Training is different than usual, which is nice. "All right, guys, we have a lot to talk about," Larson says at the beginning of training.
"What happened to your wrist?" Naomi asks.
"I...I cut my tracker off." Larson changes the subject, "Damien and I-"
"How!?" Okay, Naomi needs to shut up, now.
"With a knife."
"If it was so easy, why don't other people do it?"
"Because it was risky." Larson nears Naomi, and leans in, leaving no more than an inch between their faces. She gets herself into trouble a lot. "If I had so much as barely slit the tracker, the Fed would have killed me. And there are veins and arteries right underneath the tracker; if I had cut too deep, I could've killed myself." He takes a breath and finishes, "Got it?" He steps back and continues, "Damien and I have devised a plan to stop the Fed. After training, I'm going to the Compound to recruit some of the warriors. I have to be careful though."
I step forward and stand next to Larson. "We need you guys' help. But it's dangerous. We might not make it out alive." Piper looks at me with tears in her eyes, then walks over to me.
"I'm in." Tucker steps forward.
"Me too."
"Count me in!" Everyone agrees, except Naomi, who stands, leaning to one side, arms folded, behind everyone who's agreed.
"I don't wanna die. I want to live freely."
"Naomi," I walk up to her and lean over just enough to match her height. "You have- we all have two options; live in slavery, or die freely, with a slight chance of living freely."
Her mouth works for a moment, then she nods.
"Thank you." I guide her to the rest of the group, and glance at Piper. When I get over to her and notice her look of jealousy, I whisper to her, "You have nothing to worry about."
"We haven't finished the whole plan yet, but we will when we know how many people I can get from the Compound." Larson heads for the training area, and we all follow him. "You think you trained hard before? You ain't seen nothing, yet." He cracks down, he gets us to work. He trains us hard. We need to be ready for the attack. Training lasts nine hours; from five in the morning, to two in the afternoon.
"All right, we gotta get home, then I have to head to the Compound to recruit some people," Larson announces. The walk home is the same as usual, but Larson and I are ahead of everyone else, because I have something important to discuss with him.
"Lars..." I begin hesitantly.
"Yeah?"
"What about Wes?"
Larson sighs and looks down a little. "What about him?"
"Well, we need to take him, don't we? We can use all the help we can get, and he was a great warrior!"
"Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. We can't. Absolutely not!"
"Why not?!" At this point, we're at his house already, so we sit down on his porch.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous it would be to remove the tracker of someone who isn't in the Compound yet?"
"No, I guess not."
"We'll make do without him. I'll take it off after we win, if we do."
"Fine," I mutter. I cough for a second, then turn back to Larson. "I should get home, in case they come for me tonight."
"All right," He agrees. I say goodbye and start home.
"Good news, Damien!" Larson nears me as he picks me up, on the way to training. "Guess how many people I got yesterday."
"How many?" I ask, excitedly awaiting an answer.
Larson takes a deep breath, a smile spread across his face, and says "94."
My face lights up and I smile wide. "That's incredible! Thank you!"
He laughs softly. "You're welcome. We have about 115 warriors, against their 101!"
I allow myself to laugh a little. "That's amazing." I pause. "Did...did you find my family?" I ask nervously.
"Some of it..."
"Like who?"
"Your brothers, Ritchie and Brody."
"I have brothers? I mean, I knew that...but I wasn't sure if they were still...alive."
"They're alive. Each one of the Compound escapees are at the training center."
"Did you have to cut off all of their trackers?"
"Yeah...it wasn't too terrible, I guess."
"Thanks...for doing that." I speed up to get next to Piper. "Hey, Piper!"
"Hi!" She starts. "You're awful happy today, Damien!"
"Something wrong with that?"
"No, but I'm not exactly used to it."
"To be fair, I'm not the only happy person." I open my mouth to continue, but Lars steps in front of the group to stop us and make an announcement.
