G.U.A.R.D. Book #4: Tracked

-9-

00:00, December 7. Station 3:

The next week was torture. Cleve and I would wake up, look at each other, then completely ignore one another as we got ready for the day. Estyn was true to his word. He brought my stuff to me the morning after sleeping in the shack. I turned from Cleve as I ran my fingers through the pockets, looking for the pictures. Cindy's letter. All was there. So I stuffed them back in and pretended nothing happened.

The other recruits teased us, to no surprise. Jensen made plenty of inappropriate comments, but then Cleve would shut him up with a death glare. No one made a comment about her bruised face, though. Their eyes burned with curiosity, but they looked too scared to say anything.

Leroy, however, had no problem asking me all about what happened. I told him we got in an argument, and he grinned in response, as if that explained everything.

We ate meals with our teams, did our chores, went through the training, but then would come back to the shack at the end of the day. Neither of us would glance at each other. We just got straight to work on our homework.

After living in one room with over twenty people, I found the evenings lonely and a little depressing. I wouldn't say I was close with the other recruits, not in the sense of shared interests and the like. But we had been through a lot in the past four months, whether good or bad. I guess I just found the silence suffocating. That is, until one evening, it started raining. Apparently the shack was more rundown than we thought because the water instantly began leaking on Cleve's side. At least five holes, all spread out. I had two.

As she shivered, teeth chattering, grimacing every time a drop dripped on her, I said, "You can come to my side."

I didn't expect her to say yes. If anything, I expected her to insult me. But she just grabbed her blanket and duffel, then walked over, plopping right next to me. I stared at her in surprise.

"What?" she asked in defense.

"I..." I shook my head, quickly going back to my homework.

Her body heat warmed me in the chilly atmosphere. She sat on her blanket, wearing a thick jacket. But she had positioned herself so closely—on purpose or not, I wasn't sure—that I slowly felt my chills subsiding.

We didn't say anything. Just stayed like that for hours. Then when night came, it was still raining, so she laid down on her blanket, curling up. I had never really felt compassion for her, but in that moment, I couldn't help myself. I went over to her side of the room, picked up her damp mattress, and brought it over, laying it on the floor. Then I laid it down on the ground, lying down on top of it with my own blanket. Cleve cracked open an eye at the ruckus.

"Take my bed," I told her, staring up at the ceiling. "It's dry."

After a moment, she did so, saying, "I take back what I said about you being a G.U.A.R.D. agent."

I ignored her comment, curling up to ward off the cold.

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The next morning, we acted as if nothing had happened. She put her mattress back on her shaky frame, and we went through the day as normal as any other. The day after, it was time to pick a team captain. I was on Team Green again, but with different teammates. Blair Brown, a Scottish girl that looked like Merida from Brave; Makayla Lam, an Indian from Base 9; and Noah Stephens, a guy who sounded to have originated from America.

While I wasn't voted captain, the Trials still seemed to be made for me. We were put in separate rooms of a metal hallway and told to escape as quickly as possible. We could only come out as a team. I was out first, then ran to get out Stephens, who had been having trouble with the locks. By that time, Lam was out, and a second later, so was Brown. The three of us ran to the end, and I got to work on the locks of the last door. We were the first ones out. I couldn't say how amazing that felt. My team depended on me, and I came through.