How much do you really know?

seventeen

    We sat in the back of the van in silence, fearing any noise could cause another death. I was put in a van with Justin, Daniel, Aspen, Carson, and Kayden. Daniel had finished crying and was now staring at the wall, his face full of pure sadness. I was feeling the need to see Bryce and Connor, or at least have their presence.

    I had no idea how long we had been sitting on the cold metal floor when we finally arrived at our destination. I had the feeling that our whole journey had just been unraveled in the amount of time we had been sitting in this van. Every second we sat was another moment I thought about how much we had lost. We lost so much just to be brought back to the base.
    We sat for a little bit longer until the back of the van was opened and light streamed into the space. I was momentarily blinded, and I squinted my eyes to try and see what was going on.
    When my eyes finally got used to the sudden light, I could see the guards through the open door of the van. They were beginning to walk into the van and pull us out one by one. Behind them, I could see that we were in a large garage-like room, probably where they parked the vans and to make sure that we didn't make a run for it.
    They grabbed Daniel first and he made no fuss. He just allowed himself pushed into the large room.
    Two more guards stepped up into the van and grabbed Kayden and Carson. They both made a tiny struggle, but nothing to cause any commotion. They glared at the guards with extreme anger. It made me sad that Kayden didn't make some cheesy remark. I knew they were both terrified of what Andrew would do to them if they did anything to truly get them in trouble. I willed myself not to think of Ashton.
    Or we were all just drained of hope. I wasn't even an adult yet and had seen two people killed.
    I was the next to be pulled out. The guard was rough, pulling me up by my hair and yanking my arms behind me. I stiffened as he grabbed my handcuffs and used them to pull me out of the van. My wrists were chafed red and the extra friction was not helping.
    He pulled me next to him and followed the other guards who were pulling people. No one spoke or made eye contact. Everyone's hearts were heavy. We had spent all this time escaping and surviving on our own, but we failed. They would probably kill us all, or worse.
    We approached a door and the guard pushed it open with his palm, shoving me through with his other hand. The door opened into a bright white hallway that reminded me of a hospital or a laboratory. It smelt like cleaning supplies.
    After a couple of feet, we turned down a different hallway, splitting off from all my friends, and he shoved me into an empty room, shutting the door behind me. The room was as white as the hallway outside. I heard a lock click and felt the sudden urge to scream, but didn't want to be heard by anyone outside. I wouldn't show any weakness. As I suppressed my scream, it turned into a pressure on top of my lungs as my breathing shallowed and I looked around at the bare white walls.
    My vision tunneled as it had many times on this crazy adventure. My heart raced and my head spun. I walked to one of the walls and sat down, leaning my head against the wall and closing my eyes. I focused on slowing my breathing and finally I could open my eyes without almost throwing up.
    I was defeated. All the fight was taken out of me. There was nothing we could do now. I was separated from all my friends. I could be stuck in this white room forever for all I knew, never seeing the sky or feeling the sun on my skin ever again.
    As these thoughts consumed me, I didn't think about the good memories with my new friends because I knew I would never be able to make any new memories with them.

