As I watch as Blake stomp away, angrily, I see James pull him aside and take his arm in a tight grip. He is whispering to him then punches him in the gut and walks out of the room. Everyone is dispersing so I decide to follow this maniac and his apprentice.
Suddenly someone grabs my arm, “Where are you going?” I spin to see Kimberley looking at me with her eyes locked on mine. If I tell her I’m going to find the two freaks she’ll never let me go. “I uh . . . I’m going to explore some more . . . of the perimeter.”
“Not without Logan and me you’re not,” she snaps pulling me closer towards her. I shake my arm away and stare at her with stern eyes. “I have to go; I need to prove myself as well Kim.” Her eyes turn from mad to relax, “What is so important you must explore?”
I look down then over my shoulder, “Something.” I look back at her with puppy dog eyes, begging her to let me go. She takes a deep breath then exhales, “Fine, but stay safe. You know where the apartment is right?” I nod. She hugs me, “Meet back there at one o’clock.”
She releases me and I smile. She turns and walks back to Logan. I take off the other way where James and Blake exited. I run outside in the cold and look around trying to find out where they could have gone. Then I look down, their footprints, the only footprints here. Fresh snow must have covered the other ones that were there before. I follow them inside the building where we first came in. I turn to my right and there is an elevator, but I walk a little farther and on the right was a hallway. At the end I see someone turn. Blake. I run towards him and stop when I end up back in the lobby.
Suddenly, as I am looking around, I feel weight over take my body and I get pounded to the ground. I feel the weight let off me a bit and I look over my shoulder. “Hey, it’s the sister.” Blake hisses, grinning holding a knife up and holding me down with the other hand.
“My, name is Ronnie!” I snarl. I heave my body up and turn around so I’m now lying on my back. I try to punch him but he grabs my wrist and pushes it back down.
“You’re not as fast as the other one, or stronger.” He leans in closer to me. People were starting to watch, but I can end this fight right away. I get up a mouthful of saliva in my mouth and spit it at his face. The spit takes him by surprise and he turns his head to one side giving me enough time to settle my feet under is body and push up with all my strength. He groans and gets off me. I scramble to my feet and don’t dare get into a fight with him yet.
Kimberley may be able to jump into a battle at any time but I can’t. I’m not strong enough, so I run into the restaurant and try to find a place to hide. Then I look up and grin. The ceiling is held up with beams, I can hide there till Blake is gone. I’m a good climber. I climb trees all the time, but I don’t have a trunk to grab hold of. Instead I leap onto one of the empty tables and jump again grabbing onto one of the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. All of them are made of antlers from elk or dear. Lights are entwined between them. I can’t argue, they are beautiful, but very delicate. Luckily I am so small and skinny I can’t break it. I grab onto one of the beams and hoist myself onto it. I realize how far up I am and grab onto one of the wooden pillars connecting the beam to the ceiling. I look down to see Blake run in whipping my spit off his cheek. Everyone was doing their own thing like drinking or talking to one another. Either this happens a lot, or they just don’t care.
When he walks under me I hold my breath. I can let go of the pillar and jump down on top of him, knocking him to the ground. He turns looking around for me but grunts and stomps his foot in frustration when I am nowhere to be seen. “Blake!” He turns, so do I. It is James who walks over to him angrily.
“How could you lose to someone like that?!” He slaps him across the face but Blake doesn’t react. “I’ve trained you better than that, you could’ve killed her but you didn’t!” Another slap across his face. “How could you let her win?!”
I suck in another breath and listen carefully for what Blake has to say. He is barely audible over the conversations people are having. But I can make it out. “I didn’t allow her to win!” He stammers. His voice shaky. “She is good, almost too good. Either she’s taken fighting classes before or . . .” he looks around making sure Kimberley isn’t there, “Or she could be a spy?”
I turn away when James punches Blake again across the cheek then the other. I can hear now Blake is crying and James just slaps him again. No one is doing anything. How can people be so oblivious? “You are a soldier, there is no crying! She’s too young to be a spy and if she was she would’ve killed you! Get out of my sight and meet me for training at three, don’t be late!” James storms out of the restaurant leaving Blake in his tracks. I take in a deep breath but breathe in some dust. My nose itches and I feel a sneeze coming. I hold my breath trying to stop it but the dust is so itchy and a loud sneeze escapes my mouth.
