Thursday night, everyone, no matter how dangerous and risky it is, has to meet at the training center, so Lars can lead us to the Compound and the Fed HQ. In my house, I gather a small backpack of clothes and any food and water I have, which isn't much, but I pack it anyways. A knock at the door makes me jump, and I nervously approach, hoping, with everything I've got, that it's not the Fed. I open the door, relieved to see Naomi, Piper, and Wes.
I sigh hard, with relief, and say, "Thank goodness, it's just you guys."
"Did we scare you a little?" Naomi laughs, as they let themselves in.
"Why don't you guys come in?" I laugh as I shut the door.
"Don't mind if we do!" Wes smirks. "You ready to go to the training center?"
"Yeah." I said as I swing my backpack onto my back. "Shall we go?" The four of us walk to the training center together.
when we get here, everyone is nervous, including me and certainly Piper. We all are ready though; each one of us has a rifle with over 50 rounds of ammo, a pistol with about ten rounds of ammo, and a dagger.
Lars hasn't told us exactly where we're going tonight, but he said we are forming a safe house somewhere by the Fed HQ. I've never been that far. The training center is as far as I've been.
"Gather 'round, everyone!" Larson stands up on a table from the classroom. "We attack first thing tomorrow morning. Now, there are about 115 of us; we can't all go to the safe house together. It's much too close to the Fed HQ, and will draw too much attention. I have us split into five groups. The first group leaves at-" He glances at his watch. "-Five o'clock, sharp. The next group leaves at five thirty. Then, six. And so on. Check the chalkboard to see who your group leader is and what time you're leaving." He hops down and the whole room floods around the chalkboard. It's a good couple minutes before I get to see who's in my group. When I finally do, I only recognize two names; Harvey Leroy, the group leader, and a friend that Larson has mentioned, and Brody. And we leave at seven, the last group to go.
We gather and sit around, all bored to death. By six, Brody and I are sitting next to each other, and I'm leaning on his arm, half asleep. All the nurses, younger kids, and some Compound escapees left first with Larson's group.
Seven o'clock comes faster than I expected, and we all know it's a pretty long walk to the Fed HQ, but we're ready. Brody and I walk together and, after about five minutes of walking, he says, "Are you ready for tomorrow?"
"I thought I was, until now. I haven't been this nervous about it before," I admit.
He looks down, then at me. We hold each others' gaze for a few seconds, then he looks away. We walk for what seems to be about 20 minutes, then reach an old army base, a pretty large concrete building, with walls as thick as I am tall, and a two-inch layer of graphene on the outside of the building, and a thin lining on the insides of the walls and ceiling. The doors are three inches thick, and made of pure graphene, and the whole building is still intact, even after the wars. It was built to outlast them. The outside of the building is a little banged up, but the inside is still standing strong.
We walk in, and almost the entire inside of the large building is filled with bunk beds. Most of the group has settled into their beds, and most of the beds are filled. Ritchie is on a top bunk, with Tucker on the bottom. Brody walks ahead of me and takes the top of the bunk in the very back corner of the room. I decide to take the one underneath, and follow him. My heart races a little when I see that a girl has the bed next to mine. I don't know who, but the backpack sure doesn't belong to a boy.
"Damien!" Ritchie shouts from his bunk. I look up at him and start towards him and Tucker. "Come here," He tells me, when I get to his bed. I climb up on top and situate myself next to him. "You ready for tomorrow?"
"As I'll ever be."
Ritchie looks at me for awhile. It's weird, but I don't stop him. After about thirty seconds, he pulls me into a hug. I hug back immediately. I know I didn't know him for very long, but he's my brother. And I missed him nonetheless.
Later that night, to my pleasure, I discover that Piper has the bunk next to mine, rather than some married woman or something. Larson tells us all to go to bed at eight thirty, after we've all settled and found a bunk. We need the rest.
I can't sleep. I know I need to, but I can't. It feels like it's almost morning, but I know it isn't. I wish it were. It's probably not even ten o'clock yet. I look over at Piper. She doesn't look asleep. "Piper?" I whisper.
Her head turns to face me. "Hm?"
"Are you nervous?" I ask as I sit up.
She sits up, too, and replies, "No...I'm terrified." Tears spring to her eyes. I put my arms out, hating that she needs me because we might lose each other tomorrow. I hate that we need each other. I don't know what's going to happen. She drops to her knees, in front of me, wraps her arms around me, and cries, with her head in my lap.
