Blackthorne, Gallagher & Royal?

Chapter 4

The room I wake up in this time was nicer than the room I first woke up in. There was a bed, which I was on, a dresser, lamp on a plain side table, a door, and a window with bars over it; however the door looked like I might be able to control whether or not it was locked, and I wasn't restrained. The man I had been dealing with entered the room but this time was trailed by a woman. He starts out this time in Appilachian introducing himself as Mr. Bubblé and the lady as Dr. Holst and that they are here to help me settle in for the time I am staying there before I return home. The next words out of his mouth stun me the most, so much so that I actually respond in English.

"I'm sorry for the inhospitality you have received Your Highness, but when someone is found on our land, especially at your age, we tend to want to find out who we are dealing with."

"What do you mean 'Your Highness', I'm not royalty," I exclaimed.

"Yes you are. That's why we took DNA. Your fingerprints aren't on file, neither is your DNA, but the King's and Queen's is and your sample matches up enough to be related to them," he tells me, "Are you sure that you think our data is wrong?"

"Yes," I practically yelled, "Why wouldn't my parents tell me if I was royalty? That doesn't make any sense."

"I'm sorry that we are the ones that had to tell you, but we believe that your stay will be less than a month and you can ask your parents about it when you get home."

"You don't get it do you? Is there a missing persons report in Appilachia for someone my age? I'll bet there isn't and that if they haven't tried to find me yet then they aren't planning to until I'm closer to age sixteen. Unless I get in trouble I doubt that they care where I am and what I'm doing."

Mr. Bubblé and Dr. Holst just look at me strange, and then Dr. Holst starts helping me get settled in by explaining how life is going to be during my stay.

As days turn into a week then two, I can tell that they are starting to wonder if what I said was true. They don't outright ask me about my parents but they do send curious looks in my direction. For the first two weeks my only human interaction is with Dr. Holst and Mr. Bubblé. I eat lunch is the mess hall but I am always the only one in there that isn't staff, everyone else eats after me. On the first day that starts my third week, my door is rattled very early in the morning. I know it isn't Mr. Bubblé or Dr. Holst because they never check on me or require me to be anywhere before 11:00am and that is for lunch. Before I can wake up enough to get the door, it swings open and there, standing in the door way is a boy, who looks to be about 5. I am so surprised my first reaction is to scream, but the boy must have sensed it coming because in an instant his hand is covering my mouth dampening my cry.

The first words out of the boy's mouth are, "If I remove my hand so we can talk properly, do you promise not to scream?"

I nod that I won't scream and the boy slowly removes his hand from my mouth and extends it as if he wants to shake my hand.

"I'm Zach. What's your name?" I don't respond and the boy, Zach, slowly retracts his hand. "Welcome to Blackthorne. How long have you been here I haven't seen any girls around?" he asks.

In that instant I realize that no one has told me the name of the place I have been staying. "What did you say the name of this place is?" I ask in a whisper.

"The Blackthorne Institute for Boys," Zach replies. "That must mean you are the rescue. I heard that the school had saved someone's life, a stranger, but I didn't believe it. Are you telling me that that's true? Well it must be because you are here." Zach rattled out all in one breath, "It seems as though the administrators left somethings out when they gave you the tour. Would you like me to show you around?"

"Sure," I reply not knowing what else to say. My first impression of Zach is that he can't stop talking, like ever, because he then went on to asking how long I was going to stay, what classes were I looking forward to being able to take later, and others, all with no time in between to answer a single question.

I notice where Zach has taken me and I just freeze where I am. There are rows of metal buildings with boys standing in front of them. Lots and lots of boys, ranging from what looked like age 5 all the way up to 17 or 18, all wearing jumps suits that were similar in cut but each group or so had on a different color. I was standing in a slight rise above where the boys were and when one spotted me, they all turned to stare. I'm petrified. I've never been looked at by this many people at once, by myself, before. As I run away, I hear the words intruder alert rise from all the boys. I run faster than I have ever before. Back to the room where I've been staying for the past two weeks.

About 20 minutes later there is a knock on my door and I guess that it's Mr. Bubblé and/or Dr. Holst. So I'm surprised when I see Zach also standing there with them. They lead me to a space that looks like it's used for announcements when they need to tell everyone at the same time and it's not normally used. Mr. Bubblé and Dr. Holst lead me up to the front of the group and Zach follows until he is in the front row. As we step in front of everyone someone yells, "Attention!" and everyone, including Zach, snaps to attention. The only thing missing was the salute.

Mr. Bubblé, in a raised voice, says "At ease," and all the boys obeyed. He then proceeds to introduce me as Princess Rebecca Petrovich of Appilachia, and tells them that I will be staying on the grounds for a while and I will join them in some of their classes starting tomorrow. While I was surprised to hear that I would be joining classes I had hoped  it would be soon. It seemed as though some of the boys were uncomfortable with me joining them which in turn made me nervous. "We will send out a notice to your commanders on conduct around Ms. Petrovich. Dismissed!"

To me it looked as though Zach was trying to leave as well but then Mr. Bubblé asked him to stay but I could tell that it wasn't a request. "What were you doing young man?" Mr. Bubblé asked. "It could have been an intruder staying in that room and they were under lock-down and shouldn't know any of our students."

"Students?" I asked myself silently, "More like army trainees."

Mr. Bubblé continued, "You should know better. As punishment today you owe 20 miles and I expect that you are done in the same amount of time that it takes everyone else to do the normal 10 miles. I hope you understand that what you did is wrong. You may go rejoin your group now. Dismissed."

The punishment is worse than I thought they would deliver. I guess when you have that much testosterone in one area you have to lay down how is in charge hard and soon or else there would be problems.