I look down at Blake. He turns his eyes upward until we lock stares. His face was red from the beating and his eyes had tears running down them, but he clenches a fist angry that he found me. I smile nervously and tuck my head in tighter to my body like a turtle, “Hi.”
He grabs a knife from his belt and I’m ready to run off the beam. But he surprises me by sighing and putting the knife back into its place on his belt, “I am not eager to have a fight with you Ronnie. Just leave me alone.” He walks to an empty table by the window facing to the outdoors and sits. I crawl/leap down from the beam and land crouching. When I realize what I just did I stop for a minute to comprehend it. I just climbed that, which was something I could never do, in public. I look at my small hands. How could I do that? I shake the thought away and walk over to Blake. He turns his knife in his hand over and over again, the sun reflecting off it.
I look down at him and stay there waiting for the knife to spear my rib cage. It doesn’t. “Why just kill me now, if you want to so badly?” He stops his knife twirling and looks up at me. “If I want to become a criminal I’ll kill you.” He rests his head on his hand, sliding his knife back into his belt. I perk an eyebrow and sit down. He doesn’t make any gesture for me to leave. Instead he looks up at me but still has narrowed eyes. “What do you want?” He hisses.
“An answer. Why do you hate my sister so much?” I ask. He sighs and leans back in a chair. A waitress comes over dressed in a black uniform with her hair pulled back into a low ponytail. “What can I get yawl?”
“Coke, with a splash of vodka,” I almost fly off my chair because of that. Wasn’t vodka that alcoholic stuff that made you dreary? I am positive. I am only seven, and he was only nine, Kimberley’s age! “Alright and for you, sweetie?”
I hesitate but clear my throat and answer. “Uh, we can’t drink alcohol miss.” I say. “The age is 21, right, well he’s only nine.” The waitress looks at me with a confused expression. Then turns to Blake. He sighs, “She’s new here, and she’ll take water, please.”
“Alrighty,” she grins while finishing her writing, then walks away, her dress bouncing behind her. I turn to Blake in confusion. “Vodka? How do you know what that is, let alone drink it!”
He crosses his hands across his chest, “Here, under the age of 21, you can have a splash of alcohol in any drink. But if you have alcohol period, that’s illegal. They only allow some alcohol to kids. They allow this because it helps them forget about their past and move onto a new future.”
I lean forward now knowing what my next question is, “What was your past like?” He takes the question in shock and drops his hands, lowering his head. He then gazes out the window trying to remember.
“I was four. I was the second oldest in my family. My older brother, Jason, and my younger brother Ivan and his twin sister Saige all felt safe when we were around our parents. They…they loved us, and we loved them. Everything seemed perfect. But then, the day happened.” He looks down and tries to hold back the tears. I want to tell him to stop but he keeps going. “We were home, it was a Saturday afternoon. Our sitter was staying with us, and we were all doing our own things when she screamed for us to get down stairs. Her name was Wendy. She had long, curly blonde hair with green eyes.
“Once we all gathered in the living room, she grabbed us all and told us to go down to the basement. We all were wondering what was going on. She told Jason, who was the oldest, to watch us. He was only seven and a half, but after that day he was seven going on seventeen. We all huddled down stairs and turned on the TV. Nobody said a word, until the cop came downstairs. He wore a full blue and black uniform and a badge on his chest. I jumped when I saw his gun at his side.” Blake’s eyes were running with tears but continued on with the story.
“Turns out our parents had been killed in a shooting. Union soldiers came and shot them among fifty other people.” He sucks in a breath and looks at me, “They didn’t even have a chance!” My heart jumps a little when he yells at me. “The cops took us to our grandmother’s house where we should’ve stayed, but one night Jason told us to pack up our things in our own backpacks. We headed out the night after that.” He pauses again and sighs, “We walked for days, weeks. Cops came after us but never found us. Jason had to take care of us. That’s why I said he was seven going on seventeen. I helped as best I could but still, he was the one who really kept us all alive. We ate berries, roots, and things we could find in trash cans. Jason kept us warm, but mostly he and I kept the twins warm. They could barely go a couple miles in a day. He and I usually had to carry one on our backs. I usually took Saige because she was lighter.
