I followed her outside, wrapping my coat and a blanket around my shoulders. The blanket seemed like overkill. We had only been here for two weeks, but the chill that had pervaded those two weeks was beginning to lift. If we were here much longer the trees might turn fully green and the forest carpet might come to life. I hadn't considered the possibility of staying in the RV for the summer. I hadn't considered that the academy would let us stay out here this long.
Lucia quietly shut the door behind the two of us before she walked to the back of the RV where a rusted and less than trustworthy ladder led up to the top of our home.
"Oh, you're staying out here too." Then she started shimmying up the ladder, which cut off my surprise. "I'm not climbing up that."
"It provides the best vantage point if we're going to keep watch. And it's close enough to the others that we'll be forced to keep our voices down."
"Are you planning on starting a shouting match?"
"It seems like all of our conversations turn into shouting matches."
I tried to look indignant. "I'm always perfectly civil." But it was true. Putting Lucia and I together never ended quietly.
An almost smile played on her lips, the same kind of smile Miguel occasionally offered. The "definitely not a frown but calling it a smile might be a stretch" kind of smile.
It took me a moment to remind myself that we weren't friends. But it was moments like this where she seemed to blur the line between hating my guts and tolerating them. I preferred to stay in the black or white territory, not this middle ground gray. I jumped back to hostile territory. At least the rules are well established there. She hates me, I hate her. It's worked for us for twelve years, so why get rid of a good thing now?
"Why am I here when I could be sleeping?"
"I realized that keeping you three off guard duty wasn't a punishment but a reward. You get more sleep than the rest of us."
"But no one trusts us. Which is what you wanted. By waking me up you're giving everyone a big sign that Miguel, Stitch, and I are a part of the team again. That's a pretty big commitment."
She didn't comment on that. Instead, she scowled like I had figured out her master plan and leaned back on her elbows to watch the sky lighten above us. The stars were starting to fade as the first signs of morning peek up from the east. It was still too early for the sun to show its face, but the deep blues and purples of midnight were fading ever so slightly into the gray of predawn.
Since she was suddenly so focused on the sky, I was left to watch the trees, what we were meant to be keeping an eye on.
The only enemy who could come from the sky was Diego with his nasty fleshy wings unfurled. Or rain. She could keep on the lookout for both.
There was nothing interesting about the trees. They were spread out enough that they didn't cause any significant visibility impairment. Though the area looked untouched by humans, most of the trees were still relatively young. Their trunks were thinner than I was used to. The trees on campus may not have been ancient, but they had been around before the academy was the academy, before it had been the local college too.
I also noticed that the trees surrounded us completely. Lucia was right that the view from the top of the RV provided the best vantage point available. Anywhere else and the RV would have obscured the view of more trees.
They grew like the RV had been dropped in the middle of a grove. There was no road leading in, no path the driver could have taken, and no gap between the wildlife large enough to fit the motorhome through. It had to be put here for a reason, and probably by the school board or whoever at the academy was running these games.
Which meant we were still playing right into their hands. They were still in control.
"I wanted to bounce an idea off of you."
"Why?" I didn't mean to sound so shocked, but I did. Lucia had no reason to value my opinion. She never had in the past. The only explanation was that the forest had gotten to her. She was going crazy.
When she didn't ignore my concerns, as she usually did, I took it as a sign that she had, indeed, gone crazy. "I can always count on you to call out every conceivable flaw in what I say and argue every line of logic I make."
"It is my specialty."
She didn't say anything for a minute. I thought she had come to her senses and regretted her decision to consult me. Then she said, "We need to scout their location. See how best to attack. If we wait then we'll be destroyed."
I only held back my yell because I knew all of my teammates were sleeping a few feet below me, separated only by a tin roof. "What?" This was more of a shock than Lucia taking me into her confidence. "We'll be destroyed. That's dramatic in and of itself. Plus the idea of us attacking is ridiculous. You picked the most underwhelming of our whole class. Half of us can't do anything in a fight. Not to mention that no one said anything about attacking anyone!" From that point, my thoughts came out in a jumble. They didn't make sense, but there was an underlying understanding that I disagreed with every part of her plan, even if she hadn't actually told me her plan.
She patiently waited until I had exhausted myself before she continued. "As Mona so kindly pointed out the last time all of us were together, the academy told us to attack."
"No, Principal Merriweather told us to win. She mentioned nothing about turning against our classmates or being destroyed. That was all you."
"Then what do you suppose winning means?"
"I don't know, learn how to be superheroes? Prove our mettle? Stop a crime and be better at it than the other team? Or a hundred other things that make more sense than fighting."
She still hadn't sat up from her reclined position, which irritated me all the more. Here I was, struggling to keep my cool while she relaxed on the roof and contemplated destroying a group of people that happened to contain her cousin and my best friend along with everyone who had been a part of our social life since we were children.
"You're acting like my interpretation is unfounded." Her voice was as relaxed as her position and with the body language to match.
"Because it is!" My voice had turned tight and squeaky, which I hated. My shoulders were tense. No matter how much I tried to play it off like Lucia wasn't the reason behind my discomfort, it was impossible. Every inch of my body told her how much I hated this idea.
She finally took her eyes off the sky to do a quick scan of the tree line before turning to watch me. "This is just like a game of laser tag."
"You can't seriously believe that."
"We were dropped in an arena that is unfamiliar to us while wearing the jumpsuits that we only wear during our games and physicals. Then the two captains have to pick their teams and determine a strategy that will effectively wipe out the other team. I'm making sense."
"If you really believed that then you wouldn't have asked me to poke holes in it." This time it was her turn for her shoulders to tense. I had struck a nerve and both of us knew it. "You're trying to justify this reality to yourself, but you know something about it is wrong. And you know that I can figure out what. You don't want to admit it, but you know that I'm your only shot at figuring out why we're here."
"Shut up." She wasn't loud in her command, but it shut me up nonetheless. It was the normal Lucia that I was used to dealing with. The one who thought I was worth less than the dirt beneath her feet just because she was oh so strong and I could barely turn a water bottle into ice. "I'm in charge, and it's up to me to determine how we proceed. You aren't always right."
I tried to speak up for myself, but she didn't let me.
"I won't tolerate this kind of anarchist talk in front of the others." She went back to looking at the sky. "I was wrong to ask for your opinion and to trust you. You and your misfits will stay here while the rest of us scout out the other team's location."
Pure rage boiled in my blood. In the back of my mind, there was a breath of relief that we had recrossed into enemy territory. This I could deal with. "I was your first pick for a reason. You need me."
"I picked you to get under your boyfriend's skin." Then she pounded on the roof of the RV to wake the others up.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love the Anna-Lucia dynamic. It was something that I stumbled upon accidentally while writing their fight scene in Mr. Forrest's class and it is one of my favorite character relationships to write.
m nicole