Hurters and Healers

9

"It's really you?" Connor asked after we had been hugging for a few minutes.

"Yeah."

"How long have you been here? I hope not very long. This place scares me a little bit."

"Gracie and I have been here the whole time, and it gets less scary over time. You'll get used to things here and meet people."

"Gracie's here too?"

He seemed shocked that this place could even exist.

"Did you really not know that this place exists?" I asked.

"No, of course not."

"Well, you can thank our wonderful government leaders that don't want to fight their own battles."

"Do you know who the current government leaders are?"

"No. We're pretty much cut off from the outside world, but we're trying to change that. You'd actually be a big help since you know how we could make it more shocking to the public that this place exists."

"I'm sure everyone will be surprised when they find out that our current leader's children that are supposedly dead are actually here fighting for him."

Wait, what? I don't know which was surprising me more, that my father was our current leader or people thought all his children were dead. How did he justify all of us dying suddenly? Why would people trust him with power? But I also had something to use against him now. We could tell people about the compounds then when people get mad at him about what he's doing we can also expose him for lying about his kids, or 3 of them at least, and let them find out on their own that he abused us. I needed to talk to Alex.

"Wait, why did you come to the infirmary?" I asked Connor.

"I'm still trying to figure out where everything is and I thought that if I did it this late then if I was in the wrong place then only a few people would find out about it."

"That makes sense, do you know how to get back to your apartment?"

"I think so."

Connor left and no one else came that night. Around 6 am is when we started to see action again as kids who couldn't tape their own hands came in so that I could do it for them. At 8 my shift was officially over and I went straight to the spot where Alex and I agreed to wait for each other before breakfast every day.

Usually, my shifts started at 8 so we would meet up at 7 but on days where I had worked the night shift, we would meet at 8. I was usually patient and didn't mind him being a bit late but today every second he was late felt like hours as I waited to tell him what Connor had told me last night and what I thought we should do.

"Finally, you took forever," I said when I finally saw him.

"I'm five minutes late, calm down."

"I have something I need to talk to you about."

"So, tell me."

"I'll tell you when we're eating. Now come on, I'm hungry."

We had our food and were sitting down when I saw Connor and motioned for him to come over by us.

"Please tell me the food doesn't suck," he said after kissing my cheek, something he used to always do.

"Please tell me this isn't what you were so excited about," Alex grumbled.

"Before you get all jealous and kill him, let me explain."