Hurters and Healers

5

Let me start by saying that Alex and I have been each other's only friend for about 10 years and over that course of time we've gotten close to the point where people can't tell if we're dating or siblings, and sometimes I can't tell if he thinks of me as his sister or his girlfriend. I'm perfectly fine with all of that since I don't know if I see him more as my brother or someone I might want to date.

Anyway, it was around midnight since we didn't leave until around nine o'clock so the only thing either of us wanted to do was sleep, even though I had slept for most of the ride here, wherever here is. Once again, we're super close, so sharing a bed didn't bother either of us. It was actually kinda nice since I usually had nightmares. It was nice to have someone there when I woke up and needed to calm down.

We woke up in the morning to a lot more snow and empty stomachs. We were staying at a private room in a building that had a skywalk to the main building that was serving breakfast, which I would've been ready for if Alex hadn't been getting in my way to annoy me.

"You're aware that I can hurt you easily, right?" I told him after he had hidden my toothpaste.

He had also stolen my hairbrush and hidden my shoes.

"You wouldn't dare, you love me too much to purposely hurt me."

"Bet," I said then punched him in the stomach as hard as I could.

He coughed for a few minutes while I laughed at him and brushed my teeth. He was still glaring at me when I was getting my shoes on and we started walking to get some food.

"Alex, I heard your mom couldn't be here this year. Is she doing ok?" Someone we saw in the hallway stopped and said to Alex and me.

"Yeah, she's between assistants right now and a bit overworked so she didn't feel like she could justify taking a weekend away, no matter how important the event is," Alex told the mystery man.

"Oh, how rude of me, I'm Michael, director of the first compound of District 1," The man said when he noticed me.

"Cee," I said, introducing myself to Michael.

"I'll see you tomorrow night, Alex. You two have fun and make sure to take the trails. They're beautiful right after it snows," Michael turned and walked away.

Alex started walking but I quickly stopped him. He didn't really expect me to not have questions, did he? What's the director of another compound doing here? And why was he asking about Alex's mom?

"Alex, what was he talking about?" I asked.

"I'll explain it to you later but I'm guessing there are going to be more at the breakfast area so if any of them ask why I brought you just tell them you're my date for tomorrow and you can tell them you're the head nurse of compound 3 in district 2, but make sure they know you're with me," he told me.

"Alex, please, what's going on? Who are you talking about?"

"Once a year the leaders of the compounds and their kids meet to talk about how things are going and see if we can help each other. My mom is dealing with other stuff this year so she had to send me but I got her to agree that I could bring you. It doesn't happen very often but occasionally the leaders aren't able to make it so they send their kids in their place. No one knows this meeting exists and we would probably get in a lot of trouble for it if the political leaders found out that we don't all hate each other," he explained.

"So basically, you kidnapped me for a weekend but didn't tell me that we would be going to a secret illegal meeting," I summarized.

"Pretty much, now can we go get some food?"