READY, AIM, FIRE [B.BLAKE]

CHAPTER ONE

       With her hands cuffed behind her back, seventeen-year-old Hazel James studied the plain prison cell before her. The room was simple, with a little wrought iron bed—if you could even call it that—and a metal bedside table. Upon looking up, she discovered a small circular window displaying the same star-speckled sky she'd stared at for her entire life.

       "Well," the brunette mused out loud as she scanned the room. "This is a nice change of scenery."

       Sandwiched between two guards with iron grips on her forearms, Hazel didn't stop the wide smile from spreading on her face.

       "It's a prison cell," the guard to her right deadpanned.

       Hazel directed her grin at him, "I was being sarcastic."

       The guard huffed his annoyance and pulled out the key to the girl's handcuffs, fiddling with the lock until it clicked open. He tugged the cuffs off her wrists, and Hazel sighed in pleasure, "much better, those were quite restricting."

     The guard gave her a flat face in response, the other one reciprocating the same look. Honestly, Hazel thought they looked somewhat alike, but it wasn't possible that they were related because the Ark didn't allow for siblings.

       Before she could make a joke about their resemblance, the two guards stepped out of the prison cell and shut and locked the door behind them, not one glance spared at Hazel.

       With the shutting of the door, the room fell unbearably silent. She'd never thought about the silence. Hazel had only prepared herself for the boredom and limited space, but the silence? It would likely be her demise. If the boredom didn't drive her to insanity, the silence surely would.

       Of course, only for the half-hour she was actually in there.

       Hazel had been attempting to fashion a knife from the foot of the bed that she had snapped off when the door to her cell opened. She didn't bother hiding the makeshift weapon when the same guard from before reappeared. His gaze slid down to the jagged edge of metal in Hazel's hands, and then  back up to her grinning face, "miss me already?"

       "Actually," the guard said, pulling out the handcuffs again. His mouth twitched up into a ghost of a smirk. "We've decided on your punishment a little early."

       Her stomach dropped, but Hazel hid any evidence of her rising alarm by laughing, "you're killing me off now? What did you find out about? I was sure I hid my tracks but if I missed anything—"

       "Just shut up, would you?" The guard said exasperatedly, taking a step forward with the handcuffs held out in his hands.

       Hazel shot to her feet, clutching the metal knife in her hand and backing away from the guard. Soon enough, however, there was nowhere to retreat. Her back pressed into the cool metal wall and the guard advanced towards her with his arms raised in front of him, the handcuffs dangling from his left hand. "Just cooperate, James, and this won't have to turn ugly."