Claiming Innocence [#wattys2015]

Fourteen

Saturday flew by quickly, it mainly consisted of everyone cleaning up downstairs and nursing their headaches. Ema was throwing up in the morning after we got back, resulting in me getting the fun job of looking after her for the rest of the day.

Yay. Note the sarcasm.

That night, Axel told me that he would meet me at the willow tree in the morning at 6:15. I agreed, just excited to be spending time with him, somewhere were we didn't have to worry about how we acted or what we spoke about.

So here I am, freezing my ass off in 6:15AM in Axel's hoodie and the tracksuit pants I had originally had. I hear ruffling and a panicked "fuck" before I see Axel stumbling through the long branches. "Stupid fucking tree" he mumbled as he kicked the trunk before untangling one of the branches that had wrapped around his foot. I burst out laughing at his grumpy morning attitude.

He froze, looking at me, before a smirk appeared on his face as he took slow steps towards me. "You think this is funny, huh?"

"Yeah, I do" I said through laughs.

Before I had a chance to react he jumped down next to me and started attacking me with tickles. I squealed as I tried to push his hands away, falling on my back in the process. With laughs still escaping, he hovered over the top of me, continuing his playful torture.

When we finally settled down, I rested my head on his chest as we laid out across the ground. He had one of this hands resting behind his head whilst the other one played with my hair.

"How long do we have left before the claiming begins?" I whispered to him quietly. It was so peaceful here; it felt like if I spoke to loudly, I'd wake up all the sleeping wildlife that surrounded up. I didn't want to disrupt the peace.

"About three weeks."

I frowned knowing that we only have a short time to figure out what we are going to do. "We need to start figuring out how to get out of here" I sighed.

"I know, I think that Brax mentioned something about a meeting later on today, bosses and everything. How about we go to that, the come back here tonight after check in to think about what to do next?"

It still amazed me how much Axel hated how life was set out. He doesn't have much to lose, he is one of the ones in control and he could just pick me if he really wanted to. 

No. Stop thinking like this. He doesn't want to have to do what his told all the time, he wants to give equality to everyone he can. He wants to destroy the system.

After a few more minutes, we decided to head back. He stood up, brushed some loose grass that had stuck on his grey tracksuit pants, and pulled me up from the ground by our interlocked hands.

The walk back was quiet; we both had focus in our minds. This time, Axel had walked me up to my room, given me a quick kiss on the cheek and returned to his own room.

Being still tired, I went back to bed with a lot on my mind.

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I woke up to an announcement sounding throughout my room.

"All household members, you are required to meet in the classrooms by 10AM sharp, anyone who shows up late will be dealt with accordingly" a strict voice spoke over before the sound completely vanished.

I looked at the clock to see the time reading half past nine. I groaned, shoving the pillow over my head in attempts to drown out the world, before dragging myself from the warm confinements of my bed. I wandered over to the dresser, changing myself into a blue floral skirt with a light blue shirt. It has gotten much hotter since this morning. I quickly put on a white pair of small heels before heading out the door. I went to Ema's door, knocking before she quickly shuffled out of her room to join me for breakfast.

Yesterday she was too sick to hold a much of a conversation with, so now was the only opportunity we had to talk about Friday night.

She told me how Luke got angry and punched a hole in her wall, before storming out the room and how they haven't seen much of each other since, but she was going to talk to him today about it after the meeting was over. I tried to reassure her, telling her that she just needs to take the first step, because we were in the wrong. She agreed with me thankfully. 

I really hope they would work it out.

We entered the kitchen and prepared some toast before heading into the lounge room. Everyone was crowded around having small talk, some sitting on seats, some on the floor and others against the wall.

The same old lady entered the room. She had short blonde hair, a long pointy nose and piercing grey eyes.

"Hello everyone. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Dakota. You all must address me as either ma'am or Miss. Any slip ups and you'll regret it" she spat. "Now, you all have another three weeks of being here. This week we don't have any events on, the following is the Ball night, and then the one after will be the Claiming. Now, we have already had a few slip ups with the behavior of some of you recently, including fights during training, football matches and Friday nights party, but now, here this warning. If any of you do as little as lipping up to me or any of the other mentors, there will be consequences."

Everyone sat silently. Girls more afraid than the boys, half of boys were bloody excited to be here. 

Pricks.

Thinking carefully about her warning, I remembered that I needed to speak to Axel about what happened between him and Sparrow during training. When I glanced around at him, I saw that he was starring with a very pissed off expression towards Dakota.

"All of you are excused. Get out of here" was the last thing she spoke before disappearing down the hall into her office with some of her minion security and sidekick following. Axel pushed himself from against the wall before storming up the stairs out of sight.

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A/N

If you're enjoying the story, please vote and comment! The more feedback I get from writing, the more motivated I am to write and you'll get more chapters each day! xxx

p.s- photo is what I imagine the willow tree to look like :)