The Differents | ✓

T W E N T Y - O N E

"You're acting weirdly."

"No I'm not. I'm fine."

Sniper stopped walking, crossed his arms over his chest and stared at me. "You're jumpy and you haven't said a word since we left the rocks."

I sighed, swallowed the lump in my throat. "I told you, I'm fine. Just... nervous."

"You're shivering. Your eyes keep darting around. Your feet are poised to run and you're gripping that gun so tightly that your knuckles are losing colour. You're not fine. What's going on?"

My pulse quickened and the thought that had been on repeat in my brain ever since we left intensified. You can't trust him; he can kill you just as easily as he did those Masks. You can't trust him; he can kill you just as easily as he did those Masks.

"It's none of your business."

"Are you feeling okay?"

"Stop talking to me. I'm fine." I tried to loosen my grip on the gun and adjust my posture to appear more relaxed.

"You're not okay. What are you hiding from me? Is there something following us? You look scared. Why are you scared?"

"I'm not scared." My voice sounded hollow, far away.

Sniper took a step toward me and I flinched and took a step back, my hands instinctively loading the gun. His face fell as he realised. "You're afraid of me?"

I looked at my feet and said nothing.

"Why?" The word came out a pained whisper.

I took a shuddering breath, but didn't take my hands off the weapon. "The way you killed those Masks."

When I looked back up, his eyes were focused on me. He looked like he was about to cry. "I had no choice, Arthemis. If I hadn't done it, who knows where we would be?"

"It's not that. It's the way you did it. With such efficiency. You didn't seem human."

Now he really was crying. But they weren't sad tears; he looked angry. "You think I asked to be made like this? You think I wanted to be trained to kill without feeling? I didn't! But yet, I had no say in it! And you have no idea what they did to me if I didn't go with it. You have no idea!"

My mouth opened and closed, wanting words to fall out and yet none came. I had seen Sniper in many different emotions, yet none of them were like this one. He was sad and angry and frustrated and who knows what else, but I had, very obviously, hurt him and opened an emotional wound he was trying his best to forget about.

"I never wanted to learn the best ways to snap someone's neck. I never wanted to learn how to disassemble and reassemble a gun in seventeen seconds. I never wanted to know where to target a human being when throwing a knife, yet I did. You think I had a choice in what they taught me? You've had it so easy. All you needed to do was run a lap around the field and climb some trees and then they let you go about your own business. But me? I had nothing like that. Do you know how hard it was for me to get here? Of course you don't, because you think that because your life is easy it must mean that everyone else's life is easy too!"

I felt anger start to bubble to the surface. "Sniper--"

He tossed his gun at me. "You want to shoot me? Have two guns to do it with. Because at least then I for sure won't be around and you'll finally feel safe." The gun landed between the two of us. I stared at it, feeling hollow.

"I'm not going to shoot you."

After a moment, Sniper walked toward the gun and picked it up. When he spoke, his voice held no emotion. "Then you'll have to get comfortable living with a killer."

When I heard the sound of water on my right, I didn't hesitate. I started running toward it, passing Sniper who had been walking in front of me, most likely brooding as teenage boys do. After almost hitting several trees and stepping over a fallen log, I emerged into a space where the trees stopped and were replaced with a clearing of smooth light grey rocks and glittering water. The waterfall caught my attention first, spilling over a ledge of rock in front of me. It plunged into a pool of beautiful blue-green water, so clear I could see little animals swimming about in it, and flowed steadily out to the side into a stream that widened into a small river. Small bushes and spindly trees grew in cracks in the rocks and small caves had been formed from the bigger rocks. I dropped my bag and rolled up the legs of my pants. I was filthy and all I had been wanting since we had left the plane was to be clean and well fed. Not wanting Sniper to protest to the spot I had chosen, I immediately settled down to swim. I just wanted to feel the water around me and lose myself for a few minutes before having to face reality again.