The Hunt

Chapter 14: Hanna

Jonas and I have another meeting later today. I wish I could just get it over with, but it’s almost as if the adults don’t want anything to do with us.

Jonas is pacing. He’s been doing this the entire day. And I just watch him.

“How in the world do they expect us to find and kill this exile? We don’t even know who it is!” Jonas shakes his head.

“This isn’t ‘us’ or ‘we’. It’s my mission Jonas, you don’t have to deal with this,” I say.

“There’s no way I’m letting you struggle on this alone, Hanna. I’m helping you no matter what my rank is,” Jonas stops pacing for a second.

“That’s sweet, but you’ve been going on and on about it for hours now, and you already seem to be stressing out big time. Just let me go to this meeting alone, and you relax,” I say. He looks at me for a few moments with a hopeless look, but then shakes his head.

“You need me.”

“I don’t. Honestly, I’m fine. I can deal with this on my own.”

“Hanna, please let me help you. This is a dead end mission. This exile could be practically invisible.”

“Jonas,” I sigh.

He groans and begins pacing again. He’s brilliant, but stubborn.

I sit and stare at the ground for a long time, zoning out and ignoring Jonas’s rambling.

I shake out of it and stand up suddenly, and say, “I’m going to the meeting.”

“Hanna!” Jonas calls, but I’m already out the door.

As I walk through the hallways, I notice the air seems to be a little thin. Everyone looks a little shaken or anxious. My nervousness doesn’t help.

A woman passes by, and immediately looks away. Then a man meets my gaze, and speeds up to pass me quickly. Then a captain walks by and stares at me for a little longer than necessary.  Everyone else that passes me seems to look at me strange or avoid me the minute they see me.

That’s when I realize it’s my uniform.

Word must have spread fast about everything; my survival of the ambushed mission, my pledging which went awry, even my new mission might have gotten out. Besides, I’m a nineteen year old girl in a uniform that a nineteen year old girl should not be wearing.

When I reach the bridge to the main building, I feel my stomach flip.

The guy who works at the front desk of the hospital is talking with someone.

I try to ignore him and walk by, but I can’t help seeing his eyes catch with mine, and unwavering, follow me until I am past.

That look was different from all the others. It wasn’t strange or judgemental or awestricken, it was just spiteful.

And then, the man who is talking with him calls to me, “Hanna Laine, yes?”

I pretend I didn’t hear and keep walking.

By the time I reach the conference room, I feel like a bug being watched under a microscope. I just want to run back to my dorm and lock myself there.

“Hanna, it’s so great that you could attend,” the old man, strategist Gary Helman, greets me.

I sit down at the empty seat on the round table, feeling out of place and somewhat pathetic in my uniform, and direct my attention to Garik.

“So as I was saying, this shooting,” Garik continues, “The press is going mad. The most popular view is that we are losing control of the exiles, and that idea must be extracted immediately.”