The Refugees

Chapter 35: Ash

The inner clock in my head continues to tick until my alarm sounds on the nightstand. My eyes open right away revealing a cold and dark room, barely furnished with anything, filled with old memories and feelings that I'd rather forget.

I quickly get dressed in my training gear and head down the kitchen to pick up one of the packed breakfasts waiting all those training at this hour of the day.

I wait in the gymnasium. It's 6:30 and in 10 min everyone else should be arriving. I start by training myself with a gun. I take hold of the plastic bullets as they are reusable although they may be illegal and since times are tough for people down here we need to use every real bullet we can get our hands on.

I aim at the target, the first challenge is the unmoving target.

Easy.

Three bullets in the head and the next one comes along. It moves in a straight line towards me and once again I shoot right in the middle. The third target moves in zigzags at a rather slow pace, the next at a faster pace, each time my eyes diverting from one end to another, clearing my head of unnecessary thoughts and unnecessary people.

"Looks like the army trained you well." I look behind me to find Amber. She smiles in the manner that she always does but I can see in her eyes that she's not quite being truthful.

"The army only trained me to kill without remorse, this I did myself." I reply to her looking back at the target at hand.

"So how's it going with it?"

"With what?" I reply never letting my eyes release the target.

"With Savannah." She replies, emphasizing lightly on Savannah's name.

I look away for a second to look at Amber and—

"Bang! You're dead." She says her face emotionless as she aims her shotgun at me. "You see Ash, she's a distraction. You never get distracted and I only need to say your name and you lose your focus."

"I wasn—"

"Ash be real. Even if you won't be truthful with me, don't lie to yourself. That girl holds some sort of power over you and I really don't get why. But whatever it is, get it out of your system. You don't live for anyone but yourself or has that changed?"

She passes a hand through her short golden blonde hair, her light green eyes staring hard at me.

"It hasn't." I finally reply, turning back around and shooting at the target once more.

"Ash, get it out of your system, I don't care how because that's none of my business, but if while you're on the battlefield you have the slight hesitance because of that girl then that will be the death of you. She's like your Achille's Heel, get it together."

"It's already taken care of."

"Ash, I'm not talking about her! If you want to push her away, fine, but that doesn't change her presence in your head. You're the one still thinking about her at the end of the day! Does she even know you kill? Does she even know you may die tomorrow? What happens when she screams at you not to kill? Will you hesitate? Will you shoot? Would you be able to live with the fact that she could hate you?"

"Amber stop your babbling! You don't even know what goes on in my head!" I raise my voice tired of hearing her useless comments, what purpose do they serve? None.

She stays speechless for a while her eyes widening slightly in shock.

"She must really be special." She says in a low voice, looking down to her right. "If she's a topic you can get angry over then she must be so goddamn important."

"Hey Ash! Hey Amber! Isn't it so good to see the both of you so early in the morning."

Both our heads snap to the entrance where Chase and Declan come in, all smiles and laughter.

"You're both late, it's already 7:05. The meet up time was at 7:45."

"Got distracted." Declan replied, a cheeky smile on his face. "Come practice with me?" He suggests and I nod having nothing better to do.

We head to the storage room where all the equipment is kept, going for all the small knives in a metal that is rounded at the ends so that it isn't dangerous to use indoors in order to practice close combat, the field I am the less educated in.

"So what's with the tension in the air?" Declan finally breaks our comfortable silence, his face filled with a newfound seriousness.

I don't know whether to trust him still to this day. He was my bestfriend and then he decided to abandon me, that was his choice. Especially after everything we found out and had been through. But I guess he wasn't looking for what was wrong and what was right.

"What tension?" I play dumb, avoiding his stare. After all, I'm here to practice not to chat.

"Ash, I'm sorry I stood you up that night." He says and I can hear the apologetic tone in his voice but it's a little late. I've grown to no longer care about it anymore. I've grown numb to it.

"At least you have the balls to apologize."

I open the door of the storage room heading out with my metal knife, Declan following behind me.

"Ash, it was never meant yo be like that. From the start I was going to go with you, and then last minute I thought it would be smarter to stay in the army longer so I could get more info closer to when the time comes. I couldn't get a hold of you and so I knew you would clever enough to go without me."

"20 minutes, Declan! I waited 20 minutes for you! And do you know how dangerous that was? I could've been caught at any time! And you didn't show. I don't care what your excuse is. You may have changed your mind and that's okay but you have to communicate that to me."

"Ash, don't be unreasonable. I'm sorry you waited and that it was dangerous but you also know that if I left I couldn't go back. We needed someone on the inside to know as much as possible and we knew a bit but not nearly enough. I would die fighting with you any day but that there was no point in risking my life that day without accomplishing anything."

I look down at the knife in my hand. He's right. Why am I being so unreasonable and selfish? He's thinking logically and here I am blabbering on about my emotions.

"This isn't like you..." Declan states, his voice hesitant to criticize me.

"I know..."

"What's up with you? You never let anything affect you."

"I don't know now can we practice?" I reply exasperated by all these questions and people pointing at my flaws.

"Sure." He replies, deciding to let go of the subject.

We train for hours, barely getting any rest or break and yet still trying to keep our bodies as healthy as possible for tomorrow's mission. It isn't long until it is almost 8pm and all of us head back to our own rooms, sweating profusely and slightly panting from all the fatigue inflicted on our muscles.