Isolation

Chapter 8

"I'm so into you, I can barely breathe. And all I wanna do is to fall in deep, but close ain't close enough till we crossed the line......" (-Ariana Grande "Into You")
I blearily open my eyes and reach over to find my phone to turn off my alarm. I look at my phone and remember it's not a phone. It's an AI? Maybe I don't know whatever it is it operates just like my old iPhone.
"Newer model." Cube says out of nowhere. His voice makes me jump. "Sorry I didn't mean to scare you. Moving on, you have a big day ahead of you. Initiation will be fun. Your parents dropped by about five minutes ago. They told me to tell you they love you and to text them when you wake up. They already went off to work but they want you to check in with them. I already chose your outfit for initiation just to save you some time. Now go get washed up, Lady Katheryne will be here shortly." Finally Cube was done talking and I could think for a moment.
"Good morning to you too Cube." I uttered with a bit of scorn since I just woke up and was bombarded with information. Honestly I'm just tired and I'll be fine after I wash my face. After a few minutes of resting my eyes I get out of bed and go to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. Katie said workout clothes so no makeup or long hair today. I pull my hair into a high ponytail and put on a quick face scrub just for some relaxation before a stress inducing day. After I wash off the scrub I hear a knock on my door.
"Coming!" I yelled. I quickly run to the door and open it to see Katie standing in front of me. She seemed a bit tired but again it's early. She was wearing army green cargo pants, a long sleeved black crop top, black combat boots and she had her Katana around her torso.
"You aren't ready yet." Katie bluntly stated the obvious.
"And you look like you're ready to be Kim Possible for Halloween. Ya know, if she had a Katana." I side stepped to let Katie into my room.
"She should've." Katie stated as she walked past me. As soon as she came in she went to my bed and plopped down on it seemingly tired.
"Not get enough sleep?" I questioned.
"I'm fine. I'm not a morning person. I'll wake up soon enough. Anyway you need to get dressed and we need to go down to initiation and meet up with the other Captains to figure out who you are going with today." Katie then rolled back onto my bed and curled up like a cat.
"Ok." I turned and opened my closet doors to get the clothes Cube had picked out. "And who are the other four Captains?" I was curious and had to know. Cube picked out a black yoga pants with a green stripe on each side of my legs, from my ankle to my hip. The shirt was a dark dark green, almost black. It was a thin material, but a turtleneck. The sleeves had a hole for my thumb, which I greatly appreciated. While I was grabbing the clothes and going to change in the bathroom Katie answered me.
"The Captains are Terra, Maggie, Felix, and Derek. Terra is cool and Maggie is super sweet. Felix is smart and fun to annoy, but Derek is just a jerk. He hates me because I'm not a goody two shoes. He's just jealous because everyone likes me more than him because I AM THE FUN CAPTAIN NOT HIM. You could say we don't have the best relationship." Katie mumbled a bit because of my blankets, but I could still hear her loud and clear. I emerged from the bathroom and gave Katie an amused glance before putting my running shoes on. "If you're ready, then let's go." Kat stood up and stretched. She grabbed my water bottle from my nightstand and said, "I carry water bottle."
I smiled. "I can't believe you still remember that!" I said to her astonished. She merely shrugged and walked towards me and pushed me out the door, "Bye Cube!" She yelled and then she slammed the door shut. "Now we're off!" Katie told me as we strolled down a different hallway towards a room I hadn't exploded yet. There was shouting and laughing coming through the doors.
"Are you kidding me Mags! It's not funny! She broke my fucking nose!" I recognized that voice, it was Derek.
"Oh no." I said quietly as I stopped dead in my tracks. Katie turned and looked at me confused.
"What's wrong?" She asked.
"Well I um, the guard I ran into, I also punched him. And that gaurd was Derek......" I looked down at the floor as I said this.
"Ok well I mean why did you punch him? Not that you didn't have the right to but I would prefer to be able to punch him as well if I have good enough reason to do so." She said and smirked. I could see the wheels turning in her head as she thought of ways to make her rival angry.
