I Choose All of You

Chapter Two

 Rules was quiet. She led me down twists and turns of the warehouse halls, or whatever these were. They were more like makeshift walls made of wood, cardboard, duct tape, and steel. What was this place? I didn't know a place like this even existed in Trost. It seemed abandoned on the outside, in fact, it didn't even look like a building at all. Yet, here I was. Here we were. The more we walked, the more I could hear voices of other people, sounding about my age, somemaybe older. We eventually came to a hallway, this one of grey brick, and into a room labeled "Infirmary".

"Just sit on one of those beds," this was the first time she spoke to me.

I picked the cot closest and took a seat. She went to a desk by the wall and grabbed a medium sized box from it, and sat it next to me. Looked like a first aid kit. Her figure was petite. Untamed red hair ended right above her shoulders, light green eyes trained on my arm, fair freckled skin, and jeans fitted around her small waist by a shoe lace.

"Rules, right," I figured I could trust her and maybe get some answers. She carefully pushed my jacket sleeve up and looked intently at my arm, "hmm?"

I winced at the pain as she took a wet cloth andbecame cleaning the dried blood from my arm and fresh beads of blood started to ooze.

"This is going to hurt," Rules said quietly as she dabbed some rubbing alcohol on a cotton pad, "you uh, probably have some questions."

I appreciated she didn't ask how I got the wound, "Yeah, what is this place? That guy said, ouch- uhh Resistance?"

Rules smiled slightly but kept her eyes on my arm, "That guy?" She laughed at herself, "Atlas, you mean?"

"So that's his name." Atlas.

"He's kind of like our leader, per se. The one in charge."

I nodded along as she continued to speak. Rules began to place the gauze, "he can explain it better than me, but what you should know is we are all family here. That's why Jessi got so angry earlier and grabbed you. Most of us aren't too fond of outsiders just crawling in."

I smiled and thought about how dumb I must have looked crawling inside, "yeahhhh I'm sorry. He- Atlas I mean, stopped me today after school and handed me a note with this address on it. I don't have much else to lose, so I decided to come here."

Rules looked up at me surprised, "He hasn't invited someone like that in a while."

I am not sure why but that comment made me blush, "How'd you get here? You live here?" I tried changing the subject.

"My sister and I came here a few years ago and have lived here since."

"What's her name?"

"Jessi," she avoided my eyes.

"Jessi? The one who man-handled me?!"

"We aren't sisters by blood. We are foster care sisters really. A few years ago our foster family became bankrupt, and they were going to send us back, probably separate us too. So Jessi took me and we ran. Ended up meeting Atlas and came here," Rules said. She was looking at me sosweetly but I could see memories flash behind her eyes. "I'm sorry she hurt you though, she's actually really nice. She probably was just acting extra tough because I was there."

I looked down at my now perfectly bandaged arm. How did she learn to do that? "It's alright. If I had a little sister, I am sure I'd be the same way," I smiled at her and she beamed back.

"Are you hungry? They should still have some food set out. Follow me," Rules said as she hopped off the cot and hurriedly placed the first aid kit back on the desk.