No Matter What - Book 1

Chapter 1

Darkness.... That was the first thing she thought of when she woke. The girl couldn't remember anything... not even her name. She had no idea what color her eyes were or what color her hair was and if it was long or short. Obviously, she knew she was a girl for the tight feeling on her chest as she lay on her stomach on the metal grate. Moving around, she didn't know why but something told her to not be hasty and to be cautious. Slowly she got into a sitting position and looked around. It was all dark around, but she could feel herself moving. There were crates and boxes surrounding her, but she didn't take long to notice those. She felt up and down her body to make sure that she wasn't hurt. She wasn't....just stiff from lying on a cold metal floor. She was wearing a pair of jeans, a tank top and over that, a hoodie that was a little large for her, the bottom coming down past her thighs. She pulled the hood up, pushing her hair into the hood to hide it. From what she could gather, it was at least waist long but too dark to see its color. She pulled the hood as far over her face as possible. She couldn't remember a thing but something... some sort of natural common sense told her that young girls are probably the ones most threatened when they are alone.

The movement in the lift stopped and she heard noises above her as if it was opening. She could hear voices but none of them sounded like girls. Some sort of instinct in her laid the girl down on the floor again, on her side with the hood over her face... and waited. Light shone down on her and she could feel the warmth of it through her clothes and against the bare skin of her ankles and hands.

"It's another greenie," a rough voice of a boy remarked somewhere above.

"Maybe you shouldn't go in this time Gally," another voice remarked, sounding older and with authority, "You scared the last greenie so bad he peed his pants."
"I heard that Alby!" another boy voice off in the distance called, one that sounded like a kid.

There was a bunch of laughter, but she could not hear a single girl's voice. Great! Just peachy.... NOT!

The girl could hear the sound of someone coming closer before the lift shook as someone stepped down. She could hear the footsteps get closer before a hand roughly grabbed her shoulder and shook her. The moment it made contact with her shoulder.... she reacted without even realizing it. It was like something in her came alive and moved her body for her. She swung around, striking the person in the face with the back of her hand which caused the person to let go of her shoulder. She rolled onto her back and swung her legs around, striking the person in the ribs with her feet, knocking the person down before she quickly wrapped both her legs around the person's neck and over his arms, pinning him down while she wrapped both her arms around his neck, prepared to knock him out if need be.

"Woah!" the leaderly voice remarked in surprise. "Calm down there greenie. We're not going to hurt you."
"That was way cool!" another boy's voice remarked.

The girl glanced up from underneath her hood. The lift she was in was square shaped and partially in the ground. There were about twenty to thirty boys ranging from about ten to eighteen years old all standing around the top of the lift, looking down at her.

"Just let Gally go," a soft voice said, and another person was about to climb down. "He can be a bit rough, but he doesn't mean any harm."
"I will mean harm if he doesn't let me go!" the boy she had pinned down complained.

The girl slowly released the boy, Gally from her grip and he started to cautiously get to his feet, but the girl jumped up, slamming him into the wall of the lift, making him grunt at the contact before she ran toward the other wall of the lift. She jumped up and managed to grab the top of the lift before hauling herself up. She stayed crouched, ready to run or pounce at the next boy who approached. The boys all took a few steps back to give her some space and while most of them had their eyes and mouths wide at her stunt, a few of them tried to approach her. The first was a black guy with almost no hair who looked to be the oldest, maybe even almost twenty years old.