“We were barely alive when the soldiers found us. Our clothes were torn and dirty. But we carried extra ones in our packs. Jason made sure the soldiers weren’t going to hurt us, but they took us in their trucks and we ended up here the next morning, and, well, you can figure out the rest right. We got cleaned up and got food. We got clean clothes and walked around the place. After that, though, Jason was never the same again.” He hesitates for a moment and looks to the side putting his arms on the table, folding his hands. “Neither were any of us. Alcohol and training will never take that away. I will never forget that day, or those nights alone in the forest. It will never leave us. We will always have that memory, nothing can take it back.” While he was telling the story our drinks came. He took a sip and made a face but quickly shook it away. “Then why do you drink alcohol?” I ask him confused
He laughs a little and looks at me again, “Two reasons, one because it makes me forget temporarily about my past, and the other it-” he looks around the room like he was making sure everything was okay to say the second thing. He leans over the table and I lean in closer as well. “It helps seduce the pain James gives me.” He whispers to me. My eyes widen. He leans back and rolls up part of his shirt and on the side of him is a massive scar running almost halfway around him. I clasp my hand over my mouth in shock. He nods and rolls his shirt back down. “Got that on my first day training with him. I have to listen to his every order or he’ll hurt me even more. He makes me a better soldier but has a different training method then others. I have more scars on my back from the nights we walked and some from him.” He takes another sip from his drink and shakes away the taste. “I hate the taste but it helps get rid of the pain.”
I nod in understanding, “I’m sorry this happened to you, to your family. But why do you hate Kimberley so much?”
“I don’t really, she just . . . rubs on me the wrong way, at first most people do. You did, but now that we’ve talked for a bit, I have enough experience that I can trust you.” I grin and sip my water. The cold liquid runs down my throat and sooths me. “Well I know for a fact you can trust Kimberley, but you have to earn her trust now after that little show you two put on.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know she would attack me. She’s pretty good, for someone who’s never fought before.” He says.
“Actually, we did take fencing classes back in Illinois,” I say.
“Really,” his expression turns to shock. “That explains a lot.”
“Does it explain why she kicked your butt?” I grin sarcastically. He smiles and chuckles a little.
“Well, it explains why she’s so good with a knife.” He looks down at his drink, “How good is she with a sword?”
“Well, I’m not the best, but she was really good. Best in the class. It was a really fun experience, until I understand now why my mom and dad put us in the class.” I frown looking down.
“Why?” Blake asks. I sigh and turn my head to the side. Then I speak, “To defend us. If something like last night was ever going to happen we could defend ourselves with a knife, or sword.” I look at him, “and now, that I’m realizing it, I thank them for that, because without those classes, Kimberley and I would’ve probably been strangled last night by our father.”
“Oh,” Blake says nodding his head.
Then we hear somebody call from out in the lobby. It is Kimberley. She was looking for me. I could hear Logan calling my name as well. I turn to Blake and make gesturing motions with my hands, “I-I should go.” I stammer.
“No problem,” He says waving his hand down and crossing his arms.
“Do I have to pay for this?” I ask pointing to my glass.
“No, everything is free. So you’re good to go.” He says grinning.
“I’ll see you later and maybe I can meet you siblings?” I ask right before exiting. He chuckles a little then nods. I walk out grinning to myself . . . then something strikes me. I know him. I look back at the table but he was gone. I can’t believe it. I know him, but from what? A class, a neighbor? No those two things I would remember him from. Who is he, how can I remember him, but not remember him.
I snap out of my thought when Kimberley grabs my arm. “There you are. Where were you?” I look down at her arm and see the scars from last night. I shake her hand off, “Talking to . . . to . . . another person. It was nice. We had some drinks and they told me about themselves.”
Kimberley just gives me a look but grins shaking her head. “I knew you were going to be trouble.” She rubs my head messing up my hair. “Come on there’s still plenty more of the Lodge to see.”