Agents | a GxG story

Apology

I'm nearly asleep in my bed and for weeks after Bear and be had that fight I've had dreams of what the outside world looks like. Me and Bear haven't really talked since then, I'm too embarrassed that I told her my name and she's too stubborn to come to me first, or so I thought.

A little knock that wouldn't be heard if the room wasn't dead silent comes from my door. I get up and open the door to see a guilty looking Bear staring at the floor.
"So uh, you wanna hangout until 3rd meal?" She asks. I can tell what she's doing. She has to much pride to actually say she's sorry and she's using the correct terminology to try and get in my good side, normally I would be annoyed but it's kind of sweet that she's trying. I leave my door open and go sit on my bed. Bear joins me.

After a few moments of silence Bear speaks up.
"So a deals a deal right?" She says nervously. Oh my god, I completely forgot about our deal.
"So I'm part of this group of Hyper Focused people in hiding... and there are thousands of us living under the villages and kingdoms. I had a mission to collect intel on the Academy so we could take them down... but I got caught..." she explains. There are so many thoughts running through my head, there is a resistance? They live underground? How many are there? "Please don't tell the head master, the academy doesn't know we exist and if they did they would send there agents to retrieve us." Bear begs me. I didn't even think of that. I look at Bear and see how vulnerable she's being with me, she looks scared. I take her hand and her breath hitches.
"I'm not going to hurt you." I say and she calms down. "And I won't tell the head master." I promise her. She smiles and leans her head against me. My heart rate speeds up and I feel nervous. I count my heart rate to make sure I'm not sick, if your heart rate becomes irregular or you get other symptoms of a sickness you are supposed to report it immediately as to not spread it through the Academy. It's not to extreme but I still feel weird.
"Bear- I mean 014?" I ask.
"Yeah?" She mumbles with her eyes closed.
"What's it like outside?" I ask. Bear takes a moment to think about this.
"Well everything's something bright and green, and the sky is so blue, I'm sure you remember that though... maybe. There are so many flowers throughout the village and everyone wears bright robes with gold and red and purple. I miss it a lot." She explains to me flopping all the way back on the bed, I join her and stare at the ceiling.
"Well we will get to see it when we graduate." I say to her. Every student is excited for graduation, we get to go outside and go in missions.
"Not in the way you would like it." Bear says to me.
"Why?" I turn to her. She keeps staring at the ceiling.
"Do you remember being captured as a kid?" She asks me.
"Yeah I guess, these guys in goggles and cloaks came and took me away from my parents." I say.
"When you graduate you will be forced to wear those goggles all the time to help focus your vision, and you will not leave your cell until given a mission. If that mission isn't completed you are burned with a hot metal pole." She says.
"That's... that's not true." I say. It can't be true, I've been here for ten years and it can't just end in more torture.
"I know it's hard to believe but the only way to stop it from happening is to start a revolution. The resistance will help us all when we get-"
"No! It's not true! Your lying to me!" I pull away from her but she grabs my arm as her eyes glow.
"You can do that!?! What else are you lying about!?!" I yell.
"I can't show them I can control it. I need to be held back a few years to work on the revolution." She says. I reach for the doorknob but she blocks my arm. I back up and hit the wall of my room. She walks over to me and I try to hit her but I end up on my back.
"Don't make me do this Kiara... please, you're the only person I like in this hell hole." She begs. I get up to punch her again but she blocks me.
"Don't call me that!" I yell. She sighs. I want to turn on my vision but it's like it's blocked, I need to control my emotions before I control the vision but it's never been this hard, I want to yell and cry at the same time. Bear pulls me up from the floor and into a hug.
"Please, please, please don't leave me because of this. I promise I won't let you graduate." She says. No, she can't do this to me, I'm going to graduate and it's going to be great, if she was lying about her hyper focus there's no telling what else she could be lying about, "Kiara..." she says once more.
"I told you not to call me that." I snap at her as I push her back. She falls onto the bed and looks up at me. I expect her to be mad or stubborn as usual but she just sits there and waits for me to do something.
"Turn me in... do it." She challenges me. I groan loudly rushing out of the room and down the halls.