"Well I mean he slammed me into a wall, and bruised my arm." I rolled my sleeve up at looked at the dark sickening blue and black marks. Granted I did bruise quite easily so it wasn't as painful as it looked, but nobody needed to know that. Katie looked at my arm and stated with a bit of anger,
"Yea that qualifies as good enough reason." She nods, cracks her knuckles intimidatingly, turns around and storms into the room yelling, "Derek! You slammed my best friend into a wall!"
I ran behind Katie whispering her name and telling her to stop, but it was too late. We were in a medical examination room that was also part board meeting room? Derek was sat up on a exam bed as a doctor was fixing his nose. The doctor had shorter honey brown hair with clear as glass blue eyes. Her skin was a light olive and she had a slender but strong physique. She wore simple black pants, with a form fitting grey turtleneck sweater. She had a sweatshirt tied around her waist and had running shoes on.
"You never said you hurt her first!" The female doctor yelled at Derek. Then she turned to me and said, "And you! I understand now why you punched him but could you have aimed somewhere else?! It's just a bit of a hassle to break an already broken nose back into place. Next time aim for the gut." Mags (I assumed her name was Mags from what I heard before) went back to setting Derek's nose but he shooed her away and yelled in outrage,
"Excuse me I'm the victim in this case not her! And you never advocate for violence, why now? For me even more so?!"
"She's new her here, and clearly a scared little lamb! It wasn't right!" Mags yelled back.
"She isn't a little lamb! She assaulted me! That's a crime!" Derek was rather red in the face and clearly not acting in a sensible manner.
"Hey I was acting in self defense! It was simply my first instinct to get you away from me. I was still on edge from just waking up in a foreign place, alone, not one day ago! If you were in my position what would you have done, bend over?!"  I was pretty pissed at this point. Then I realized I had been yelling in front of people I barely just met, they were starring at me, mouths agape. The brunette in the corner was looking at me, with a proud smirk, the other guy looked stern but amused, Mags looked happy and went back to setting Derek's nose. Derek was astonished I talked back to him, I could tell from his confused look on his face, as if nobody had ever told him off before. Katie was outright smiling, a cheeky smirk of pride and had the look of a cat that finally caught the mouse.
"Derek I think it's time to forgive and forget. Clearly she had no intention of ever harming you but was acting on pure instinct. I'm sure she is sorry she had to cause you harm but the circumstances do put her in the right. By the way my name is Felix, Captain of Theta. The lovely Doctor setting Derek's nose is Maggie, but we all call her Mags Captain of Delta, the brunette in the corner is Terra Captain of Alpha, and clearly you've already met Katheryne. Please to meet you, although I do wish it was under different circumstances." Felix had a clean sharp hair cut, dark brown hair, he had glimmering hazel green eyes, and warm chocolate colored skin. Felix was tall at about 6"2 with subtle muscles that could be seen under his navy blue suit with a jet black tie. He had a composed and regal posture that made him seem like an arrogant billionaire bachelor. Felix was distressingly handsome and had an intelligent aura that exuded power and confidence.
"Hi, Nikki....that's me but you already knew that, um aren't I supposed to be like sorted into a section for today or something like that?"
Terra spoke up, "Has Katie already told you about each of the different sections? If so that makes our jobs a hell of a lot easier." She smiled and stood up straighter as she talked, so as to seem more professional.
"Yes she has, well I mean I know the basics." I spoke quickly but loudly so as to not seem too nervous. If anybody noticed, nobody said anything, but I could tell Felix was analyzing my speech, tone, pace, he would pick up the slightest involuntary twitch, and that made me put my walls up. I felt somebody trying to enter my mind, I involuntarily pushed them out and telepathically said I don't know who you are but stay out.
I heard Felix groan, he had his head in his hands and looked me dead in the eyes.
"--alone."
I brought my attention back to Terra.
"I'm sorry what? It's early I must've spaced out." I said quickly trying to listen but also keep my walls up. I haven't used telepathy in a while, matter of fact I haven't used any magic in a while. In fact I completely forgot about it until this moment, now I'm incredibly happy it's still with me!
"I said it's good Katie informed you about the sections sand then I told Felix to leave you alone. He can be a nosy jerk sometimes." After she said that, everybody stopped what they were doing, and they all looked at me.
