in rivulets of red, and these rivulets begin to flow from every orifice in the men's faces. I don't even notice when the knives reach their hilts in the men's sagging bodies, their eyes having long gone glassy – all I can focus on is the red.
"That's what happens to the people we don't like, Freak." A disembodied voice echoes around in the darkness.
"Permission, denied." The voice is right in my ear now, the two words simple, but they ricochet in my mind.
I am spun in someone's arms, and a pair of lips smashes onto mine.
My body reacts with a mind of its own, my arms instantly slinging around the person's neck, kissing them back without hesitation.
Everything else is distant, forgotten. The red instantly banished from my thoughts.
My eyes close involuntarily when I turn and refuse to open again. I can't stop kissing the person either even though it feels so wrong. The desire is overpowering as their hands run over my body, my chest flat against theirs.
I am so lost in the moment that when I hear the thud, I don't even think about what it could be. It is only when I find myself choking on something that I am able to pull back from the kiss, coughing hard.
I bring my hand to my lips, my fingertips brushing numbly against them. When I pull my fingers away, they come back red.
Red, red, red. All I can see is red.
I frown, looking up, stilling when I find Marcus in front of me, his eyes void of emotion, his face a mask of stone. It's the exact same look that he had when he stared his father down while his father tortured him.
"I warned you, freak." He scorns sternly. "You can't trust anyone. No one's your friend, they'll just stab you in the back without a second thought." He comes in close, his lips brushing the shell of my ear as he promises, "You know that I would, especially me."
I look at him blankly, unable to understand what he is trying to tell me.
Suddenly remembering Sarah and Hugo, I turn to see if they know what he means.
When I turn, they stand with the knives held loosely at their sides, still covered in the men's blood. They wear sad expressions, pitiful even. "Even us." They say in unison.
"Wha—" I am about to ask them what is going on when I feel a sudden, sharp bolt of pain jolt down my spine, my legs wobbling and giving out, pitching me forward onto that cold, broken tarmac.
Although everything is going fuzzy, I can still see Marcus as clear as day as he stands over me, a knife in his hand, a smug expression on his face.
He kneels, placing a bloody hand on my cheek, pushing my hair from my face with a gentle caress.
"One day, we won't be able to save you, won't want to." He whispers softly, hushing me as I try to speak.
That is the last thing I hear as I drift back into the darkness.
* * *
I wake with a start, whipping my hand to my chest to check that I am still breathing. I can feel my heart beating rapidly under my hand, my clothes sticking to me with sweat, my bedsheets in a tangled mess on the floor.
The dream is still vivid in my mind, so much so that I have to get up and run to the bathroom to check that it really is just sweat that I am drenched in, a hand going to my back to make sure there isn't a gaping hole in it.
Sweat? Check.
No hole in between my shoulder blades? Check.
No red? Check.
I splash cold water over my face, my hands trembling. When I look in the mirror, I barely recognise myself. Even though I'd slept most of yesterday and half of the night away, I look terrible.
My hair is a bird's nest, knots galore. People will think that I have two black eyes with the dark circles that encompass them, deep purple and black seeping from the corners of my eyes and down my skin. My lips are dry and cracked, my pyjamas crumpled, riddled with creases. My bandage has slipped down my stomach so that it hangs uselessly down my hips, it is just lucky that it hasn't started bleeding again.
I am still shaking when I slowly walk back into my room, seeing no one else thankfully, and close my door quietly, gently letting myself down onto the bed.
I've never experienced a dream that seemed so real.
It was as though Marcus really did stab that knife into me, as though I really died. I can't get that ominous warning out of my head either, such an opposite message to the one Marcus had given yesterday that it makes me wonder if what Marcus had said had really meant anything at all.
"Knock, knock." Sarah's voice sounds through the door as she opens it slightly and peeks her head in through the gap.
I look up in a daze, trying to return her smile.
"We're have a meeting with the big boss today, you should get ready." Sarah informs me and I frown.
"What's the meeting about?"
Sarah shrugs noncommittally. "We just got the call, don't be too long, they want to meet on the hour sharp."
I nod, and Sarah closes my door again. I glance at my clock to find that it is only six thirty in the morning, even though it feels like it should be so much later.
I take my clothes to the bathroom and strip out of my pyjamas, turning on the shower and making sure the water is scorching. I unravel my bandage, making sure to lie out a new one before I get into the shower, the last thing I need right now is an infected wound.
I step under the hot water, and it hits my back in a hard jet stream, steam clouding the room. It is hard to fight the urge to just stand there for the rest of the day, but I know that I am on a time crunch and Marcus really will kill me if I am late.
