I end up getting my wish to leave. But it's not what I'd imagined.
After three months of Thurmond time, countless blasts of calm control, and a dozen accidental fires, the camp controllers decide its time for a change.
So in the middle of the night when we're least expecting it, the lights to our cabin flip on and two PSFs storm inside. Every single girl is startled, none of us know what's happening.
"Up! Get up, now!" They command, pulling girls out of their beds by the hair.
I'm lucky enough to be on one of the last beds so I shoot out of it, standing before I'm made to stand.
All of us are disorientated as they chain us together like normal, pulling us out of our cabins before we can get our bearings.
But it's not just our cabin, it's every single red cabin in the entire camp. And the oranges. They're mass moving us all.
Instead of being led on our normal path, we're led to the front gate, where we entered this hellhole.
Waiting there are buses, already running.
We're led up the stairs and sat down on the seats, our feet and hands still connected to each other.
The oranges are given their own bus, our colours don't mix.
This is it. They're finally getting rid of us for good. I'm afraid, genuinely terrified that I'm going to die tonight.
Some of the other red cabins mix in with our cabin, our colour takes up two buses total.
And we start moving, out of the gates of Thurmond.
—
Cate checks the Thurmond camp database twice a week, making sure there are no terrible updates to Jia's profile, just that she's there, with her countless disobedience demerits.
But one morning, she's not.
She types the same name into the search bar, like every time she searches.
Jia Thorin.
No results.
Her face falls. That can't be right.
Thorin, Jia.
No results.
Red
No results.
How?
"You better get the director up here. There's something he'll want to know," one of the HQ support techs says after getting off the phone.
"What? What is it?" Cate asks, mind still working on why there are no results.
"Every single red and orange in all the camps have been moved. They're just gone. No records are left of those kids,"
It's what she feared.
Project Jamboree.
—
I don't know where we're driving, but it's taking a long time to get there.
They let us off the bus a few times to relieve ourselves and feed us but other than that, they don't speak to us.
Deep down I'm hoping it's like the last time I was taken by PSFs. That the league will come roaring up in their SUV's and rescue us. But I know it won't happen.
Finally, after hours of driving, a facility comes into view, it looks just like any other camp, except there aren't cabins.
There's a large building in the centre of the camp, along with some smaller buildings. Control towers stand by the entry gate to the facility, looks like a tinier Thurmond.
Is this why we're here? Did they decide we're too much to handle with other colours and that we get our own special camp?
But instead of giving us an introduction to our new home, the PSFs grab our chains and pull, making us follow by force.
There's no explanation for anything that's happening. We have simply been tugged along, stumbling and tired.
But once we step inside the building, all bets are off.
There are tables in the main room of the building, where we stop.
It's so confusing, nothing like this has ever happened before. What are they doing?
One by one, people in all black uniforms unhook the girls from the line and take them upstairs and down a hallway.
I'm getting nervous now, no one has explained anything to us, this move has happened so fast.
Eventually, it's my turn. The guard unhooks my handcuffs and the shackles on my ankle. He grabs my arm without looking at me and pulls me upstairs.
At the top of the stairs is a kid, like the rest of us. For a moment, I think he's a red. But he's standing freely and in a suit, watching us as we're pulled up. Wait. I know who this is.
Clancy gray. The presidents son. He was apparently cured. Now he's here, doing this to us? What the hell?! The boy smiles sadistically at me before I'm pulled away from him.
The long hallway I'm shoved into is filled with cells... what the fuck? This can't be legal, can it? The president is doing this?
The doors are metal with a small window at the top.
He keeps pulling me until we come to a cell with its door open. Inside its walls are completely white, the floodlights on.
My muzzle is ripped off my face and I'm pushed inside the cell, hitting the ground.
I can hear the door shut and a lock click while I sit up, assessing my new environment.
There's no way to escape this room. It's quite a small space and I'm completely isolated. The door is the only way in and out.
Maybe that's what it's come to for us. They don't think they can control us, so this is our new camp. We'll be left here to die.
But that's not it at all. I wish it was. God, I wish they'd have just killed us.
It's so much worse.
—
Nothing happens for a long time. The floodlights in my cell never go off and I know it has to be dark outside.
It's hard to sleep with these lights on, almost impossible. But eventually, I'm so tired and exhausted, I feel like I'm about to pass out.
And that's when it starts.
As I'm about to sleep, my world explodes into blinding hurt. I yelp as I'm hauled up and slammed back onto the ground by the men in black.
They strike and strike at me, screaming insults into my ear too vile to repeat.
After they finish with me, they exit my cell with no further words. So we can't sleep? What the hell is this? Why are they beating us?
I can feel my nose bleeding and wipe it the best I can. It mixes with the red of my Thurmond uniform.
My skin tingles and aches with the pains of their beating. I try to collect myself, figure out what's going to happen to us. But I can't.
Anger burns inside of me, for what they did to me. It feels like fire is seeping from my core to my other limbs, it's so hot it could melt my bones.
Because I'm heating up, my arm gives a sharp jerk. That must be a signal because my door is shoved open again, the men in black coming back in.
