Prisoner Thirty-One

Feather: Maple

The week after continued as though I was watching it happen. I smiled when I felt I should smile, and I spoke when I felt they wanted me to speak. I didn't frown, I didn't talk negatively, and I certainly didn't cry.

Joe said that Kyra believed I had acted in self- defence, but I wasn't from Jagu so I would need to be punished to please the people. I was now meant to stay in our designated room and wait for a new assignment.

Alec was right, his hands healed throughout that day and by the time he came back, there was nothing to tie him to the event. He told me that it was agony to wait until he could come back to me and chose to take two days off work to help me 'recover'. From what I remember, I didn't do much.

Kimba stayed for a bit at the beginning of the week. Talking about how she was going to kill Ave if she saw him and how I should have myself. After that, however, she spent pretty much all of her time cooking. I felt bad about it, but I didn't eat much of whatever she cooked.

Once the week was over Joe took the sleeping pills back in the hope that they were stopping me from talking or 'being myself' as he called it. And, yeah, I was more awake but being awake caused a different kind of problem. I was then only talking and moving when it meant training.

From the moment I woke up until everyone came back, I was training. I wasn't going to feel that weak again and in order to achieve this I was going to have to practice. Sometimes, I'd be thrusting the non-breakable items from my bag at the walls and others I'd be trying to reach people's heads during the day, this one was a lot harder. Each time my mind wondered I'd do a drill to see how many items I could lift at once or basic fitness drills.

On the fifteenth day I pushed myself so hard by attempting to lift all three beds up from the central room that I must have blacked out. I woke to a blurry Alec screaming my name. "Feather, what the hell happened?"

A part of me felt bad, he had spent the first eight days treating me like a feather barely saying anything that he thought might hurt me. Initially, being unresponsive and all, I just excepted it but later I was starting to snap at him or ignore him. None of this was his fault and I knew that, but I needed to get better and being treated that way was not helping.

Apparently even towards me, sometimes Alec can't hold his anger and after I had snapped at him a few times, he started joining in. We hadn't had any arguments exactly, more like loud clipped conversations.

"Answer me. What did you do?" My eyes had barely opened by the time his voice had risen to anger. His hard eyes narrowed on me as he contradicted himself by gently helping me up.

"I was just practising, calm down." Hindering the situation, my words came out harsher than I had expected. Instantly his hands dropped from my shoulders, causing me to wobble for a moment at the sudden disappearance.

"Your nose." He thrusted a piece of cloth into my hands as I turned to see the small red puddle on the concrete floor. Wiping at it slowly, I attempted to ignore him. "Look at me Morris." His voice was steel and like the child I am, I turned my face further from his. "Look at me." For some reason his yell made me jump but I regained my anger and whipped to face him.

"Yes?"

"You need to stop this now." We were both yelling daggers at each other getting louder every time we took our turn.

"Or what?" I spoke slowly, mouth moving around the word. There was something about people in general that was turning me towards anger, not letting my brain decide if provoking them was a good idea.

"Or you are going to end up accidentally killing yourself and what will that prove?" His voice dropped an octave making the deep growl sound even more threatening.