Rebel

Chapter Thirty Four

"So you're saying that I can take any of this that I want, but I have to pay for it in manual labor within forty-eight hours?"

Alexsandra fiddled with her sleeves, "Yeah. They'll probably make you go hunting or something like that because of your powers. I don't know if they'll take into consideration the fact that your arm was dislocated for over three days."

I stared at the many trays of food sitting on the counter. It was taking all energy not to slam my face against them and inhale it all right now. I was so hungry. "Alright." I said, pilling food onto my tray, "If there's anything I can do it's labor."

"That, and coming up with witty, sarcastic comments."

I turned around to see Dario, Aiden, and Bailey all walking towards me. They were all wearing the same dark green suit as Alexsandra.

"Well you know me." I said, turning back towards the food, "Annoying people is my specialty."

"I wouldn't say that." Aiden said, walking beside me and loading his own tray full of food, "I'd say your specialty is more along the lines of being very disagreeable and making people hate you."

"Well gee, thanks Aiden."

Aiden laughed, "Anytime."

"Glad to see you're up and moving." Dario said, filling up his own tray.

"Yeah, me too." I said, finally filling up my tray as much as possible and walking over to stand next to Alexsandra, "I just love waking up in a strange place where some freako lady blames me for my pain and I have to do manual labor in order to eat some cafeteria food. But hey, it's ten times better than living with Morsie."

"You're not wrong." Bailey said, walking up to me with her tray, "Now let's go get a table and dig in."

We found an open table towards the back of the room and sat down. The others chatted lightly, but I didn't say a thing. I was too busy stuffing my face with as much food as possible. I was just like old times. Well, almost. Everyone in the cafeteria kept on shooting us weird looks as if they didn't trust us.

"Are they normally this quiet?" I asked around a mouthful of chicken.

"Pretty much." Dario shrugged, "They're a shady lot. I bet they're all outlaws and they don't trust anyone. Who can blame them though?"

I eyed a man sitting at the table by ours. He had a tangly beard and was wearing a ripped up sweatshirt. He glared at me when he caught me staring.

I cleared my throat and turned back to the others, "So, uh, how exactly did you find this place? It seems a little, erm, in the middle of nowhere."

"It's a long story." Bailey said sharply, but Aiden just talked over her.

"Well, after we left the compound we didn't know if you'd escape or not, so we voted and decided to go to the meeting spot to wait for you, just in case. After we got there we were all exhausted and kind of in shock, so we decided to just sleep for the night. We were woken up in the middle of night by this noise like thunder and blinding lights. We thought we were under attack, but then the helicopters landed and the people in them explained that they were part of a group called the Rebellion, and that we were on the same side. After that we got into the helicopters and they flew us here."

Helicopters? That must be what those flying things are called. I thought.

"Wow." I said, "And then three days later you planned a rescue mission and went to get me and now here we are?"

"Pretty much." Dario said.

"Hm." I looked down at my plate and started to wish that I'd gotten more food. "Hey, where's Olwyn and Harvey?"

"They're at training." Alexsandra said, "They both wanna be field agents so they have to train their butts off."

"Field agents?" I asked, "What does a field agent do?"

"No one knows." Aiden said, "The job description said that they will be the ones to go out into the world and do all that action stuff. The only question is, what is that action stuff?"

"From what I've learned so far, absolutely nothing."

I was starting to get sick of people just walking up and joining the conversation. Sadly enough, Olwyn and Harvey had the right to join the conversation because it was about them.

"Hey Olwyn, hey Harvey." I said, leaning back in my chair so I could see their faces. Olwyn looked like she couldn't care less about the topic, and Harvey looked annoyingly smug. Yup, nothing's changed.

"Hey Sage." Harvey said, "Good to see you haven't gone insane."

I hummed and rested my chin on my hand, "Who ever said I wasn't insane?"

Harvey pulled out a chair from a table by ours and sat down on it backwards. "Well I kinda just assumed that you were sane, because if you weren't the Rebellion wouldn't let you roam free."

"It's not safe to assume things." I said, leaning back in my chair.

"Oops. My bad." Harvey didn't sound at all annoyed with my sass. He just sat there smirking at me.

I rolled my eyes, "You're a lost cause."

"Well anyway," Bailey said, "How was training?"

"Terribly boring." Olwyn said, "Our trainer didn't even trust us enough to let us hold a butter knife. She just lectured us all day about trust and honor and blah, blah, blah."

"Well that sounds fun." Aiden said, examining his soup.

"I know right?" Olwyn asked sarcastically, "Well anyway, what's been going on with you guys?"

"Oh nothing much." Bailey said, "Just sitting around and waiting for something eventful to happen."

"Um, I'd think me finally being conscious here might help." I said, crossing my arms with great difficulty. It ended up just looking like I was hugging my bad arm.

"Oh yeah, and there's that." Bailey added absently.

I rolled my eyes but didn't make any further comment. I may have been making sarcastic comments, but truthfully I was very happy to see everyone. I will never admit that out loud though.

It was those thoughts that were running through my head when I caught Harvey staring at me. "What?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.

He stroked his chin thoughtfully, "Did it hurt?"

I blinked at him, "What?"

He hummed again as if thinking hard, "When you fell from heaven?"

I rolled my eyes and leaned back in my chair. "Oh boy." I said. Was that a pickup line that I heard? What a loser. But then an idea came to my head. I was gonna get him back for this. Just like old times.

"Um, hey Harvey." I said, "There must be something with my eyes, because I can't seem to take them off you."

Harvey blinked at me for a moment, but then he threw his head back and laughed. "Alright, game on."

I was about to question what he meant by "game on," but then he sat forward again, his emerald green eyes gleaming with mischief. "Are you a cat? 'Cause I'm really feline a connection between us."

Now it was my turn to laugh. I was about to say a clever pickup line, when a firm voice interrupted my thoughts.

"Ah, I assume that you're Miss Sage Cordell?"

I spun around in my chair and came face to face with a tall, broad-shouldered woman with a hooked nose and graying hair. "Unfortunately yes, that's me."

The woman sneered, "Fantastic. The lunch ladies just reported to me that you have consumed five hours of labor worth of food. I have also been told that you have shifting abilities. That will be perfect for hunting. Come." With that, the lady spun on her heel and started marching towards the door.

"Uh..." I glanced back and caught Alexsandra giving me a pitying glance. Olwyn looked bored, Bailey and Aiden were eating their soup, Harvey was still smirking, and Dario was staring at me like I'd just ran over his cat. "Goodbye for now I guess." I stood up and followed the lady out the door.