Who We Were (Abby Anderson x FemOC)

Chapter 4: The First Week

Jess and Ethan both knew they were as good as trapped, so they agreed to stay. Once their talk with Isaac was done, they were slowly processed through the stadium: checked on by the doctors, assigned to a room, and given a training schedule. After the journey they'd had, neither of them was in any condition to protest or complain, so they allowed themselves to be dragged through the process, looking forward to being able to go to sleep. Mercifully, they weren't required to train that day. Their bags were returned to them (minus their weapons, which instead went to the armory) and they were finally able to rest. The silver lining in all this was that they were assigned a room together, which was nice because they didn't feel much up for socialising, at least not yet. When they got into their room, they collapsed on their beds without a word and drifted off into an incredibly deep sleep.

The next week passed by in an incredibly regimented blur: wake up at 6 am, train, eat, do their assignment for the day (they'd been limited so far to assignments contained within the stadium: the kitchen, laundry, farming, or cleaning duties), train again, eat, sleep. Training occurred in three forms: the gun range, combat training, and the gym. Jess preferred the gun range to the others by a huge amount, especially since she was already an excellent shot and it felt more like showing off than training. She'd never had so many bullets at her disposal. To truly be able to practice felt like a luxury.

As the days passed, a general sense of the stadium's routine developed in Jess's mind as a series of facts. Many pairs of Wolves are sent out every day to patrol. They all have different assignments and routes and seem to have them memorized. It appears that the Wolves are in a sort of uneasy truce with another group in Seattle called the Scars. Neither Jess nor Ethan felt the desire to ask anyone what was going on, so they relied on the bits and pieces they overheard to make sense of this conflict. Based on what they'd heard, the Scars were some sort of religious cult whose existence didn't surprise Jess or Ethan; they'd both met members of various cults while trading throughout the last few years, but none were nearly as violent or radical as the Scars seemed to be, based on what they'd heard about times prior to the so-called "truce". And so they passed their first week: training, eavesdropping, and doing whatever they were told just to get by.

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Jess had never considered herself weak, but she was only a few weeks into her training regimen and already feeling way out of her league. During her first time in the training center, she had met with a trainer who had walked her through the machines, testing her strength and building a routine. Now, loading the barbell with 80 pounds to bench press, she felt extremely out of her limit. She'd never had access to so much training equipment before and had trained more already in the past few weeks than she had all her life. She glanced around for someone who could spot her, but everyone was occupied. She shrugged it off and began on her own; the sooner she started, the sooner she could leave. A few reps into her second set, she was struggling to lift the weight. She'd already reached her limit, and the barbell came down on her chest, her arms pinned underneath it. She tried to twist around to get better leverage and almost slid the weight down her chest towards her face when finally someone appeared. She was completely stuck.

"Woah," said a muscular blonde woman, lifting the bar and supporting it so Jess could return it back to the rack without hurting herself. "You okay?" Jess eyed her. She was tall and incredibly muscular and had her hair in a practical, long blonde braid. She had a concerned look on her face, her strong brow slightly furrowed. Jess's cheeks began to redden. Of course, the fucking strongest woman in the entire stadium is the one person who happens to catch you on your off day. Really impressive, Jess. Definitely WLF material.

"Yeah," she said, shrugging as nonchalantly as she could, though she was still panting from the effort of trying to return the bar to its rack. "Thanks for the save."