"I'm sorry?" I questioned, now feeling extremely nervous and uncomfortable.
"Although I will say I'm surprised you were able to keep him out, let alone notice him in the first place and then be able to kick him out after he was already in your mind. That takes real power."
Terra looked at me with joy after outing me as a witch to everyone, but if she knew then she's a witch too, as is obviously Felix, who was still attempting to enter my mind. I finally sobered up and decided I didn't exactly like Terra. Ok I suppose she as a person was fine, I just don't like being out smarted.
"Did you know they would try and enter my mind?" I asked as I turned to Katie.
"I didn't know if you still had your magic or not. Sorry." Katie replied with a shrug, her indifference can be insufferable but I've gotten used to it so now I understand that's just her way of communicating.
"It's alright no harm no foul I suppose, anyway may I just say if you wanted to know what kind of person I am you could've just asked me, instead of snooping in my brain. Besides; my thoughts, my memories, that's personal and nobody has the right to look in someone else's mind without that person's consent first!" I'm a bit of a stickler for justice. I placed my hands on my hips and stood up straighter, I wasn't nervous any more I was just angry and my posture and tone of voice made Terra's smirk waiver, instead it was replaced with a look of slight anger realizing I wasn't somebody she could compliment into controlling. I looked at Katie and she was glaring at Terra as well. Felix looked understanding and almost prideful but still had a twinge of pain cross his face.
Derek looked at me without any emotion, he was simply observing. Maggie again was trying to remain indifferent in the situation but I could tell she had an opinion.
"I'm sorry I was looking into your mind without your permission, it was simply to make sure you had no ill will against anyone. Not that we assumed you did, we do this with everyone." Felix spoke with a calm confidence and professionalism.
"Yea when they did that to me I didn't realize it was happening for a little bit and then when I did I walked over and punched Felix in the gut. By the way did I ever apologize for that?" Katie said as she turned from me to Felix.
"No." Was his simple response. A hint of annoyance was in his tone and Katie knew.
"Good." She replied.
She does this all the time? I heard Felix say in my head. It took me a minute to register what was happening.
Yep but don't worry she doesn't mean anything malicious, she's a very kind person once you get to know her. By the way, I'm sorry I caused you pain, I genuinely didn't mean to. It was just an instinctual reaction since I haven't used my magick in such a long time. I replied telepathically.
Don't worry I'm fine. I was more surprised than hurt. He then spoke out loud. "Are we quite done interrogating her so we can get on with the day. Really we all have more important things to do than argue." Felix spoke calmly. He always seemed to be the voice of reason.
"Fine, since you seem to get along with her so swimmingly, why don't you take her today." Derek snarled, he hoped off the table and stalked out of the room, brushing past me as he went.
Maggie sighed, walked up to me and said, "Don't worry Derek is just rough around the edges to new people, it's not personal--"
"Actually this time I'm pretty sure it is." Terra cut in. "But don't worry, you already broke his nose once, he won't be eager to brake it again. Just keep your head up and be confident and you'll be alright." And with that Terra brushed past me leaving the room like Derek.
"Terra is also a bit of a brash person, but she means well. She just has a different way of showing it, but I do know she likes you, or at least respects you. She would've ignored you otherwise. Just be patient and you'll be good friends one day, I can tell." Maggie then hugged me, waved at Felix and Katie, and walked out.
"Don't be nervous to punch this one in the gut if you have to, you already punched one person yesterday, shoot for one per day." Katie jokingly said to me.
"Nah I'm good thanks." I laughed and verbally sparred with her.
"Bye Nikki"  Katie spoke quietly between chuckles as she walked out of the room. I just waved and then gave my attention back to Felix.
"You ready for your first day of initiation?" Felix asked me, smiling.
"As I'll ever be, I guess." I replied. Truthfully I was rather nervous, but I just remembered to take it minute by minute, an ill be alright.
"Fair enough. Let's go." Felix then walked past me out the doors. I was rather stuck in place because of my nerves. When he got to the door he realized I wasn't with him. He turned around and held the door open for me and said,
"You coming?"
I took a shallow breath, turned around and answered, "Yep." I then walked out the door with Felix, about to begin a journey of a life time.