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Chapter Seven - The General

CHAPTER 7

"What do you mean I shouldn't have come?" Hazel asked with a deep frown.

The girl looked at her with regret. Her gaze floated beyond Hazel's shoulder and her big eyes grew wider. She shook her head roughly.

"Don't ask me questions." She mumbled and walked away.

Hazel turned around to see who she had seen.

It was Iggy.

Iggy was standing in the distance with her arms folded across her Demin dress. The girl walked briskly towards her.

"Hey, I don't even know your name?" Hazel called after her but was left unanswered. Hazel watched as the girl talked to Iggy in a heated discussion. Iggy pulled her mouth in a grimace as the two walked away. The girl gave Hazel one last sad glance.

Hazel was determined to understand the strange girl's hidden words.

That night, it was Hazel's bunker's turn to prepare supper. The meal was simple. The menu would be mac and cheese with roasted vegetables. Hazel wasn't good at cooking. It wasn't one of her strengths. Staying late up at nights studying for exams, preparing strenuous assignments, or doing lengthy practical's at university, didn't groom her for a domestic life.

The kitchen at the back of the food hall wasn't big. It contained two ovens and two gas stoves. A deep-dish sink was settled in the corner and two large refrigerators stood opposite it. A long steel island was in the middle, scattered with chopped up vegetables on its silver top. Hazel stood at it, grating the cheese. At least that wasn't difficult to accomplish.

Claudette whisked past behind Hazel. Her two dark low ponytails whipping beside her, with an enormous pot of boiling water in both hands, filled with bubbling pasta. She stood by the sink and drained it out in a strainer. Mara was at the stove, a whisk in her hand. She watched the simmering creamy sauce in the pot. Her eyes watched it blankly. Her thoughts were somewhere else.

Like Hazel, dinner was the last thing on her mind, too. The strange girl's words lingered.

You shouldn't have come...

The waters will talk to you...

She had told nobody yet what the girl had said to her, but Hazel needed to know who she was. Her curiosity growing. She wanted to ask Iggy. But Iggy and Robyn were running errands tonight with Dawn. Her eyes looked at Claudette.

"I met a girl earlier at the lake." Hazel began. "I tried to introduce myself. But she seemed uncomfortable to talk to me."

Claudette glanced at Hazel as she tossed the pasta into the casserole dish. "You met everybody here at rocky Peaks. Didn't you?"

"Yeah, but not this one girl. She's younger than all of us, like twenty years old with big eyes and straight dirty blonde hair." Hazel described.

"What did she say?"

Hazel's head turned left to Mara, who stopped stirring the bubbling sauce at the stove. Mara looked at Hazel. Her dark gaze was serious. She knew exactly who Hazel was referring to.

"She was just talking about the lake and how serene it was," Hazel lied. She wasn't sure if she should say the truth.

Mara narrowed her eyes. Claudette glanced between Hazel and Mara.

"Her name is Emily." Claudette said.

"And she's a fucking crazy." Mara warned. "Don't listen to her blabbering. She talks shit."

Hazel raised a brow. Emily did talk crazy. But was it all shit?

Claudette giggled. "Emily is slightly on the weird side. She likes to be alone. It's like the longer she stays at Rocky Peaks, the weirder she becomes. We mostly don't mind her."