"Indigo?"
The voice echoed in the distance. I was too busy paying attention to the dream around me to listen.
It was a prison cell. I sat still on the ground, unable to move. Chains wrapped around my ankles and wrists, holding me down. My thick, black hair hung in my face.
"Indigo?"
The prison cell walls disappeared, replaced by the images of beautiful green hills and fields. The sun shone. White roses colored the ground. A tree swayed back and forth atop a hill, glossy green leaves hanging off the branches. A lake glittered at the bottom. I stared at the imagery. It was stunning. Longing clenched a fist around my heart. I pushed myself forward, unable to resist the magnetic pull of the images. I wanted to go there. I wanted to go back.
Without warning, the bright sky turned cloudy. A dark red substance trickled through the first blades of grass, oozing between them, growing in volume and mass. Blood. More and more spilled down the hills, tainting the white roses red. It dripped down the tree branches, seeping into the leaves, which dried and turned to ash at its touch as if it was poison. The blood spilled into the lake, tinting the blue water a dark red. The air smelled of copper.
"Indigo!"
Something tapped my cheek softly, but I barely noticed. My eyes were fixated on the blood-red scene in front of me. Everything was red. It was all blood, too much blood. The sky fell darker and darker, making the blood turn colorless black. The temperature dropped, the cold stinging my arms. My deep breaths were visible in the air. I shivered.
More dark liquid spilled down the hills. But it passed the lake, passed the dead grass. It passed right through the picture and onto the stone ground of the cell. It oozed through the cracks and crevices, inching toward me. I shrank away, pushing myself as close as I could to the cold wall.
My breaths became shallow, the air growing colder, the light dimming away to near blackness. The dark blood oozed closer and closer until it reached me. At first touch, the liquid burned through my skin like acid. I screamed.
"She's not waking up."
"Slap her."
Something struck me hard across the cheek and my hands flew up instinctively. They gripped the attacker's hand and twisted. A shriek of agony echoed in the air. My eyes snapped open and I released my grip.
"And that's why I told you to wake her up."
I looked to my right to find Axe standing a couple of feet away, watching me. I turned back to my wrongfully convicted attacker. Kneeling next to me was Chance Dayholt. He rubbed his wrist, caring grey eyes set on me with worry that was doing little to mask the pain.
"Sorry," I muttered as I propped myself up on my elbows. I winced as my head spun and familiar nausea arose. I fell back into the snow, trying to push the contents of my stomach down.
"Are you okay?" Chance asked. His bushy brown eyebrows furrowed.
I nodded. "Fine."
"You don't look fine," Chance pointed out. "What were you doing out here?"
"Playing the game. Racking up wins. Adding points."
Chance's eyes dropped down to my leg wound, "You must've been doing something right if someone went as far as shooting you."
Axe coughed.
Chance continued, "Do you know who did it? We can go kill that bastard."
"Nope," I said and fixed Axe with a venomous stare, sarcasm oozing from my voice. "I have absolutely no idea."
Axe looked mildly anxious as he took a small step back.
Chance followed my gaze and his eyes narrowed at Axe. "You?"
"Right off a motherfucking tree," I confirmed.
"Son of a bitch."
Axe raised his hands defensively. "You know how much I wanted to join the Alphas!"
"Well, you failed magnificently," I notified him.
Axe muttered, "I said I'm sorry."
I scoffed. Chance shook his head and sighed. I turned to look at him. "Aren't you going to kill him?"
"Unfortunately, this idiot is my best friend, and since I'm not a backstabber-"
"Unlike certain others." I glared at Axe for extra measure.
"-I can't do anything," Chance continued and eyed Axe. "But if I could, I would."
Axe grinned. "Love you too."
Chance shook his head again and looked down at me. I placed my hands on the wound in my thigh. There was a slight stinging, but other than that, the pain became almost numb. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing.
"Let's get you up." Chance got to his feet and held out a hand.
I placed my hand in his and tried to pull myself off the ground, only for the pain to spike up the side of my torso. I gasped and let go, falling back into the snow.
Chance looked worried as he leaned back down. "Are you okay?"
The pain faded away to a slight sting and discomfort. I nodded. "Fine. I think I just broke a rib or two from the fall. Not a big deal."
Axe tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. "How the hell did you not realize that until now?"
"I was too busy beating your ass."
Chance snickered and Axe sent him a glare. Chance quickly stopped and continued to fuss over me. "If you can't get up, we can carry you or maybe call for-"
"I'm fine," I hissed again and placed my arms under me, pushing myself up. Pain flared through my ribs and leg. I bit my lip to keep from making a sound as I shakily got to my feet. I reached out to a tree to steady myself.
"See," I breathed. "Perfectly fine."
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
"You're stupid," Axe declared.
