I rolled, giving Amelia about two seconds to aim her attack.
She took them, diving at the last second to pin me against the mat with her knee.
Micheal chuckled, moving to lift her off me and giving each of us a few seconds to breath and wipe the sweat from our foreheads.
When she was breathing normally Amelia turned to glare at him. "I was gonna get up myself. You didn't need to manhandle me."
Putting his hands up in a mock surrender, Micheal took a few steps away. "Easy tiger. I don't doubt that for a second, however, I believe Tate wasn't quite in the mood to have her lungs crushed."
I shrugged, giving her an apologetic smile.
She growled, snatching the water bottle on of the younger kids had started passing out. As she stalked away I heard her mutter, "and yet they call me the immature one."
Chuckling slightly, Micheal took a bottle for himself, giving the young girl a reassuring smile.
"Sorry about my sister. She's still a bit sore about last night." He sighed.
I nodded, following him over to one of the benches lining the far wall.
"She misses Rebecca?"
He winced at the name, giving a nod.
I sighed, leaning against the wall. "There has to be another solution."
He looked over at me. "Oh yeah? And what would that be."
"I don't know... some sort of chemical I guess. If the mutation only starts at a certain age, maybe we can find a way to pause it, stop the changes from happening."
He shook is head, sighing. "That sounds incredible, but where would we find this magical potion? Nobody even knows if it is safe to leave the forest at this point, and now with the younger kids here... I just don't know how we would do it."
I raked a hand back through my cropped red hair. “And then I guess Chloe wouldn’t agree to it either way.”
Micheal patted my shoulder, his shorts wrinkling as he stood.
”Well, if it helps, I would be down and no doubt Amelia would want to.” He said, dropping the empty water bottle into a plastic trash bag hanging on the wall.
I nodded, looking down at my tightly laced shoes.
”Your right. I guess I got carried away.”
He shrugged, giving me a smile. “It happens to the best of us.”
I sighed, watching as he jogged over to the mat across from Theo, leaving me to follow Amelia’s blazing path back out of the training cabin.
***
Most campsites were set up the same way, a main lodge serving as the head office, surrounded by a few more rental cabins that branch out along a few paths and tent sites.
That’s why it was fairly easy to find my new bunk room, a two windowed log room with four bunks covered in whatever personal belongings each of us were still holding on to.
Jasmine met me at the door, her long blonde hair secured into a knot on the top of her head, blue eyes skimming over the paper in her hand.
Adjusting her sports bra she passed the note off to me, re-wrapping the strap on her sparring gloves. 292Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrx6uvagYfC
292Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbW48YrZolJ
“Note for you. Someone taped it on the door earlier when I was on watch.” 292Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡih992YBEts
292Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzRXIBi7sYc
“Thanks.” I muttered, glancing at the words. “Hey Jazzy, do you know where Katy is? I’ve been meaning to run something past her.”
She shot me a look. “Do you really need to ask that? Her sister has been slacking all week! She’s probably up at Parker’s trying to do all of Chloe’s work.”
Parker’s was once a shop just west of the campsite, a place where unprepared campers could buy water and firewood, along with any other supplies they were too dense to remember. Now for the two weeks we’ve been here it has served as a supply room, due to the fact that it housed the only computer in miles.
I shrugged. “I guess I just hoped Chloe had finally picked up some slack and sent Katy off to do her own job.”
Jazzy sighed. “I love her to death, but Chloe sucks at handling other people’s problems. If she wasn’t a natural born leader I wouldn’t understand why any of us follows her direction.”
“Well then again, she did lead the teams that rescued nearly half of us.” I shuddered, thinking of my own predicament, the way Naomi had swooped in just in time before the Razors came back.
Reaching over to pat my shoulder, Jasmine gave me an encouraging smile. “Cheer up Tate. At least you already got your training lessons over with.”
I gave a weak laugh at that, returning her wave as she traipsed up the dirt road to our makeshift gym.
Sighing again, I shut the door and leaned against it, sparing a wistful glance towards my bunk, knowing that if I laid down, I would never get back up.
Instead, I opted for one of the three tattered camping chairs we had placed around a large flat log serving as the table we left all our gear on.
Moving a helmet and brushing away a few candy wrappers, I set the paper down, smoothing it against the uneven wood.
The slightly jagged lettering read,
Glass lake; 11:00
I recognized Amelia’s handwriting right away, after all the job sign-up sheets she wrote for whatever main building we were in had seared the slightly uneven and loopy penmanship into my brain.
She had asked me countless times to meet her after hours ever since we lost her other friend Courtney, but after a few months it had become less of a coping mechanism, and more of an excuse to go late night diving.
Now, after loosing Rebecca, the mourning had begun yet again, meaning the sorrow would be authentic, not river water splashed to create the illusion she was sad.
I placed the note in my backpack, pulling out a fresh pair of leggings and a clean, sweat-free tank top.
Tying my short hair in a small bun at the base of my neck, I used my foot to brush some of the dirt away from where my sneakers had tracked it inside.
As soon as I stepped back outside the sun hit my face, blinding me momentarily. Bringing a hand up to shade my eyes, I set off down the path, my shoes sinking farther into the dirt and a canopy of leaves blocked the sunlight trying to dry up the puddles turning the road into a muddy trap.
Katy was behind the desk, clicking away furiously at the keyboard of the PC, an anxious Mason hovering over her left shoulder when I finally stumbled in through the door of Parker’s Camping Utility’s.
He noticed me first, straightening up and pushing the wire rimmed glasses up from where they had slipped off the bridge of his nose.
Mason coughed, a blush creeping over his dark shin as he glanced down at Katy.
Finally looking up, she gasped, pushing the keyboard away and practically leaping out of her chair, which Mason quickly claimed, clicking around on the computer with a gleeful expression.
”Tate! Oh thank god you’re here! I swear I was about to die if Mason tried to correct any more grammar mistakes.”
I laughed, wrapping my arms around her as she embraced me. Katy’s hair smelled of the same fake mint shampoo every campsite in Washington seemed to have, but there was another smell. No matter how much mud got splattered, or how many campfires she sat through, both Katy and her sister always smelled like strawberries.
”What have you all been doing even?” I asked, eyeing the way Mason kept frowning, smiling, and frowning again.
She sighed, glancing over her shoulder at the way Masons face fell.
”Were trying to send out a message, ya know. See if we can pick up some sort of signal from other kids. Try and find another group in the area.”
I nodded, watching as the computer let out a series of beeps before a whirring sound started and a machine burst to life across the room, startlingly me.
”Damn it!” Mason yelled, ducking under the table to jam a few more cords into one of the three power strips he had daisy-chained together in a weak attempt to restart the computer. “Well.” He said after re-plugging the red cord for the third time. “It’s dead.”
Katy groaned. “Well I guess we’ll just have to let it charge and restart before coming back tomorrow.” She took my arm pulling me out the door.
”Stupid Parker, not upgrading his computer software for fifteen years before they all left. Despicable.” 292Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH3YJzbsGSv
292Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSxWaRZyQ7R
I chuckled, earning me a small smile.
”Come on.” I said, tugging on her arm. “Their serving dinner soon.”
”Oh goody. More canned soup not properly defrosted. My favorite.” She muttered, rolling her eyes.
I looked up at the sun filtering through the leaves overhead.
”If you can make a proper meal that would be great! Until then, we’re stuck with soup twice a day.” I replied, tugging my foot out of a particularly sticky patch of mud.
Katy sighed, pulling her own shoe out with a ‘pop’.
“I guess soup is okay.”
ns 18.68.41.137da2
