Chapter 6
A week later, Doc pronounced Wendy free to leave the medical wing and ready to go into training. Even though Doc hadn’t given her any more healers, Wendy felt good. Sore ribs aside, mending after bruises hadn't taken nearly as long as putting her body back together the first time. Wendy had already been exercising, and she could tell her body wanted more.
The night before, Elle had taken Wendy to a room in the probationary hall. It felt strange to have a space she could call her own, even for just a little while. A clean, warm bed with blankets lay on a frame in the middle of the room, a dresser for clothes sat to the right. The doorway to the left led to her own private toilet and sink. All luxuries she had never experienced before.
She placed her only possessions on the dresser: three little hand-made thank you cards complete with thick-lined illustrations the kids from the marketplace had brought her a few days before.
The cards should have softened her demeanor toward these people, but instead they stood as a bleak reminder that Mike and his band of Skinnies were willing to kill whole families. Wendy vowed to make sure it didn’t happen again.
She pushed off her bed and stood. This morning would be her first meeting with the other trainee fighters. She’d been ready for half an hour, and still had a few minutes to spare. Sitting on the bed made her fidget, so she paced the room.
She’d never had friends, and now she was about to try to make some. Kenzie had been the ultimate example of being everyone’s friend. For the hundredth time, Wendy tried to remember what her sister did to make everyone like her—smiling, asking how they were, actually caring how they were, sometimes offering advice, but most of the time just listening. Things Wendy always thought of as a waste of her time, and here she was about to try to be liked. Should she act tough or more helpless? Coy or aggressive?
She’d tried different strategies out on Matt over the past few days, but he seemed to like her no matter what. Which wasn’t helping.
A knock sounded at her door. Wendy froze in place, heart racing, palms clammy.
Before she opened the door, Wendy took one last look at herself in the small mirror that hung next to the dresser. Still scrawny, Wendy now appeared to have a few weeks between herself and death, as opposed to a few days. Eating regular meals for the past two weeks had done wonders for her sunken eyes and cheeks. Her collar bones stuck out, jabbing at her shirt, but the dark pants and light jacket almost didn't look too big anymore. Her long, dark hair hung down her back in a single braid. When she got to her haunted green eyes, she turned.
Time to go.
Before the knock could come again, she closed the distance to the door and opened it. As he had promised the day before, Jeff had come to take her to the meeting. He stood like a soldier—stiff and straight. “Ready?”
Wendy shoved her doubts and fears aside, and dredged up a smile. “Do I need anything?” Not that she had anything to bring. Just a few changes of clothes and the purple trainee shirt Elle had brought her.
“No,” Jeff said. His posture relaxed a little. “Not this time.” He glanced down at his watch. “We should go.” He stepped back, motioning her into the hall. Wendy tugged her door shut.
Jeff started walking, his long legs eating up the tiles far faster than Wendy’s. Doubling her speed, she caught up after a few strides.
They walked in silence to the end of the probationary corridor and through an unlocked gate. Jeff slowed his pace, maybe noticing her shorter legs.
He broke the silence first. “How have you been?”
It felt like a loaded question, so Wendy just said, “I'm okay.”
“Any more flashes?”
Wendy let a sigh escape. She didn’t want to answer these questions, but she needed Jeff to like her. “No. Just dreams that I don't remember much of. And waking up screaming.”
“Sounds familiar,” Jeff said.
Wendy didn’t answer.
“We didn’t really get to talk the other day. Matt is worried about you. I’ve been through it. If you want to talk about it, or ask me any questions, I’d be happy to spend some time with you.”
“I’m not sure what I want right now.” Wendy didn’t hide the bite to her words.
“I understand.”
Wendy cleared her throat. Kenzie always asked people about themselves. “So you're the leader of all the trainees.”
“Yeah,” Jeff said, shoving a hand in his pocket.
“What does that mean you do?”