I whipped around to face him and narrowed my eyes since I was incapable of raising an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
"What Axe means to say," Chance said quickly, "is that you were just shot and fell from a very high point. The bullet's still in your leg and your ribs are overstrained. If you keep pushing yourself, it could take longer for you to heal, if ever."
Shit, he's right.
Having to bear an injury for months at a time was awful. I knew from experience. You never got to do anything, and when you did, you were slower than a sloth. Not to mention the pain. Plus, I needed to enact my revenge on the Crown Assassins. And I wouldn't be able to touch a hair on their head in the state that I was in.
I sighed and reached my arms out, motioning for them. They walked forward, ducking under my arms and I looped it around their shoulders. They held onto my arm, Chance taking my right, Axe taking my left.
We slowly made our way out of the woods. I was half dragged and half walked through the snow. For the first couple minutes, it was complete silence. The boys were hunched over a little to accommodate my height and not overstrain my ribs.
After a couple of minutes, I spoke. "Why were you guys out here in the first place?"
"After the game ended, we were given collecting duty," Chance sighed.
"Collecting duty?"
"Oh, you know, wander through fifty-acre woods covered in the snow trying to find survivors, help the injured, and collect any bodies," Axe said. The disdain in his voice was hard to miss.
"Didn't think you were the type of person to sign up for that."
"I'm not." Axe glared at Chance. "But he is."
"I noticed that you weren't a part of the surviving or dead crowd," Chance said. "So, I decided to volunteer in case you were out here."
"And, naturally, he dragged me into it."
"How did you even know that collecting duty was a thing?" I asked Chance.
He shrugged. "I've done it before. They usually tell all the people who died early about it."
"That's probably why I've never heard of it," Axe smirked. "Cause I never died early. I never died, period."
"I usually never died, too. And I didn't have to shoot people to do it," I snapped back.
I only died twice before and both times, it was later in the game. Most of the time, I accomplished the essential goal: make it to the other side of the woods alive. Of course, I never racked up many kills.
Axe sighed. "Are you ever going to let that go?"
"No."
"Come on, Fluor. Stop being so petty."
I opened my mouth to snap back a retort, but Chance cut me to it. "You need to stop being an asshole."
Axe turned back to the front and held his head up high. "You call it being an asshole, I call it being ambitious."
"Let's see if that's what you say when you're cleaning the toilets after getting caught."
"I won't get caught."
I narrowed my eyes. "What did you do?"
The corners of his mouth curled up. "If you must know, this morning, I was helping out in the surveillance room for some extra credit in Advanced Protection class."
"You're taking Advanced Protection?" Chance asked. Axe nodded.
Chance furrowed his eyebrows. "But you don't even want to be a guard."
"Obviously. I've got better things to do."
"Then why are you taking Advanced Protection?"
"Why not?"
Chance shook his head and sighed. "Continue."
"The night before, I stayed back in Technical Espionage and worked on a computer program. It was supposed to be taught next year, but I paid an older student to teach me the basics, figuring it would be useful. I figured out the rest after that."
"What does the program do?"
"Well, after managing to sneak it into the monitoring systems of the game in the surveillance room, it essentially changed the camera feed. The surveillance system works during games because it tracks everyone's feed and moves them into separate files using facial recognition. This way all unnecessary footage can be discarded and not take up space in the servers. So, when I uploaded the computer program, it went into my tracking files to slightly change the gun's appearance and give it the same markers that a fake one would. And when I shot the gun, it would make the gunshot wound like a pellet wound: Minimal bleeding and slight stinging. From there, it spreads into the shot person's files and makes sure that the wound looks fake wherever they go."
I blinked. "So, you planned on shooting me?"
"Not you specifically."
"But someone?"
Axe nodded. "But, someone."
"Wait," Chance held his free hand up, "but what about the audio files? Did you change those too?"
Axe shook his head 'no.'
"But if they listen to the audio files, they can figure out what you did. Heck, you shouldn't even be talking right now. All of this was a literal confession."
Axe smirked as he looked around, making sure no one was eavesdropping before leaning and dropping his voice. "Can I let you in on a little secret?"
"What?"
"They don't record everything. The microphones are programmed to only record the word 'Dead' and only during a game. Everything else it discards to make more space in the servers."
"So, no one's listening to this conversation or the one that we had when you shot me?"
Axe shook his head. "Nope."
We finally reached the clearing at the end of the woods, where other students were dropped off after being "collected" from the woods. Evandor Prep stood tall in the distance. Axe and Chance let go of my arm, letting me walk back on my own to save at least some part of my dignity. I was grateful.
"You planned everything out," Chance wondered. He tried to hide how impressed he was, but it was failing miserably.
"All the smart ones do," Axe mused. I wanted to slap the smirk off his face.
Chance got defensive. "Some of us just don't have the time or energy to plan out every little thing."
"And that's why you always lose."
