Tattoo

Chapter : The Plan

It had been a month and a half here and it hadn't been all bad. I mean, I got to know Lauren more and made some good friends.

I was going to go to talk to Wolfe about how to become a master, but first I had to work on my team and get them a bit better before we did a mission.

It was nightfall. All the lights were turning on and I planned to go to talk to Wolfe now. He was in his room playing on an Xbox.

"Wolfe, can I talk to you for a minute?" He stood up and paused his game and looked at me. "I'm going to be honest and come out and say this, Lauren doesn't belong here. Look, I think this place is amazing, and we are doing good but it's not for her. I know the only way to leave is to become a master, so I in‐ tend to become one as soon as I can and when I leave I'm taking Lauren with me," I said calmly.

He walked up to my face. "Well, you are one of our best we've ever had, we might let you take Lauren with you when and if you become a master." He paused for a minute to recollect his thoughts. "But you can't just become a master by working hard and doing good on a mission. To become a master you have to prove yourself to this group, you have to fight the Grandmaster," he said. "Let me explain something to you, you were never chosen to be a Ghost. We did our homework on Lauren and Erin,

you never came up on our radar. You are what we call the shadow of the Ghosts, something that shouldn't even exist, if that makes sense. You were brought here on my choice, and now I feel like I made the right one, but Ghosts don't have shadows. Not everyone is going to like you being a cap‐ tain, some think you shouldn't even be here. The Grandmaster doesn't think you will last a year, so what I'm trying to say is, you might never be a master. I'm sorry, Derek." I wasn't sure what to think, so the next day I went to talk to the Grand‐ master.

"To become a master you would have to fight me to the death, you might be a captain now but you are nothing more than just a shadow of us."

I ignored his rude comment. I asked if I became a master and wished to leave, would I be able to leave with one other person that wasn't a master? He told me yes, I could, I would have to kill him, though. He stood there pretty proud of his power and didn't even give a flinch when I said, "I challenge you to the rank of master."

The fight was to the death, yet he just shook my hand and wished me luck. I went down to the cafeteria and told everyone. Some of them thought I was stupid and I was going to die, others just wished me luck.

If I was to kill the Grandmaster, another master would be promoted to Grandmaster and I would be a master and be able to leave. I went over to Lauren and told her what I did. She looked a little nervous and happy at the same time, like she had hope in me but was concerned about the bad thing that could happen: I could die.

The objective was simple, if I challenged the Grandmaster and won the fight I would become a master and Lauren and I could leave. Another master would just step in the old one's place since I was not sticking around. This was it, I told my team that we were the best in this whole group. We were the A‐ Team. We deserved it too. All these kids fought hard and some gave their lives for this and died proud.

The day to fight was tomorrow, we each got twenty‐four hours to prepare. We could use all the weapons except for guns. We were allowed to use bows and arrows and knives, swords, ancient weapons, and were only allowed to wear our mission gear and a helmet if we wanted one.

Wolfe stopped by my tent and he wished me luck, and his voice sounded a bit distressed, like he really believed I was going to die.

I learned that masters could make new rules and the people would have to go with it, so I planned on making some of my own if I won.

Lauren wished me luck and told me to get a good night's sleep, and I felt like the only thing she was concerned about was me having to take a life for us to leave together, but there wasn't anything I could do. I had to fight and I had to get Lauren back to her family.