They moved through the mostly deserted marketplace and to a hall on the far side, down a set of stairs and to an intersection of four hallways. Jeff led her left. The rigidity came back into his shoulders, and his voice took on a business-like air.
“Yan and Riggs are in charge of the older fighters. I basically do the same job with the trainees.”
“Which is?” Wendy prompted. She made a mental note to find out who Yan was.
“Organize rosters, set up training teams, keep the meetings straight and make sure no one kills anyone else.”
“Is that usually a problem?”
Jeff let out a small chuckle.
Wendy felt a small swell of pride that she’d just made a little joke.
“We're a bunch of teenagers learning to fight. People get heated sometimes.”
“What does Matt do?” Wendy had been wondering about this. He wouldn't tell her.
A handful of closed doorways lined the hallway. No light came from underneath them. None had windows. Wendy added to her mental map as they took a right.
“Matt went through training with the last group and came out as a mechanic, but he decided he'd rather fix people, so he's going through again as our medic.”
The ease and familiarity with which Jeff spoke about Matt made Wendy wonder. “Are you guys friends?”
Jeff nodded. “Neither of us had families, and we became friends during our training.”
Wendy let that process, and then kept going with her original line of questioning. “How many people do you have in your training group?”
“Right now we’ve got eighteen.”
“How often do these training groups start?”
Jeff waved a hand. “There isn’t a set schedule. They start one as soon as there are enough people to join. Mostly they just have to wait for kids to grow up.”
“That doesn't take long,” Wendy said.
“No, it doesn’t.”
Silence. Wendy could see Jeff stealing glances at her as they walked. It looked like he wanted to say something, but couldn't get it out. Finally he spoke without her prompting.
“Thank you for helping those kids in the marketplace,” he said.
Wendy's face settled into a mask of stone. “No little kid should have to experience a Skinny, let alone get attacked by them.”
“Yeah.”
More silence. Wendy decided to take a chance. She hoped she could make the question sound innocent. “Why do you have Skinnies here? Did you capture them?”
Jeff’s eyes swiveled down to Wendy and then back to the hallway ahead. “No. Some of our food was poisoned—no one noticed until it was too late.”
Wendy’s stomach twisted. “You mean you know those people?”
“Yeah.”
“But…” Wendy trailed off. Why didn’t they just kill the Skinnies? They were going to die a horrible death anyway.
Jeff must have thought the same thing. “There are some here who think that taking any life is wrong. So we lock them up until they die.”
“That’s inhumane.” People who joined the Den had sometimes thought the same thing. But her dad never tolerated it. It felt like a great excuse for Mike to keep Skinnies around. Wendy's stomach churned.
“Some people agree with you. Mike has made this concession to keep the peace here, but after the other day, I have a feeling that mandate might be altered.”
Wendy suddenly remembered why she had volunteered to do all of the day-to-day stuff for her dad. She hated politics. She underst
ood the need for it, but the lack of common sense it involved made Wendy want to punch something.
“We're almost there,” Jeff said. His hand lightly touched her back as they went around a corner. His fingers didn't linger, but Wendy could feel the warmth of him through her jacket. They moved in thoughtful silence—Wendy ignoring the flutter in her stomach as she tried to compose herself for the meeting—until they came to the end of the hallway.
The doorway led into a large room. Maybe a mess hall. Benches and tables had been pushed back to make space for the twenty-five or so miscellaneous wood or metal chairs that sat in a box formation in the middle of the room.
Talking, laughing young adults filled most of the chairs. A tall Asian kid sat perched in the middle of a gaggle of girls, his feet on the seat while he sat on the back of the chair. The whole group roared with laughter at something he said.
Wendy had never seen a group of teenagers this big before. They were talking and laughing—the energy in the room reminded her of Kenzie.
“Have a seat,” Jeff said. “I'll introduce you once we start.”
Wendy chose a chair in the back. One with two empty seats on either side of it. She tried to look calm. Collected. Like she belonged here.
