Wars and Lies

Chapter Thirteen

I decided to wake up early but not too early so I can have some rest. It felt so nice to actually sleep in a bed and this mattress is way comfier than mine back home and the pillows make me feel like my head's resting on a cloud. I woke up, get dressed, made sure not to wake the others, grabbed my bag then headed out to explore.

The city's so different. It almost looks like nothing ever happened. The White Tribe clearly managed to recover a lot better than the rest of the world. I wonder how they got the animals out? I hope they didn't hurt them. The city isn't perfect like some buildings haven't been fixed back up but it's still amazing what they've done. The paths are clean, there's pots of flowers everywhere and everything is so clean and tidy. It's about nine in the morning so I'm surprised no one's about.

After walking around for an hour, admiring the place, I found a gym. An actual gym like from before everything. My karate classes were in my local gym. I decided to go in and get in some training before it starts to get busy. I went in. The gym's not very big but it's better than nothing and there's some equipment I can use even though I don't know half of them. I found Christopher on what I think is called a cross trainer. "Good morning," Christopher said as he looked over and smiled. I ignore him and go over to the punching bag on the left-hand side of the room. I don't want to have to deal with him today. I can't trust him. He must've known about all of this. How couldn't he? I know he was Sinead's prisoner but still. After all these years, he must've found out even the smallest bit of information. I want to believe him as he's Ashton's dad but the facts don't add up. I can't speak to Ashton about it as he'll not want to hear it, he's finally got his dad back and I can't take that away from him unless I know for certain. I start punching the bag and even know it's against my teachings, I let my anger fuel me. I start attacking the punching bag and hitting it harder than I've ever hit anyone or anything. Everything that's going on is stressing me out. "What did that poor punching bag ever do to you?" Christopher laughed as he came over. I once again ignore him and punched the bag even harder. "Someone's woke on the wrong side of the bed. What's got you in such a mood?"

"You knew, didn't you? About all this." I was doing my best to keep calm but seeing his smile made me lash out.

"No. I've been in the dark just like you. I didn't believe Malcom's story yesterday so I did some snooping but haven't found anything yet. Katie, I promise you I don't know anything. I don't know if Ash told you but promises mean a lot in our family and we never break them."

"He has." I still can't trust him. I want to but my stomach's telling me not to. Ashton and Stephanie walk in and I can tell they can sense the bad mojo in the air. I'm still glaring at Christopher. "What's going on?" Ash asked.

"Nothing. I finished my workout, see ya later." I didn't give them a chance to respond and just stormed past them and out the gym. I can hear Ash asking his dad what happened.

I don't get what's going on. I don't know what I can trust and what I can't. Is Christopher lying? Is Malcom lying? I want to scream. My stress pains are through the roof. My stomach's killing me and it feels like a hammer's smashing my head. "Excuse me ma'am?" I snapped out of my headspace and came back to reality and found a guard stood in front of me.

"Yes?"

"Could you please come with me? Malcom would like a word."

"Uh... sure." The guard started to walk off so I followed.

We reached the tallest building in the city and I was escorted to the top floor. My god did all the steps kill me. I was taken into an office room and the guard left me alone. The office is fairly large. There's a desk in the middle in front of a large window overlooking the city, the desk is covered with pictures of Malcom and a little girl that I'm guessing's Sinead. Along the left wall are bookcases. I noticed a file marked Tribal War. It peaked my interest so I rushed over and started to scan through it. Inside is a profile on everyone who fought in the Tribal War and whether they stayed or left or were deceased before they came here. There's so many facts on them like if they're married, have kids or any medical conditions. How do they know all this? They must've had someone sneak into tribes to spy on people. I hear footsteps so I quickly shove the file into my bag. The door starts to open so I jump into the chair in front of the desk. "Sorry for the wait, I spilt coffee on myself so had to dry that. What's your name dear?" Malcom laughed as he sat down behind the desk in a big swivel chair.