"All right, everyone, listen up!" He says, clapping his hands once and then rubbing them together. "There are about 100 compound escapees in there. Some of them may be family, go ahead and go crazy, reunite with them. It's been ten years, or so." Everyone starts chatting and getting excited. "Hey wait, there are rules, okay? Don't harass them. If you don't recognize anyone, there may not be anyone you know in there. Lastly, ask me before assuming that. I tried hard to get your families, if I could. I know all of them. Go on in, orderly." We walk in as a group, each one of us buzzing with excitement. A couple kids see their families immediately, others walk off to the side, knowing their family is dead already, and most of us stand on our tiptoes trying to see over everyone.
"How am I supposed to find mine?" Piper asks, looking at me nervously. "I only remember my sister Hattie and my parents-" She stops. She's staring off at the crowd and I follow her gaze. A lady, blonde hair and blue eyes, just like Piper, is staring back at her. "Mom?" Her eyes fill with tears and she runs for her mother. I watch with a smile on my face. I only remember my brother, but I doubt he's here. He didn't seem like the "warrior" type when we were growing up.
Everyone is either asking Larson, sitting by the wall looking depressed, or with their family. I look around for Ritchie. I look to the left side of the large group and hear a voice from my right call my name. I turn to see who it was. I think it's Ritchie, but I haven't seen him much since he was 13 so I'm not positive. "Ritchie, is that you?" I ask him. He comes closer, slightly tearing up, and nods as he pulls me into a hug. I don't remember us being very close, but neither of us cares anyway.
He pulls away and wipes a tear away as he gestures to a man, slightly older than Ritchie, who was standing behind him. "Do you remember Brody at all?"
I frown a little and shake my head. "Not his name. Just that I had another brother. Larson reminded me earlier when he told me that he got you guys."
"I don't blame you for forgetting me, dude," Brody starts, smiling, and ruffling my hair like I'm five. "I wasn't all that memorable!"
"Yeah, he was, and still is, a square!" Ritchie laughs. Brody bumps into the side of Ritchie, teasingly.
"Damien," Piper comes up behind me.
"Ooh, Damien! You have good taste in women!" Ritchie teases me. "I'm his brother, Ritchie."
"Nice to meet you," She states, acting as uninterested as possible so he gets the idea. "Damien, you've gotta meet my family." She grabs my arm and drags me behind her. I wave to my brothers, and smile at Piper's excitement. She seems like a little girl, which is nice. Not many people get to see that around her. "Damien, these are my siblings; Tate, Emerson, Holden, and Hattie. Then my mother, Wanda."
Piper's family and I exchange handshakes and hellos. "Please tell me you did not remember them..."
"Only my mom and Hattie, I said that earlier."
"Oh yeah." I smack my hand to my forehead and laugh. I shake my head, and as I'm doing so, I notice Naomi off to the side, on the verge of tears. "Excuse me, everyone." I walk over to her and crouch down in front if her. "Whatcha doing?"
"My family's dead, it's hopeless," She pouts.
"Are you sure they're dead?"
"No, but I'm pretty sure."
"Ask Lars, Naomi! Maybe you're wrong! C'mon," I stand up and put my hand out to help her up, but she glances at it and ignores it, then stands up on her own. She walks off towards Lars, and I drop my arm to side and roll my eyes, following after her. "Lars," I start as we near him. "Did you get Naomi's family back, perhaps?"
"Yeah, I did," He answers.
Naomi's face takes on a look of shock. "You did? But, I thought they were...Where are they?"
"Um," Lars scans the room for a moment, then points at a couple, apparently Naomi's parents. "Right there."
Naomi smiles wide and tears flood her eyes. Her hand covers her mouth as the tears pour down her cheeks. I've never seen her like this, she never smiles, I never would have thought she knew how to cry, and she just seemed downright angry, all the time. But this- this is different side of her. She excitedly runs over to them, looking like a little girl, just like Piper. This is a weird day...but it's a great one. "You know," I hear someone say behind me. I turn and see Ritchie. "You never introduced me to your girlfriend."
I laugh and say, "Her name is Piper. Piper Dunn."
"I see," He laughs. More solemnly, he continues, "How old are you, now?"
"17."
"You never got tracked?"
"Nope. I...I got lucky, I guess."
"Damien!" Lars shouts from the other side of the training center.