Should she talk to someone?
A group of young adults in front of her had their heads together. Wendy, not really eavesdropping, but having nothing better to do, listened.
“He always wins,” one boy said, shaking his head and glaring behind Wendy.
“He's good,” a girl said. The way she had her dirty blond hair spiked out everywhere reminded Wendy of Kenzie.
“You're better.”
The girl shrugged. “Naw. He's got a mind like a steel trap.”
“But you outflanked him this time.”
“Sure.” She shook her head. “But he won't let it happen again.”
“And now look back there, Gessica's got a hold of him.”
Much to Wendy's chagrin, all their heads popped up and looked behind Wendy. Before she could turn away, the girl with the spiky hair met her eyes.
“Oh, hey,” she said with a smile that lit up the room. “You must be the new girl Matt told us about. I'm Arie.” She held out a hand to Wendy, who shook it. They seemed to use the gesture for everything here.
“I'm Wendy.” She managed a smile, but knew it couldn't compete with Arie's. The other girl had the kind of smile everyone wanted to sit next to.
An extra muscular guy, who had just walked in, pushed through the pack toward Wendy. The way he pressed the others aside and sauntered over reminded Wendy of the pictures she'd seen of a rhinoceros—big and always ready to charge. The angle at which he held his chin told Wendy he was pretty full of himself. Of average height, he had his hair cut so short it looked like someone had painted a dark-ish spot on his head. The brown of his eyes could have been warm, but they were not.
“Hey,” he said to Wendy as he sat down beside her. “I'm Dennis”
“Hi,” Wendy said. She forced a smile. She was supposed to be nice.
“This is the new girl,” Arie said.
Dennis leaned down toward Wendy and smiled, and she found it softened his otherwise haughty face. “Welcome. You know how to fight?”
It only took those few words to plop him down into the bully category. Wendy hated bullies. It was one of the reasons she'd learned how to fight so well. She gave him a bright smile. “A little.”
“Give it a rest, Dennis,” Matt said, coming up behind her. “She just got out of medical, don't go challenging her.”
Dennis' smile turned into a mischievous grin. He spoke to Wendy, his eyes exploring. “I guess I'll wait until you're not injured before we dance.”
“Dance?” Wendy asked. Her mind went through how easy it would be to grab him by the throat and slam his face into a chair before he even knew what had happened.
“Are you so desperate that you're challenging little kids now?” the tall, Asian boy asked as he walked toward them.
Dennis straightened, foiling Wendy's plan to break his nose, and looked at the guy. “Well, Kev, I figure she can’t be any less of a challenge than you.”
Arie and the other girl—a blonde with pink tips on her hair—let out a synchronized “Oooh.”
Kev grinned and elbowed the guy next to him—another tall, spindly boy with reddish blond hair who looked like he was still growing into his impressive height. “He talks tough, doesn't he, Cal?”
“Sure does,” Cal said. “We'll see if he can put his money where his mouth is later today.”
Before Dennis could answer, Jeff walked to the front of the room.
Between his height and his commanding stride, Wendy could see he was a leader. Conversations immediately wrapped up, and everyone scrambled for a seat. Matt took the chair on Wendy's other side.
“Good morning, everyone,” Jeff said, setting a pile of books and papers on the podium. “I trust you are all rested from your labors?
A bizarre cacophony of grumbling and chuckling came from the teenagers.
As Jeff smiled, his gaze fell on Wendy.
“We have a new trainee with us this morning.”
Those who hadn't noticed her before turned around, and suddenly Wendy felt pinned to the back of her chair by almost twenty pairs of eyes. She forced the corners of her mouth up into a smile.
“Will you stand?” Jeff asked.
Wendy flexed her legs—her body felt five times heavier than it had a moment before—and stood. With disgust she noticed that even on her feet, some of the guys' heads still rose above hers.
