I stand outside on the sidewalk curb with other kids who served detention with me. I cross my arms holding them close to my body for warmth. “Come on Logan,” I grumble freezing my ass off. Suddenly a grey car pulls up in front of me. Jason is picking me up? Great, I think to myself. He presses the button that makes the door swing open and I hop in.
I put my backpack on the floor beneath me and buckle my seatbelt.
“Hey,” he says as I get in. I really am not in the mood to talk to him.
“Hi,” I grunt back.
“Look,” he starts the car and we start to drive, “I know you’re at an edge with me right now-“
“And with Blake and with Logan. You guys need to understand that I’m capable of doing things myself.” I say to him. He just nods and keeps his eyes on the road.
“Yeah, and I can see you were handling it very well today.” My hands clench into tight fists and my anger boils. But I knew he is right. I let out a sigh and unclench my hands and relax.
“I didn’t mean to, but you know how Drake is. You saw him on the bus this morning. He’s a huge jerk!”
“Kimberley, yes we all know you and Drake have a ‘rivalry’ but that doesn’t mean it has to be fought by violence. Try to keep it at a talking level.”
“But you know I’m not good at comebacks. That’s why my only defense is fighting. I have to show him he can’t hurt me!” I try to explain to him. He just sighs and looks at me when we come to a red light. “That’s how he does hurt you, look what happened because of it, you’re in detention for two weeks.”
“It’s not so bad,” I lie. “I finished all my homework and now I get to train.”
“Look Kimberley, I know you hate him but if you want to show him he can’t hurt you, just ignore him. Like you said he’s a jerk. Just, don’t put your fists into this.” I cross my arms.
“I guess,” I say not knowing what else to say.
“Thank you.” He says. I turn my head and watch the outside snow fall to the ground. Jason turns on the radio and we listen to one of our favorite songs, Soldier. I can’t say I’m at an edge with Jason but I am still pissed at Logan. He knows my life is hard, he knows how hard I work in school and at training. I barley have any friends, well only at home, and my mom is gone and my father is plotting to kill me, but I can’t argue with that excuse, because I’m practically doing the same thing to him.
When Jason pulls up to a parking spot he turns off the car and we both sit there silently for a second. Then I pull out the necklace I am wearing. It is the same one I found five years ago at my house. I wear it almost every day. It helps motivate me to keep going even when things are tough. I look at it and say things could always be worse. But I don’t know if they could.
“Okay Kim lets go.” We both get out of the car and walk up to the doors. Jason puts his thumb on the thumb pad. It scans it making sure we weren’t trespassers and opens the steel doors. They replaced the glass doors that were there when Ronnie and I first came. The lasers are still going but we only put them on at night. During the day if any intruders come along we pretty much have enough people to defend the lodge.
Once the two steel doors open we walk in. People scurry about, stand and talk or sit and talk to one another. I take a deep breath and go to one of the elevators. Jason follows. I push the up arrow button. The doors open and we step in. I push the floor two button and the doors close again. The elevator shoots up but I’ve been on it so many times now it doesn’t bother me.
The doors open again and I go to the right of the hall way and walk straight to my room. I hear Jason’s footsteps follow me. I take out the pass key to my room and slide it for the door to read. It recognizes the key and opens the door. Ronnie’s room is the one directly next to mine. We asked Logan if we could have it and he said yes. A door separates them but we always keep it unlocked.
I throw my backpack on the ground and take my shoes off at the door. Jason walks in as well. “Did I say you could come in?” I ask turning around smiling. He perks up and eyebrow. “Oh, I’m sorry are we just going to ignore the golden rule? That we allow each other into the others room whenever we want?” I look at him in weird way.
“We never made up that rule.”
“Really well, I’m making it up now.” He says smiling and nodding his head. He drops his backpack and takes off his shoes like I did and flops down on my messy bed. “So, what are you doing now?” He asks taking out his phone checking his texts.
I search through my closet and find one of my training outfits. It has a black short sleeved shirt with black gloves with the finger tips cut off and the thumb hole. It also has tan cargo pants. I go into the bathroom and change, leaving my necklace on. I slip on some socks and Put my hair up in a single braid down my back.
I walk out seeing Jason still lying on my bed. I grab my combat boots that go up to my knees. I lace the fronts up and stand. I take my four knives off the counter and put two in one boot and two in the other.
“Are you coming Jason or should I leave you here?” I say opening the door.
“Yep,” he grunts getting up. “Sorry, tired.” I nod understanding. I might have dozed off in detention after my homework was done. Hard to keep focus in that place when you have nothing to do.
We walk down to the elevator again but pass it and walk straight down the next hallway until we get to the end. There’s a door and when you open it is another door leading to the training room.
I walk up to the railing and look down. People, kids and teens were either learning survival technics, how to surprise attack or, my favorite, battle each other with training swords, knives, and bow and arrows, axes, or any other weapons. But only training weapons, not real ones.
Training weapons are weapons that have dull edges and rubber edging on them. Real weapons are used for their own stations. I spot Ronnie practicing her gun shooting.
The training guns are meant to be used for their station only, where you shoot rubber bullets at dummies, targets, or projected people running across the area. Ronnie is at the dummy station. She aims but misses the head by an inch. Logan is standing nearby watching her.
I curl my lip and walk down the stairs leading to the first floor of the training room. I walk past people training with their apprentices or just alone. I spot Blake at the archery station. He loads an arrow and pulls back. He releases and it skewers the dummy straight in the head.