I punch one of the punching bags at the gym hard. I've skipped 3rd meal and no doubt will get some slashes on my back for it but I don't care. I throw another hard punch at the bag. I can feel my knuckles bleeding. How could she lie to me? I promised I wouldn't turn her in but if they find out that I knew about the revolution and didn't tell them, it's an automatic execution. Another forceful punch into the bag. And how has the resistance survived all these years? Why didn't they save me? Am I not good enough to be in the resistance? Another punch.
"Hey!" A voice echoes through the gym. I turn to see a guard pointing a shocker at me with his finger resting carefully on the button, "check!" He tests me. I immediately salute him and kneel waiting for my orders. "Report to the dinning hall to be made an example of." He orders. As if being controlled by the key word I start swiftly walking to the dinning hall. This is going to be rough.

I enter the dinning hall and everyone is waiting. I hear whispers being transferred around the room.
"129 you are one of the top students at The Academy. What has inspired your reckless behavior this evening?" The head master announces and the entire room goes silent.
"I had lost track of time mam, I will accept whatever punishment you see fitting." I say kneeling down. The headmaster mulls the consequence over for a few moments.
"Four whips." She says and one of the guards unholsters his whip. Everyone in the room knows that the punishment should have at least been seven whips if not more. I feel my arms pushed down on the table in front of me and my shirt being pulled up. I see Bear in the crowd staring at me in horror. I glare at her until I feel the first searing burn on my back. I grunt in agony and try to stay strong. If you show to much weakness it could result in another whipping. The second one tears the first one even more open and I suppress a scream. I try to catch my breath but I am interrupted by the third slash. I hear a small whimper from the crowd and force open my eyes to see Bear being discretely held back by 098. Why could she possibly want to help me. The final whip slashes and the head master releases everyone to their quarters. Bear runs up to me and I see 098 walk away. I don't think she likes Bear all that much. Bear pulls me up and helps me to sit on the table. Everyone has left the room and it's just us.
"Kiara are you okay?" She asks me taking both my hands.
"Don't call me that... not here." I huff out trying to hold back the pain. Bear looks concerned and pulls me up to head back to the quarters.

"Ow!" I let out one little yell as Bear bandages me.
"Sorry." She says guiltily.
"Bear- I uh, I mean 014, just go to bed... you don't have to do this for me I've taken care of myself for years." I tell her. She just stays silent and keeps wrapping me. Every time I feel her thin fingers brush against my back I feel shivers.
"It's my fault..." her voice cracks after awhile of silence.
"What?" I say confused.
"You wouldn't be in trouble if I didn't make you mad." She holds back the sadness in her voice as she finishes off the wrap. I lean back into her. I feel her heartbeat against my head as her arms envelope me. "I wasn't prepared for this... I never wanted to go here and now there is no way out." She says rubbing her thumb over my knuckle.
"Well... if you showed them how good you are you could graduate with me this year. Then we could escape from here during the graduation." I offer her.
"But we are different colors. We would be put in different areas." She says. I didn't think about that. Her hand moves from massaging my knuckles to playing with my hair. It feels so nice and I'm so tired. I close my eyes and let the calm strokes of Bears fingers guide me to sleep.

I wake up to the morning alarm in the speakers. I feel a warmth behind me and realize I'm still in Bears lap. She is awake and looks tired.
"Oh my god I'm so sorry!" I say as I try to get off the bed. I end up falling and the crimson that was already creeping around my face becomes even brighter.
"It's ok, I didn't mind to much." Bear says, still sitting against the pillows.
"But it looks like you haven't gotten any sleep." I say.
"I don't get sleep most nights." She says yawning, "anyways how's your back?" She asks.
"It feels a lot better than yesterday but it still hurts." I say standing up. I go to my mirror and fix my hair. I feel arms wrap around me from behind and my breath hitches as I see Bear in the mirror. She rests her face in the crevice of my shoulder and neck and closes her eyes. The feeling of her arms around my waist makes me uncomfortable but in a good way? Whenever I'm with Bear it's like that. I feel uncomfortable and scared but it feels good, she confuses me so much.
"We uh, we better get to the first meal." I say. Bear groans and nuzzles further into my shoulder. Her body presses against mine and I feel my heartbeat speed up, ugh I hate whatever she's doing to me. "We have to go or we can get whipped together." I say. That makes her let go and sigh. We start to head off to first meal.