Night of the Alphas

Chapter 22

As weird as it sounds, I really didn't mind cooking and cleaning for a while. It was a nice break from all of the fighting. Despite Zaria's merciless teasing, it was pretty nice. Joshua didn't seem to see it the same way I did, though. He would rush through everything, trying to get done as soon as possible.

Also, as you may imagine, Charity was not happy with us for breaking the rules. She even tried to ground me, but she didn't have any leverage. My phone? Confiscated by the militia. T.V.? Couldn't watch it anyway. Hanging out with friends? I lived with them. My hobbies? I didn't have time to do them. Checkmate, sis. I no longer have a social life or time to do what I want.

I was a little bit sad when we had to go back to our normal duties. I was even a bit tempted to ask for more time doing domestic chores, but I felt like that would be taken the wrong way. And, to be honest, I didn't want to make my reputation around camp any worse. I was already one of the freaks that helped blow up the wall. I didn't also want people to see me as the guy who abandoned his responsibilities to cook and clean for the other soldiers. So, naturally, I just went with the flow of things.

Alright, we got off to a rough start. But things would get easier soon, right?

I stood at the gap in the wall. Major Evans had ordered for at least 50 people to be guarding it at all times. Not only that, but there had to be tanks and other vehicles to be there, too. This was all to make sure that the Alphas didn't try to rebuild. If they could build that whole thing in a night, then they could easily reconstruct it if given enough time. So in order for the wall to not be rebuilt, we had to stay at the gap and make sure none of the Alphas tried anything.

I glanced at everyone else standing guard and sighed. Ever since the explosion, Joshua, Abel, and I were kept separate and on different schedules. I only saw Joshua when my shift was over, and I got to go to bed. As for Abel, he spent all of his spare time with that girl he met at the explosion. I hadn't gotten a chance to get to know her yet, but he really seemed to like her. I didn't know anyone else that was on guard with me, so it was pretty boring. Still, it had to be done.

After what seemed like days of standing there and waiting for something to happen, our sergeant finally dismissed us and let another group take over. I felt a shiver run down my spine as we walked away from the gap. I hated that place with every cell in my body. It had such an eerie feeling about it. It was the place I was most afraid of, the spot that made my stomach twist in disgust. The Alphas could come marching through at any moment with their army of barbarians and kill us all. Plus, everyone in the wall was still looking for Charity and I. Even though I had grown a lot, I still strongly resembled my thirteen-year-old self. Most of all, I looked like my parents, the mortal enemies of everything AFM stood for.

I suddenly felt a pang of remorse against my mom and dad. You had to. You just had to mess everything up for us. If it weren't for you two going against the flow of things, we wouldn't have gone through what we did. Paisley would still be alive. I wouldn't have nearly starved to death in that alleyway. Charity would get to have a normal childhood and not have to raise Paisley and I. And if you weren't dead-

I stopped myself. It wasn't fair to blame my parents for everything I had been through. It's not like it was their fault that the murder happened. They were just trying to live their lives, and there's no way that they could have foreseen everything that was going to happen to us.

"Zane!" I snapped back to reality when I heard Charity's voice. She was standing at the edge of the camp, wearing her nurse uniform. It started to become a habit of mine to visit her once my shift was over. I ran towards her and stopped when I was a few feet away.