It hurts. How much I love her hurts. I know there's nothing I can do about it though, I know that. Not without hurting her.
She catches her breath and gets up to sit next to me on the bed. I put an arm around her and rub her shoulder, as she leans against me.
"Damien..." She starts, pulling away and looking at me. "Are you nervous?"
"Yeah, I guess so." Our faces are no more than two inches away from each other. I could kiss her. I want to. But it would hurt more than not kissing her. I look away nervously.
"You okay?"
"Yeah!" I lie. I smile a little and try to make her believe me. She looks distraught. "No, I'm not okay; Piper, this hurts!" I stand up and rub the back of my neck. "It hurts..." I choke on the words and drop to my knees, then look up at her and grab her hands.
"What hurts?"
"This. The fact that I love you so much that the thing that terrifies me the most about tomorrow is losing you." She looks at me for a second, with tears in her eyes, then, in one swift movement, releases my hands, takes my face in her hands, and kisses me. It hurts, but feels wonderful at the same time. The kiss lasts longer than I expected it to, but I'm okay with it, because I don't know how much longer the two of us will be alive.
With my face still in her hands, Piper looks me dead in the eye, with tears rolling down her cheeks, and says, "I love you. And I know that we might not live to see the end of this war. But I'm fighting this war for you. And you, Damien, are worth dying for." She smiles at me. "You're worth dying for because you're all I've got. And because I know you'd die for me in a heartbeat," She finishes. She's right. I would die for her, and without a second thought. I get back up and sit on the bed, next to her, my stamina regained, and look at her.
"Heavens, I love you..." She whispers under her breath. With a sneaky smirk on her face, she says, "Why must you be so amazing and alluring?"
"I don't know. Why must you be so amazing and alluring?"
She rolls her eyes and gets up, then gets back in her own bed. I decide to lay back down and try to get some sleep, so the two of us get in bed and try to get some rest. After a couple minutes, I look over at Piper, who has successfully fallen asleep. Her chest rises and fall with each breath. I'm not used to seeing her so peaceful, but it's wonderful.
I finally decide to let myself begin to drift off, my last thought of the day being our kiss.
"All right, all right! Everyone get up!" Larson's shouting wakes us all up, aside from a few deep sleepers that he's shaking. "We attack in just a few hours, I would love it if everyone was actually somewhat awake for the attack! That would be so helpful." He grabs a wooden spoon from the kitchen area, that I hadn't noticed before, and bangs it against one of the metal-frame bunk beds. Everyone that wasn't awake already jumps up and starts prepping themselves for the day. There is little chatter between everyone, considering the most of us are still half asleep.
"Come on, everyone!" Wheeler climbs on top of the very center bunk bed, sits on top, cross-legged, and continues, "We have a war to fight! We are not six-year-old little girls! We are men!" He finishes toughly, then realizes his mistake and says, "And women!" After a short pause, he starts again. "And boys, and girls, but, you get the point! We are awesome!"
Larson approaches the bed and rests an elbow on the top bunk and says, "Hey, Wheeler?"
"Yeah?" Wheeler smiles wide.
"Get off my bed."
Wheeler nods and hops down, accidentally nailing Larson's nose with his elbow, on the way down.
We are all ready within a few minutes, considering we didn't have to do much more than wake up and comb out our hair with our fingers. Larson gathers up all the food that we brought, including the food that the Compound escapees brought, which is more food than I've ever seen at one time, and starts rationing it out. He gives the kids in his class more food than the escapees because they aren't malnourished, like us. They've been getting plenty of food for awhile.
After everyone finishes eating, we get our gear and sit on our beds, but the people with top bunks just sit next to the person who had the bottom, so Brody and I sit next to one another.
"All right..." Larson and Wheeler are at the head of the room, and Larson steps forward, to talk to us before we go. "We attack today, everyone. We haven't been training long, so I know this is a bit..." He clears his throat. "Nerve wracking...but, we can do it. Now; we can't go out there on our own, and I counted everyone- there are 93 warriors. Groups of three! Everyone should be in groups of three. Why? Because, if someone gets injured, there is someone to run and get help and someone to watch the injured person. If you can, carry them back here, it isn't a very far walk, and they can get better care here than out there."
Wheeler steps forward and says, "Hopefully, we won't need to worry about that much...but, I promise, we will...at least a little..."
"Wheeler's right," Larson starts up again. "But we can do this. I'm not saying it won't be hard, it will be, but it will also be worth it. I wish you all the best of luck out there today."
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