"I gotta go, Ritch." I walk over to Lars and he says, "We have to get ready. We have to attack the Fed next week."
"Okay. But, why?"
"Don't ask questions, just trust me. All right?"
"Okay."
"All right, everyone, listen up!" Larson shouts over the noise. "I know this is a moment most of us never thought would happen, but we need to focus on the matter at hand; defeating the Fed."
Mutters and questions fill the room.
"Quiet, everyone!" Larson snaps. "I need your attention. If you were a warrior, go to the training side. If you were a nurse or doctor, go to the classroom side. If you were still in my class, come up front." Everyone obeys. I join the class and Larson continues. "Some of our girls wished they were nurses, rather than warriors. Now's your chance. Go to the classroom side. The rest of you, training side." After everyone is in their place, Larson continues, "Nurses, I need you to teach these girls. All right?"
They all nod.
"Warriors, all of us will be training and practicing. We all need it, everyone can be better." We all group together, of course Brody and Ritchie are already by my side, and Larson begins, "Exercise your weakest point. Find the station with it, and practice. All day. Got it?" We nod and everyone scrambles to their station. For me, my weak point is dodging, because I have slow reflexes and I'm tall. Wes and I both had a hard time with it. Piper is a pro at it though, she has quick reflexes, she's small, and she is very agile, so she goes to the shooting range, my strong point. I spot Brody over by the knives, and Ritch over by Piper, though I think he's just over there to flirt with her, rather than to exercise his skills.
I am exhausted after the whole day of dodging fake, cardboard bullets. When we have to go home, we say goodbye to everyone and Lars takes all the students home. I glance at Wes" house as we walk by and decide to inquire Larson about it more. I hate that he's already had to cut off about 100 of them, but we need Wes. He's too big of a help. "Lars, about Weston-"
"No. I already told you that, Damien." He states clearly. If I was smart, I'd get the idea and move on. But I'm not.
"You know how good of a fighter he is, you know how much better we'd do if he was fighting with us!"
"Yes, you and I both know that. But what you don't know, is that the Fed knows what they're doing, and it is much too dangerous to get him. I can't just waltz into his house and cut off his tracker, it isn't that easy." He stops, the other students keep walking, and he places a hand on my shoulder as he leans down the my height. "I would love to get Wes. He is a wonderful warrior. But it puts him and all of us at too much risk."
"How so?"
"If you ever get taken, you'll understand. But it isn't quite so simple. I just need you to trust me."
"Okay, fine."
"Thanks." He retracts his arm and stands up straight again. He starts walking again, and I sigh and follow behind him.
A thought enters my mind and I speed up to Larson's side. "What if I were to get tracked today? Would you leave me?"
"I'd have to. It's too dangerous."
I give him a sad, and somewhat disappointed look.
"As much as I'd hate to, I would have no other option." He grins a little. "Sorry, kid, but that's how it is, that's how our life is. And it sucks. But it's life, this is life as we know it, and maybe, somewhere out there, there's an another life that's better, but we just need to find it. And we aren't searching hard enough."
"Do you think we'll ever find it?"
"Someday, maybe. I sure hope so."
"Me too. What do you think it'd take to get Africa or Europe to donate us some trees?"
Larson laughs, "Probably not a lot, but we don't exactly have means of communication with them. Only the Fed does."
"Dang it." I chuckle and we catch up with the group. Tucker is slowing, and breathing hard. He gets to his house and goes inside. The older brother, the one who almost lost his brother who had asthma, I recently learned his name; Miles. Miles Lansford, and his little brother's name is Jaden. I catch up to Miles. He's really and particularly sad person, but he's nice, and needs a friend. Jaden is cradled in his arms, and Miles looks at him nervously. "Hey, Miles."
"Hi, Damien, right?"
"Yeah. How's Jaden doing?"
"Fine. I guess. We need oxygen, or we won't live long enough to attack the Federation."
He's right. The oxygen is terrible, and getting worse. I didn't realize how fast we're all breathing. It's not getting any better, for sure. And I need it to, or Jaden isn't gonna make it. And we need each and every warrior.
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