I stood stock still as he worked his way down the line. “As you may know, we have a spy among our pack leaders.” I heard a hitched breath from someone else who was standing against the line. Was I the spy? No. But I also didn’t want whoever was to be dragged away to who knows where.
“Thalia, come here.” It took all my will power not to curse as the frizzy headed girl stepped forward, her chest heaving and her hands clasped tightly behind her back. “Would you like to explain yourself?” He asked, his voice cold and his eyes emoitionless. He reminded me of a shark, the way he seemed to attack so stealthily, no one seeing it coming.
“What you’re doing is wrong.” Her voice was tight with fear as her whole body trembled. The general raised his pinkie finger in the air and I winced as a dart sprouted from her neck. Her eyes opened wide in shock before closing again as she collapsed.
I swallowed back the sick feeling in my stomach as I stared at her limp form. One of the security picked her up like a sack of flower, tossing her over his shoulder carlesly before carrying her away. Her curls were the last sight of her I would ever see.
“Now because we obviously cannot find eryone she was associated with, you all be given a punishment in the form of a test.” A few of the other kids groaned but the general quickly shut them up with a hash glare. “Unless you would rather let the director decide your punishment.”
My heart skipped a beat. The mysterious director of the school. The one who put us all here and gave us genes to enhance us without our say in the matter. Word was that he had messed up on the latest round. That before our generation the genes stripped you of emotions as well. If that was the case, then the director had made a very big mistake with us, indeed.
“You’re test will be waiting in your rooms with the rest of your pack. You are dismissed.” I took controlled steps out of the large, concrete room; but as soon as I got through the door way, I broke into a sprint. The tests were never a good thing and I was panicking as I ran, hoping with everything that I had that my pack was okay. That they hadn’t done anything to my pack.
I turned the tight corner and slammed the door to our dorm behind me. The long, rectangular room with bunks along the walls and our trunks underneath them. The egg white walls was boring and hard to focus on. The only empty wall was the one at the end, where we usually sat and hang out.
Normally when I got to my room after a line up I would find my pack sittying there, laughing and joking around about something ridiculous that Luke had said. But that wasn’t the scene today.
Instead Anya was propped against the wall, her black curly hair matted with dry blood. She was gasping for air as my friends tried to stop the bleeding from the wound in her abdomen.
“No! I’ll kill him.” I growled, running forward and pushing Kane out of the way as I knelt beside her, inspecting the tear in her stomach. It was about the size of my throwing knife, and ragged around the edges, like it hadn’t been a clean cut. It hadn’t cut an artery, it wasn’t bleeding fast enough. But the possibility that it had gotten some very important arteries was high. She would need surgery to survive.
“Visha?” Her voice was hoarse. “I’m scared.” I stared at her in horror. She had said a lot of things since I knew her, but being scared was not one of them.
“It’s going to be okay Anya. Don’t be scared. Phoenix can you hand me those gauze pads?” Phoenix nodded, tossing them to me as she stared at Anya with tears in her eyes. I pressed them hard to the wound and Anya gasped in pain.
“I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I apologized quickly. I was biting my lip nervously, looking at Kane for confirmination of what I feared was the truth. He glanced her, then back at me. A silent shake of the head let me know that she wasn’t going to make it.
I took my hand off the wound, supporting her by the shoulders and shifting her so that she was leaning on my instead of the wall. Cyra seemed to understand what I was doing first.
“B-but.” She stammered, trying to find the words to speak in such a situation. I motioned for her to come over and she did, grabbing the hand that I offered and brushing Anya’s now disguisting hair out of her face.
“I’m getting the information tomorrow.” She whispered in Anya’s ear, probably trying to sooth her rapidly beating heart. I could feel it against my chest as she leaned her head back onto my shoulder.
It was over an hour before she was gone. She hadn’t been lucky enough to have any major body parts injured so we had to wait for her to bleed out. Finally Phoenix pressed her fingers to her neck. Her shoulders sagged and I could hear Cyra sniffle as she began to cry.
“Where’s Ebony and Edmond?” I growled, my emotions finally getting the best of me. Cyra flinched away from me and Rip looked hesitantly from where she sat on her bed.
I fixed my gaze on each one of them but they all avoided my look of death. Finally Rip’s timid voice spoke up. “They were taken for the second test.” She told me, her olive eyes staring at me as she brushed a peace of auburn hair from her face.
My stomach dropped. “But- That’s not scheduled for another week. I needed to train with them more.” They were a year younger than me, the only sixteen year old’s in the group. “And… And Talin?” I hadn’t questioned his dissapearence before. He was almost always doing something for them since he accepted his role of guard. But since the had taken one of my pack members already and now put another two of them in danger…
“He’s just helping them carry in some cargo Visha, he’s safe.” I felt my muscles relax at Kane’s simple sentence.
“Alright, guys. Let’s get Anya in the capsule.” No one moved. We were all in pain, but we couldn’t sit here all day, we had training and dinner still. I Carefully shifted her onto the floor and stood. “Let’s give her the passage and then we’ll go get washed up.”
Everyone slowly moved to her, grabbing a part of her while I gently took her head. We picked her up and Kane pressed the button on the wall. The small opening, just big enough for her small form, melted away from the wall. We carefully put her in and the wall melted together again.411Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo4SqnhO1nb
I looked around at my pack. The younger kids were all huddled near each other, trying to swipe away tears before I saw them. Phoenix was on her bed, staring numbly at her hands. Kane was just staring at the blood that covered the floor.
“We did everything we could.” My voice came out cracked and hoarse, but I refused to cry. “Now let’s wash up and go to dinner everyone.” They followed my orders like a bunch of drones. They opened the door and began filing out. I stood in the room for a minute.
As the last one left Talin came out, a bag thrown over his shoulder. His smile quickly faded as he assessed the scene, and the kids, and finally, me.
“What happened?” He asked, swiping his long silver hair away from his face. I stared at the blood unceratainly.
“Anya’s gone.” And with that, I swept out of the room to go wash the blood off of me.411Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSawY6ZKyb7