With that, Axe spun and stalked back into the woods to continue his job. Chance sighed and muttered, "I don't always lose," before dashing after Axe.
I sighed and turned, starting my long trek back. The road twisted up the hill to the school, where it stood proud. From an angle, it looked as if it touched the sky. The school was sleek and lined with glass and steel. It sat on the top of a plateau, the large circular base taking up most of the top.
In the center of the circular base, one single glass tower rose above the others, the tip piercing the sky. It was a skyscraper, with its eighteen floors of bulletproof glass. The guns and cannons that stuck out the building's side and pointed down blended into the design. The glass windows were curved and angled to show patterns of the Crown Assassins when the sunlight hits.
On one side were the symbols of the Fortier's, the Unassailable Crown Assassins. A dagger pointing upward was cut into the glass at the top of the building. A triangle with another small triangle inside adorned the lower levels. In the middle, the glass assembled itself into a miraculously detailed depiction of the Fortier's crown.
On the other side, I knew that the Kingston's, the Intellect's, family symbols. There would be a gun at the top, their crown in the middle, and a geometric pattern of hexagons connected adorning the bottom.
Years ago, when I first drove up the front path, and the tall trees gave way as I passed through the gates into the glass structure that sparkled in the sun, I fell under its spell, too marveled by the grandness to see its flaws or even wonder how it was built. Now, into my fifth and final year, I was revolted at the sight of it. It stood for everything that I hated: the unbalanced power of the Crowns, the killing, the injustice. All of it started from this school, the one built on the blood of innocent enemies.
The court learns that they could kill whoever, whenever and get away with it. They know to bow before the Crowns and give them anything they ask for. And the Crowns learn to get whatever they want, and if someone dared defy their wishes, they learn to take it mercilessly and kill them afterward.
Everything wrong with our nation started at Evandor Prep. It's time they created something good, someone who would change the course of nature. I intended to make it me.
I walked through the gates, trying to cover my limp, holding my head high for any onlookers, making sure I didn't show a sign of weakness. The other students loved to watch the games' losers straggle long after the winners marched through victoriously. The losers were entertainment that emphasized how good the winners were for getting out alive. But they wouldn't be getting any entertainment from me.
As I passed by, looks of shock covered some faces before they quickly masked it up. I knew some of the winners and they knew me just as well. They were shocked to see me lose. I was too.
Even before I became more passionate about winning the game, I won for the most part. It was mostly due to Echo Alderidge. She was the one who could slice through opponents like paper. She was the one who always had my back, no matter what. She was the one who got us through our very first game alive and managed to rack up over twenty-five kills despite us being mere first years. She was the legend, the one who got on the Alpha team in her fourth year and left me all alone, only acknowledging my existence when she indirectly saved me during games. And then she was gone forever.
And I knew the Crown Assassins were to blame. She got too close to them, got wrapped up in their lies, uncovered their secrets. And then she died for it. They said she wrote a suicide note and jumped off from the top of the tower. I knew better.
I would get close to them, discover their secrets, the very same ones that Echo died for, and I would watch them burn, one by one.
But how was I supposed to do that if I lost the game?
Within the past two months, I scored more points than anyone could imagine. I worked hard, spending late nights perfecting my form, practicing with my daggers and guns until I hit a bulls-eye every time. I took more classes, almost as many as the Crowns. I studied until my eyes drooped, until my head spun, and then I kept on studying. I worked until my body ached. I made sure I didn't lose a single game. I spent hours climbing the ranks, one after another, pushing myself out of the 700th rank until I was finally tied with Axe for rank 7.
But then, I stopped moving up. Everyone at the top held onto their ranks with an iron fist. I thought I was done, that it was the highest I could go. But then one of the Alphas left, and the opportunity presented itself. I worked even harder, gaining points and keeping up with Axe. All I had to do was win this game and earn rank six. Then I would be an Alpha and I would get close enough to the Crown Assassins to start my revenge.
But I lost. I let Damien Kingston, a Royal Assassin, knock me out of the game. Sure, my point ranking was very high, but if someone in the top twelve upped their number of kills and lived while Axe and I were dead, they could easily take the last Alpha member's position. And typically, due to the vigorous training, once you become an Alpha, your points increase so much that dropping out of the Alpha team was unheard of. I wouldn't get another chance.
I passed by the slick, dark metal triangle sculpture representing the Fortier's strength and walked into the middle skyscraper through the Unassailable's entrance. My family was part of the Unassailables, ruled by the Fortier family, meaning we were pro killers and fighters. We had more brawn than brains. Supposedly.
Much like everything else, our dorms were split up by our respective Assassin classes. Those of the lower ranks resided in the base building and opposite sides: Intellects on the left, Unassailables on the right. The top three hundred ranks had the privilege of getting rooms in the main building. The higher up your rank, the better the room and view. As a member of the top 12, I received a room higher up in the building, although not as high as the Alphas. The view allowed me to see miles on end, and the room was spacious and much more private as it was an individual room, unlike the lower-ranking dorms.
