Eradicated Freedom

Chapter 8 - 26273

Yes it took me two months to write this chapter. I hope you appreciate it even if I don't think its a very good one, more of a filler.

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Chapter 8

So ‘hungry?’ was the new ‘was it really that boring?’. Klondike liked to check on her at last once a day because apparently reports weren’t good enough, that or he got bored easily, one such time was five days before testing day when she had her head in her hands and was reciting numbers, the number of guards, the number of corridors, the number of weapons, that kind of stuff in a very dull monotone voice. She had looked up when she finished to see Klondike staring at her standing behind the guy she was reciting too.

“Hungry?” He asked sympathetically. She shrugged.

“A bit.” In actual fact she was very hungry but her instructor liked to throw in random jokes about stuff, just to keep her entertained, and she had been through worse. Namely Magdalen’s map sessions. They were the only time in her life when she seriously considered getting caught by the guards for something just so she wouldn't have to go through anymore before realising that A) there’d be riots in the streets, B) she liked her little brother and C) she was already going to die she might as well make the most of it. It helped that Klondike liked to meander in, offer everybody hot beverages stolen from the guards, the Light ones, and ask ridiculous questions, he didn’t bother to ask if she was ‘hungry’ then because he already knew she was and she liked his sense of humour. It was nice to know that somebody was on the same page as her even if that somebody was an all powerful mass murder who liked to let people know who’s in charge and ‘accidently’ ‘hurt’ wrong doers. At least he claimed to have no knowledge of it.

Nobody believed that.

Bonnie’s life continued that way for the rest of the week until the day before she was due to go to the testing when she was stuck memorising maps all day because everybody knew he could defend herself when the time came to it because nobody doubted that there would be a time when she needed to fight wether because her identity had been discovered or she had got caught up in a bar fight, though pretty much everybody over the age of ninety warned her against going into bars to fight, or when she managed somehow to give Rowell his too slips of paper. Her mind however didn’t like that agenda and kept fluttering back to her plan, her completely insane and even more suicidal than this mission plan, and she kept wondering if it would actually work and if she dared to even attempt it. At the moment that answer was no but the plan was simple enough and she could prepare for it even if she didn’t use it but there was so much riding on certain things that were completely out of her control and she was guessing at and if it went wrong then it wouldn’t just be her who would pay for it.

“Knock knock?” Came a voice from the door and Ashley looked up to see a young woman standing in the doorway smiling at her. “can I come in?” she asked brushing her long ginger hair out of her face and behind her ear.

“You already are aren’t you?” Ashley replied looking back at her maps until she heard the scraping of a chair and knew that the women had sat down. “What do you want to talk to me about?” She asked putting the map down and looking up.

“Tommorow. I have some advice.” The woman paused for a second. “I’m Junia by the way.”

“Ashley.”

“I thought your name was Bonnie?” Junia asked sceptically.

“No.” Ashley said trying really hard to look confused. “My name’s Ashley, Ashley Mills. I don’t know anybody called Bonnie. You must have got me confused with somebody else.” Junia raised her eyebrow.

“what?” she looked really confused for a second about as confused as Ashley was trying to look before deeming the name changes irrelevant. “Anyway tips for tommorow, act normal and get lots of sleep tonight so you don’t look like death warmed up. Do what the Lights tell you to do and don’t join in if anybody starts to disagree. From the second you step into the room be prepared to run at any moment and don’t be nice. They’ll kill you on the spot so don’t expect any luxuries. They’ll search you with scanners and x-rays so don’t bring in anything suspicious because you’ll be blown immediately. That’s all the advice I can give really just pretend to be the same as everybody else.”