“Hey Kim, I’m going to find Frank, see yah later.” Jason says before he leaves. I yell goodbye and make my way over to the archery station with Blake. I need a few lessons. The bow and arrow is not my best weapon but if that’s all I have to use to fight, it’s my best weapon.
I walk over to the area where they leave the bows. I take one and test it making sure I can pull it back. It’s a little tight but that will only make me stronger. I walk over next to Blake and type in my bows number on the little touch pad. It recognizes it and pops up the matching arrows for the bow. I take one and load the bow.
“Hey Blake,” I say before releasing the arrow. It hits the matt behind the dummies. I look at it before picking up another arrow.
“How was detention?” He asks shooting another arrow hitting the dummies thigh.
“Actually not bad. I finished my homework and didn’t have to listen to Logan for a whole hour.” I release the arrow and it hits the dummies shoulder.
“Good for you,” Blake says loading another arrow.
“Why are you upset?” I ask shooting the arrow and it lands a few inches away from the target.
“What makes you think I’m upset?” He says shooting another arrow as it lands a few inches away from the dummy.
I turn to him, holding my bow in my left hand. He sees me out of the corner of his eyes turns pointing his bow down. “I’m not upset.”
“Sure,” I say nodding my head.
“I’m not,” he refuses to admit.
“Look you’re the best archer I know, you never come to this station unless you’re upset. What’s wrong?”
He looks away for a minute, thinking and sighs. “It’s James. He used to beat me up and yell at me and really piss me off, but now he is always drunk and can’t do anything practically. I can’t believe it but I want the old James back.”
“Really, where is he now?” I ask.
“Upstairs in his room. Logan took him up. He brought me down here so I can train. He’s with Ronnie right now-“
“I know where he is. But you should think about getting a new mentor. James is abusive and cruel.”
“Not anymore, he just needs to get over his drinking habits. I wish he would. The last two years have been hard because of that.”
“Yeah, well life sucks here.” I shoot an arrow and it lands a few inches away from the middle of the target on his chest.
“Nice,” Blake congratulates me, but then takes his own arrow and aims for the dummies chest and hits square on. Then he loads another one in under three second and hits the dummy in the middle of the face. “But I think I’m better.” He laughs. I grin and nod my head in agreement. He puts his bow back and walks away.
Blake really was the best archer I’ve seen, Jason is really good with guns. He can hit almost anything with them. Ronnie and I really don’t have a specific weapon we like. We try to use every single one, but, I guess because I’ve done it before, the sword I’m used to. Just because of the fencing classes I did when I was little.
I shoot for a little more until I got ten arrows in a row, in the middle of the dummy’s chest.
I then leave the bow and go over to a surprise attack station. Ronnie is the better surprise attacker then I am. Surprise attacking is when you climb trees and wait for somebody to walk by then attack him by surprise. Ronnie is so limb she barley makes a sound in the trees but I am not as agile.
Projection dummies roam the bottom of trees people built for this station. I grin and climb up a tree. I hide beneath the branches waiting for a dummy. I wait for a little while then carefully move to another tree and hide in there looking for a dummy. I wait for a few minutes then see one walk towards my tree. I get low on the tree branch and crawl closer to the end of the branch.
I take a knife from my boot. I hold it like I’m about to stab someone and get ready to leap on the dummy. A few more steps, I tell myself until he stopped right under me. I hold my breath then leap down landing on the dummy. It fell back and I don’t hesitate to stab its back. I grin before I scurry up another tree.
I take a deep breath and feel proud of myself, even though this is only practice.
“Hey, tree accupada!” I turn to see a girl with curly red hair crouch closer to the tree trunk. She holds her own little knife and had on a black tank with black pants and boots.
“Oh sorry,” I say crawling across the tree branch I am on and leaping to another tree. I crawl to the trunk and look down. I sigh and sit on the branch twirling my knife between my fingers.
It’s about another thirty minutes before I say, “I’m board.” I slide down the tree and start to walk out of the station when dummies start to come out of the trees. All of them face me. I turn and start to run the other way when more came to face me. I count about six or seven.
I really wish I had a sword or whip right now, but nope, only four knives. One comes hurling at me but I duck as it swings its arm to punch me and stab him putting my knife below his rib cage.
Another comes at me from behind. I stand swing another knife, cutting off its head. Two more come at me. Punch one in the face and stab a sword in the other one. The first one comes at me again but I kick my foot into his chest.
I feel another one around my throat. I scratch at his arms fighting for breath then lean forward throwing him forward off me. I kneel down and use my knife to slice his neck as another dummy jumps. But I fall back and he jumps right over me. I kick my leg under him making him fall. I slice my knife across his chest then throw another one into another dummy.
“How many is that?” I breathe deeply to myself counting only six. The last one must’ve ran back into the biologic forest.
I take off in the opposite direction and soon make it out of the station when I see Logan looking at the control panel. “Good job, but you might want to think about getting some more weapons.”
“You were doing that,” I gasp for air. “You could’ve given me a heads up and I would’ve gotten more weapons.”
“Enemies won’t give you a heads up, you have to be ready at all times. Four knives won’t suffice in a real situation like that.”
“Oh, please like you could do any better.” I growl walking away.
“Actually I could.” He calls to me. I ignore him and walk to the sword station. I am rarely in the mood to talk to him. If Jason says ignoring people makes them go away, so be it. People were waiting to practice at this station so I decide to find Blake, maybe he has some spare time to fight.