“Everyone, this is Wendy. She hasn't been with us for long, and Doc just cleared her for training. Try to make her feel welcome.”
Wendy still had the forced smile on her face. She knew she should say something. “Thank you, it's nice to be here.” Bland, but it worked. Jeff nodded and she sat down, surprised the velocity at which her butt hit the chair didn't shatter the creaking wood into a thousand pieces.
Jeff spoke again. “Yan thinks we’re almost ready for our first outdoor exercise.”
This elicited a rumble of whispering through the crowd.
“But he wants us to do one last week of indoor stuff.”
Grumbling accompanied that announcement.
Jeff held up his hand. A small grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You will get new teams. You will practice in these teams until the final exercise one week from today.”
“He’s moving us through extra fast.” Dennis leaned over and whispered in Wendy’s ear.
Kev raised his hand. “And what is the final exercise?”
“Indoor operation, up top.”
The grumbling was drowned out by excited chatter. Wendy caught bits of whispered conversations.
“They never do that one this early.”
“Dennis is probably bored of the other stuff.”
“I want Kev on my team. He and Cal know this place better than anyone else.”
“My older brother said this is the best exercise there is.”
Jeff paused before he said, “We've added Wendy to the list. Three teams have five, one has four. Team leads are Matt, Arie, Sven and Dennis.”
All four teenagers moved to the podium. Wendy shifted her legs as Dennis stood and climbed out over her. Jeff handed each team lead an envelope. All at once, the four team leads pulled rosters out and started calling names. Chaos erupted as people began to stand, cat call, jeer and move toward their new team leaders. Some of the guys slapped each other on the back, while others looked longingly over at a girl in a different group.
“Wendy.”
Her name. She looked up to find Arie smiling at her. “You're on our team.”
Wendy let out a breath she hadn’t realized she'd been holding, and pushed herself up out of the chair. By the time she got there she saw only two other people had joined Arie. The small group.
Wendy turned her gaze toward Jeff and found him watching her. His face gave nothing
away—neither did hers. If he wanted to play tough, then so could she.
Besides Wendy and Arie, the group consisted of the Asian kid and his buddy.
“What do we do now?” Wendy asked.
Arie tossed a frown at the boys. “We’ll get to that in a minute. First we should do some official introductions. These two are Kevin and Calvin. We call them Kev and Cal.”
“Welcome,” Kev said. Instead of a simple hand shake, he did a complicated routine of hand shake, slip out, knuckle bump and a snap. Wendy didn’t get it the first time, but when Cal used the same technique, she caught on. These two probably worked as a team better than any other pair in the room.
Arie went on. “This group has never done a mission together before, so don’t worry about being the new girl,” she said to Wendy.
Kev took a moment to look Wendy up and down. “You specialize in hand-to-hand combat?”
“Yeah,” she said with a shrug. She knew she didn’t look impressive.
“If Jeff says so, then it must be true,” Cal said. “That guy never exaggerates.”
“We can certainly use you,” Arie said.
Jeff moved to Arie and tapped her on the shoulder. “Can I borrow Wendy for a minute?”
Arie rolled her eyes. “Fine, if you have to.”
Jeff motioned for Wendy to follow him. The other teams left the room with their envelopes in tow. Jeff and Wendy sat back down on the front row.
Jeff studied her for a moment before he spoke. “I’m glad you came.”
“Thanks.”
Jeff shifted in the seat. “I just wanted to tell you, that if you experience anything like a flash, let Arie know. She’ll get Matt or Doc. I’ve had the flashes, and they don’t always pick good times to come.”
Wendy nodded.
He pressed the issue. “You will tell Arie.” It wasn’t really a question.
Wendy produced a smile. Another lie. “Of course.”
“And if you want to talk, I'm willing to listen.
“Okay.” Wendy wondered how many times he would make the offer.
The answer seemed to satisfy him. “Good, your team is waiting.”