Break and Burn

Chapter 8

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Taron
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When I open my eyes, I am strapped down. The metal table is cold against my bare back. The walls are all mirrors. I turn my head back to the ceiling and the first thing I think is, two corpses. Then I realize the ceiling is not decorated with dead people, but instead is another large mirror. In the mirror I stare back at myself and beside me, lay a girl with blonde hair, white skin, and blue lips. I almost scream when I realize that Kara lay beside me, possibly dying. A metal door slides open at the wall nearest my feet. A lady with long brown hair walks in.

"Nice to see one of you awake," she says, a smile spreading across her face. "Now can you tell me your name."

"Taron Waymore," I blurt, quickly regretting it. Seriously did I learn nothing in the Academy?

"Cooperation very nice!" She says happily. "Age?"

"18," I say. Why can't I stop?

"Okay," she says, her voice loosing the happy tone. "Now this part is not quite as fun. I need your arm."

I give her my arm and she places a wide silver cylinder on it. She presses it to my arm. I scream from the sudden pain. My arm burns. The small device she holds turns red at the bottom, and when she pulls it back, my arm has only marks on it. A circle, the size of the cylinder, and inside is a star. Between each points of the star are small pictures. Two are guns, two are crossed knives, and the last one is a flag. The rebel flag.

The rebel flag has stars in one corner and on the rest is a series of red and white stripes. It was a major symbol before the Great War that resulted in the League rising up and seizing control. My head falls to the side as the nurse injects me with pain killer. My arm begins to numb. As I fall asleep all I see is Kara stirring, her blonde hair twisting on the pillow under her head.

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Zane
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When I wake up I am sitting up against a wall. I move to stand, but my arms let a clank as the chains shift and the manacles tug my wrists back into place. Before I can react a women sitting across from me on the ground clears her throat. No not a women a girl. My age. She has brown hair. Her blue-green eyes scan me. I look into her eyes and my heart clenches. Tears began too fill my eyes as I speak.

"Your dead," I say. "I watched you die. How are you here Emma?" I can hear the pain in my voice.

"I'm not here," she says. The last word slurs down to nothingness as she melts into the women who is really sitting across from me.

"Why do you think I should be dead? I've never died." She says baffled. She looks just like Emma. Except for the fact that she is clearly in her late thirty's to mid forties.

"Mrs. Quincy," I say staring back at her.
"Call me Kaycey," she says. I recognize her from when Emma decided to introduce me to her parents. And of course all those times afterward. And the funeral. Then when I was kicked out of the rebel camp.

"It's been some time. How's Sadie?" I ask.

"She's, better. She still has some unresolved emotions about Emma's-" she broke off. She wiped at her eyes and quickly spat the one word that I knew she would say. "Death." She said it so quickly I barely heard why she said. But I knew.

"I don't blame you Zane," she continued. "It wasn't your fault she died and I don't hold a grudge against you. You loved her too. No! We must move on. I have some questions for you."

"Ask away." I say this with out fear.

"We realize that the blonde girl is your sister," she states. "But who is the other girl?"

"Her name is Krista," I say. "She's my..." I pause unsure of what to say. "My friend," I say at last.

She says something under her breath. Something like, Not what she told me. Had Krista said we were more than friends? Are we more than friends? She writes something on a piece of paper.

"Alrighty then," she begins. "Who is the boy?"

"Taron," I say. "He's my sisters boyfriend."

"Okay," she says, her expression shifting slightly. "Where were you before this?"

"We went underground, to hide from soldiers," I say. "Did the rebels succeed in burning the Capitol?" I ask.

"Not all of it," she says. "Most of it lay in ruins, but the Presidential Mansion stands. And so does the main Capitol building. Do you recognize this man?"

She holds up a tattered picture of a man. His blonde hair and green eyes remind me of me. And Kara. I slowly realize that this is the exact same picture my mother kept in the wooden box in her closet. The picture of my father.

"That's my father," I say. She looks like she might scream.

"This man is one of our best soldiers," she says. "He went missing in the Capitol raid yesterday. No body was found, and my best guess is that he has been captured."

"I figured that in your time here that you would have seen him," her voice is quieter now. "But it sounds like you know him well."

"I want to help you," I say, still dumbfounded by the fact that my father is alive.

A woman bursts through the wooden door beside Kaycey. "The girl, Krista, she's gone." She gasps. She must have run some way to get here, because she's in shape. Her black hair is tied behind her head. She has caramel skin.

She reaches out to hand a piece of paper to Kaycey. Her sleeves pull back. A mark is tattooed onto her skin. A star with small symbols inside it, too small to see, surrounded by a circle. I recognize this. It is the symbol of the rebel soldiers.

Kaycey hands the paper back. "You go I'll be there in a minute. I need to talk to Zane a little more."

After the girl leaves Kaycey says to me, "I need to go soon, but I need you to do something first." She stands and walks over to me. She sits leans down beside me and unchained my wrists. "I wasn't for chaining you, but Michael insisted." She holds out a small cylinder. I pull my arm back.

"I'm not letting you put that brand on me," I shout. "I'm not a rebel yet. I may be old enough, but I haven't chosen to rejoin the rebels yet."

She looks shocked. "This is not permanent. This cylinder only creates a temporary tattoo. If we want to make it permanent we use a different mechanism. This is just so you can walk the rebel halls freely, without the risk of getting shot."

I stare at her. Slowly I hold out my wrist. She places the cylinder on it. The bottom turns red and my arm begins to burn. After a few moments she pulls it back and I stare at the new, temporary mark on my skin.

"We have to go I'll take you to your friends on my way," Kaycey says this as she pulls me up. We walk to the door just as it bursts open, revealing Michael, the rebel leader, and Emma's father on the other side. He had a gun in his hand.

"Kaycey," he says. "I couldn't find you anywhere. I thought you were missing." He looked terrified, but now as he pulls his wife into a hug his expression changes to pure relief.

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