After stepping off the elevator and clambering into my room, I locked the door tightly and undressed, varnishing a knife. I sat on a chair and held the bullet wound as I opened the first aid kit, who's lock was starting to wear down, and took out some cleaning swabs and bandages. The bottle of liquid pain-reliever seemed extra light as I took it out. Shaking it, I realized that it was nearly empty. I downed the rest of it and made a mental note to order some more as I placed a cloth between my teeth to make sure I didn't bite my tongue in pain.
Inspecting the wound, I caught a glimpse of the metal bullet covered in thick, red blood. It didn't go too far in, but it would still be painful. I wedged the knife carefully into my open wound and moved the bullet just a little bit so that I could successfully take it out with some tweezers. Grunting in pain, I removed the bullet and placed it on the table before cleaning the wound and wrapping it in bandages.
I could've gone to the infirmary, but they would quickly realize that someone shot me with a real gun and not a fake one. And even though Axe shot me, like Chance, I was still loyal to my friends. They were the only ones I had left. I wasn't about to get him in trouble.
I pulled on a new set of clothes and hid a butterfly knife in my boot out of habit. Around thirty minutes remained before I had to be downstairs to see today's game's rankings and point totals. I would see if all of my work these past few months paid off.
I bit my lip and my hand started to shake ever so slightly. Placing my other hand over it to stop the movement, I took a deep breath, deciding that I needed to take a walk. Shrugging on a light jacket, I headed out of my room and towards the elevator.
Turning a corner, I almost crashed into Axe. He must've finished his job in the woods and, since we were unfortunately tied as of yesterday, his room was located right across the hall from mine.
"Seriously, Fluor. I shot you in the leg, not the eyes. You should be able to see where you're going."
I was too tired and jittery to argue, so I merely gave him an eye roll and stepped past him, clicking a button for the elevator. I turned to find him still watching me.
"What?"
Axe hesitated before taking out a small note from his pocket and holding it out.
"I forgot to give this to you in the woods. I got it this morning."
I simply stared at the white note in his hands.
"It's from your mother."
"I know who it's from," I hissed.
I yanked the note out of his hands, not bothering to read it as I crumpled it up and stuffed it in my pockets. I already knew what it would say. It was the same every time.
The elevator dinged open and I stepped inside.
"You should talk to her," he told me.
"I'll talk to her when hell freezes over."
I jammed my thumb into the button and the doors slid shut.
♕ ♕ ♕
A cool breeze whipped my face and blew back my long, straight brown hair. The sun set a while ago, the moonlight basking the hillside with silver light. I sat in the snow, not caring about the cold. I was too jittery to care for anything. And the note from my mother just made things worse. I looked up at the sky. The stars were slightly covered with a purplish haze. Even though the school was in the middle of the woods, it was still close to a city and it had lights of its own that blocked out the stars above.
I missed seeing the night stars and hearing the crickets chirping. I missed the green trees that dotted our backyard, the view we had through the windows. I wanted to go back home. But could I call that cold and empty place home anymore?
And if it was, did I even deserve to go back?
I rubbed the small scar that was impressed in my neck, memoranda of the night my life tilted on its axis. Tears welled up, threatening to spill.
Pull yourself together. This is no time for mental breakdowns or trips down memory lane.
You have a goal. Accomplish it.
I pushed the thoughts back down and blinked the tears away, taking deep breaths until my eyes were completely dry. No one would know that I was close to breaking. That's how it had always been, and that's how it will continue to be.
I shook my head and looked behind me, peering through the window at the red clock that hung on a wall, realizing that I only had a few minutes before they started announcing the point totals. Getting to my feet and brushing the snow off me, I turned to head inside, but the caught movement in the corner of my eye.
I whipped back around and found a boy, who couldn't have been much older than me, standing at the edge of the field, nearly hidden in the trees of the woods. I didn't recognize him. He was looking around, inspecting the place from a safe distance. I slid back down into a crouching position, trying to hide in the shadows. His eyes slid across the glass structure, taking it in. Then, they landed on me.
Even from a distance, I could see the color of his eyes. They were a light grey, almost white, that pierced through the night. I shivered at the weight of his gaze. He couldn't see me through the darkness, could he?
You can see him, can't you?
My pulse raced as my hand slowly slid down to my boot, where my knife stayed hidden. I didn't know this person or his plan and it was making me uneasy. We stared for a moment longer before he calmly turned and walked away, the shadows of the trees swallowing him up. I stood up, debating whether I should run after him or go inside.
Without warning, the speakers crackled to life. "All students must gather in the Main Meeting Hall for point calculations and team adjustments at this time."
I suppose my decision was made for me.
Looking back at the trees one last time, I turned on my heel and ran back inside.