But they cut me this time, using a blade to cut the arm that gave the jerk. I scream, not being able to hold back as they hold me down.
That's not all, though. To fizzle out the fire burning within me, a bucket of ice water is brought in and dumped on me.
"You are wrong! Tell me you're wrong so we can fix you!" The voices scream. I don't give in to the insults and poison words they throw at me, staying strong.
Finally, they leave me alone, hurting and shivering. That's all that's happened to me since I've arrived. Hurt. Pain. I can do this. I'm okay. I just need to remember Cate, Jude, Vida.
This cycle goes on for hours, I can hear some of the others sobbing in their cells, only to be silenced by more pain until they stop.
They're playing sick mind games with us. Beating us into submission. The most dangerous colour subdued with pain.
I try so hard not to sleep, not to pass out, but I can't prevent it forever and once I do, the pain returns.
This time they drag me out of my cell and use electricity as a form of torture, the volts feeling like hot knives being plunged into my skin.
And he watches. That sick bastard Clancy watches. He's the one giving the orders.
He stands behind a glass wall, looking at us as we're tortured. Clancy isn't cured, god no. He's an orange, he plays with our minds, making our worst nightmares into realities. He's a monster.
After this round of hurt, they drug us. Sweet, black, nothing. It feels so good, to forget the pain, the hurt, the words. Just feel nothing.
And then we're fed, given water, and given medicine for the hurt. Why are they doing this? Obedience is the key they said.
Every time between pain and eating, they drug us, letting that feeling of nothingness take over.
This... this is hell.
—
It's not long before they start using the calm control, off and on and off and on for hours at a time, every day, making my brain feel like mush.
About a month into this pain cycle, I finally realize what it is, what they're trying to do.
Any emotion we show, pain. Happy, pain. Anger, pain. Want, pain. Sadness, pain. Humour, pain. Anytime we give a hint of emotion, whether it be crying, flinching, biting back, or anything else, the men in black retaliate with pain.
The trainers know that the fire in us is bottomless. So they take care to stamp out the flames, pulverize us, turn us into raw meat. They leave us tiny little embers who only respond to their hand.
Lashing, cutting, beating, ice water, electrifying, anything. It's so hard. So, so hard. I'm trying to stay strong, I really am. But their blades cut and cut at my personality, my will.
They starve us for most of the week, making our brains grateful for the food and water they give us when they finally ease off.
I can hear the other kids breaking. Sobbing thank you, thank you, thank you, I need you. I'll never let you down again. Thank you, before being silenced by more pain. That every day. Pain. Pain. Pain.
—
After months, they finally stop using the calm control daily. It's made too many kids crack. You can reset broken bones, stitch the cuts that go too deep, but you can't repair a broken mind. CC is one of the first to crack completely, the training too much. Her mind has been shattered into a million tiny, flaming pieces.
Some of the kids they consider too volatile, too hot to train. They're taken and they don't come back.
I have to be careful. Although I want to bite back, be strong and fight them, it only results in more pain. And although I want this to end, I don't want to die. Not yet.
—
The days blur together, the only things separating them the different methods used to give pain, the different insults that are thrown at me, telling me I'm broken, I need to be fixed. I'm starting to believe them. My brain wants me to believe them.
I know most of the kids have been cracked, feeling what the men want them to feel. There are only a few of us holding out, still resisting.
That nothingness that comes with pushing through the pain, what the drugs make us feel like between pain and eating.
There aren't many of us left who still resist, I can see the light in their eyes as we're dragged out of our cells. The number is dwindling.
If we so much as flinch at the wrong time we're treated to daily, repeated ice water submissions for a month.
Finally, it's too much for me.
I have no idea how long I've been in here, subjected to this torture. Two years? Two and a half? I'm so tired...
They've stripped us all down to a letter and a number, constantly repeated so we can never forget it. F13. That's who they want me to be.
After being dumped back into my cell by the men, their hands that strike, strike, strike. They beat me down, my tears dried as I sit against the wall, all will and hope of escape gone. I have no decisions left. I can't feel this way anymore. It hurts to try, to think, to resist. Any thought or feeling that belongs to me has been taken.
Any hint of a thought, a flinch, or emotion is punished. And I can't do it.
"I'm sorry," I whisper to no one, ashamed of giving up, giving in to the nothingness that eases the pain, leaving my mind empty.
One thing has been made clear by the trainers. It won't stop hurting until I stop trying. It will stop once I give up. And I've given up. I'm done. It hurts too bad to even think, to remember what I was doing at all.
The door opens and instead of the men in black, a piece of bread is thrown in. "Yes. You are nothing. No one. A mistake," it's reinforced. I believe it.
Yes, I'm weak. I'm wrong. A shadow, sunken and dull. A warm cup of water. "Let us fix you," yes they can fix me. I'm no one.
The connection between my will and brain is snapped, the part that helps make me my own person with my own decisions.
My eyes are dull, nothing there. No emotion. Complete control. Nothing.
The life I have is dull until the trainers give me a sharpener. There's nothing to dispute. They completely control us, we listen without a doubt. No more fear or hurt.
Jia is gone. My number is F13. That's who I am.