I get out of the shower quickly and I put the new bandage over the top of my wound, a little less neatly than how Sarah had done it, but it is covered, nonetheless. I pull on my clean clothes and tie my hair up out of my face, making sure that I look completely pristine and presentable, nothing like I did twenty minutes ago. I make sure that I cover the dark circles under my eyes with concealer before I leave the bathroom.
I enter the living room to find everyone already around the table, eating breakfast.
"Yours is on the counter." Hugo points with his fork.
"Eat fast." Marcus orders grumpily.
I find a large pile of pancakes drizzled in honey stacked on a plate. It makes my mouth water despite the distinct lack of appetite I am feeling. I waste no time in chewing them down despite the nausea that wants to climb out of my throat, the table in silence while we eat our food.
When we are finished, we pile our dishes in the sink to wash later and make our way out of the door to walk the short distance to the head office that sits a little away from all of the other buildings at this part of the camp.
I haven't had the pleasure of being invited into this building yet, but I'm not surprised when we walk in and it is all stark white walls and polished wooden floors. Somehow as we go over to the security checks, I get the feeling that this isn't a building that we want to be invited into.
We are led through a scanner, the security in this building extremely tight even though the camp itself is protected, even more so after the situation that happened on my first full day at camp. Once we get through the scanners, a tall woman in a business suit introduces herself as our escort to the Director's office. Marcus rolls his eyes when she speaks, his expression dull and uninterested.
We follow her through a series of corridors, until we come up to a pair of tall black oak doors at the end of a corridor.
"Through there and sit in the waiting area, you will be called when it's your turn." The woman gestures, opening a door for us to step through.
"Waiting area?" I question as I file in behind the others.
"It's their way of thinking that they are showing their power by keeping us waiting, telling us that they are above us and they shouldn't wait on us, we must wait on them." Marcus answers, slumping into a chair, uncharacteristically ungraceful.
"That's..." I start trying to find the words.
"Egotistical? Stupid? Dumb? Wasting my precious time?" Marcus lists.
I purse my lips, nodding.
Hugo relaxes into the chair he is in, then frowns, sitting back up. "If they're going to make us wait then they should at least make the waiting comfortable." He looks down at his chair in distaste, making Sarah and I laugh.
"If they make them comfortable then what would be the point in making you wait?" Sarah raises an eyebrow, but Hugo just looks at her in confusion, making her sigh. "If the chairs are uncomfortable, it means that you're already likely to feel agitated and uncomfortable going into the meeting and having to wait a long time to be seen adds to this which gives them more power over you because you're more likely to make rash decisions or ones in haste to catch up on the time you lose waiting, meanwhile they are on their own time schedule and completely in control."
Hugo thinks on that for a moment, then points at a set of doors to our left. "Sneaky bastards."
Just as the words leave Hugo's mouth, a throat is cleared behind us. We all turn, and Hartley is standing behind us, looking sternly at Hugo.
"I hope that wasn't your superiors you were referring to, Candidate Green." Hartley addresses Hugo, who cringes, red the colour of his hair flaming up his cheeks.
"No, Sir."
Hartley nods. "So I thought. Follow me."
We stand up and walk behind Hartley through a set of doors that were to our right, and through another corridor. We turn a corner and face some glass doors that look into an empty office. Hartley scans a pass that he takes out of his suit jacket pocket against a little black pad next to the door and then puts his eyes level to it.
After a few seconds, the light on the pad changes from red to green, and Hartley pulls open one of the doors.
When he opens it, I am surprised to find not the empty office we had been seeing through the glass that was open plan, all glass with a view over the trees that make up the woods – but a large, dark oak office that is lined with books, a desk that is piled with paperwork, only one window against the far wall, and four straight-back chairs sitting in front of the desk. I don't even want to think about how much having technology like that must cost.
Oh, and Director Thomas is watching us with a blank expression from behind the desk.
"Take a seat." He waves his hand toward the four chairs awaiting us, not even looking up from the folder he was currently annotating with an ink pen. A red ink pen.
I swallow nervously and follow behind the others to the chair that is as far away from Director Thomas as possible, surprised when Marcus takes the chair directly in front of his father.
Hartley moves around the desk to stand silently next to Director Thomas.
Once we have all taken a seat, Director Thomas waits a moment before he speaks, never looking up from the folder. The words he says make my heart jump up into my throat. "So, I hear a few certain individuals have been making a name for themselves by taking matters into their own hands instead of letting the proper authority handle it."
Oh, fuck.