    I don't know how long I sat in that room. There was no way of telling the time. At one point, as I was contemplating the fact that I had to use the bathroom, a slot in the door opened, and a pot was shoved through it. The sound of metal clattering on concrete rang through my ears, instantly causing a headache after having been sitting in utter silence for so long. I sighed. I would never get used to peeing into a pot.
    Over the course of however long, I sat against the wall and didn't move for hours. I stretched, I slept, I tried to see how many pushups I could do in one go. I never exceeded five. I had thought for sure I could do at least seven.
    I never knew if it was day or night, or even if it had been a day at all, and I didn't stick to a sleep schedule. I would just take a nap here and there because I was bored.
    After a while, it started taking a toll on me. I would spend hours staring at the wall, feeling nothing or feeling everything at once. One second, anger and fear and sadness would come flowing over me and the next, they would be washed out at sea and I would be left feeling empty, like there was a black hole in my chest.
After many rounds of this, I jumped at a sound that penetrated the air. It felt like a bomb going off after having been sitting in silence for so long.
    It had come from the door. It took me a couple seconds to realize that it was a knock. Somebody was at the door.
    I had no idea how to react. Who was it? Did I want them to come in? Were they going to punish me? Were they going to kill me?
    Deep down, I wished they would kill me. I'd rather be dead than be stuck in this white room for eternity.
    I didn't have time to decide what to do before I saw the door slowly begin to open. A head popped into the room. A head with blonde hair. A face with hazel eyes. A face with a crooked nose.
    "Bryce," I whispered. Could it really be him? Why was he here?
    He stepped all the way through the doorway and shut the door behind him.
    "Eliana."
    Emotions rushed through me all at once. Happiness, relief. Emotions I hadn't felt the whole time I had been sitting in this hell of a room. I jumped up onto my feet and hugged him without thinking. He wrapped his arms around my waist and lifted me up, squeezing the air out of me.
    "What are you doing here?" I gasped as he set me back down on solid ground.
    My answer to that question was the sound of metal hitting the ground. I flicked my eyes to the floor and saw a knife clatter and rest next to my foot. I looked back up at Bryce in confusion. His face was blank. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his hand move to his waist. I backed up a step, hesitant. I couldn't make sense of what was happening. His expression didn't change as he pulled another knife out of his waistband.
    "Bryce, what are you doing?" I had no idea what to think. Fear was overtaking the feeling of happiness that had filled my body when Bryce first opened the door. Bryce would never do this! As he took a step forward, I lunged to the ground and grabbed the knife next to my foot, standing back up as fast as I could. I didn't plan to use the knife, but I didn't want to be without it. My instincts told me to defend myself. Surely there was some mistake, something I wasn't understanding. He held the knife out in front of him, pointing the tip at my heart. I held mine at my side, muscles tensed.
    "All you've done is held us back. We probably wouldn't have been caught if you weren't with us."
    I could hardly believe those words had come out of his mouth. It felt as if he had stabbed me in the heart already, using those words as his weapon.
    "Bryce, what are you talking..." Before I could finish that sentence, he lunged at me. At the last moment, I moved out of the way, but he caught his balance, swinging back towards me.
    "Stop it! What is wrong with you?" He didn't answer my question. He lunged at me again, but this time I was too slow, and he grabbed my arms, slamming me against the wall. He hadn't used his knife against me yet, but the cold metal of the hilt against my wrist was making my heart pound. I brought my knee up between his legs and he let go of me, leaning over in pain. I ran to the other side of the room, catching my breath.
    He hadn't shown any emotions since he entered the room. Did he mean what he was saying? I couldn't tell. It was messing with my brain. Usually I was good at reading people, but I could get nothing out of Bryce.
    He stood back up and glared at me. The look in his eyes was pure bloodlust. There was the emotion I needed. There was no bringing him back.
    My heart fell into my stomach as I realized I was going to have to kill him. Yet another person to leave my life. Another person to betray me.
    I didn't want to do this.
    But I was used to losing people.
    "Please, Bryce. Don't make me do this." A final plea.
    Again, he did not speak. The only thing he had said this whole time was my name. Now, he only wore a glare so cold it could snap through rock.
He slowly lumbered towards me and threw a punch. It was too slow and I pulled my head to the side to dodge it. That's weird, I thought. Bryce is one of the best fighters I know. I had never seen him move this slowly or miss a punch. He didn't miss a beat though, and threw another punch, colliding his fist with the side of my jaw. A spark of pain lit up like a firework throughout my whole face. I balled the hand that wasn't holding the knife into an fist, hoping I could knock him out with a punch.
    I swung and hit him square in the nose, but he barely even flinched. Of course I wouldn't be able to knock him out. I could barely do five push ups. He could probably do a hundred without breaking a sweat and, not to mention, he was about eighty pounds heavier than me, and that was mostly muscle.
    That was the exact moment when any doubt I had about what I was going to do left my body.
    He launched himself at me once again. I released all my breath and closed my eyes as I pushed the tip of my knife into Bryce's chest. Bryce immediately stilled and collapsed onto the floor. Seemed like I had hit the perfect spot. I released the hilt of the knife from my grip as Bryce neared the ground. My hands fell to my side precisely as my knees hit the concrete next to the body.
    In that moment, I regretted every single decision I had ever made, including this one. It seemed as if every bad thing I had done in my entire life lept from my memories all at once. I should have tried harder to be a better student and person. I should have been a better daughter. I should have been a better friend. I shouldn't have tried to escape the base in the first place. I should have protected Gavin. I should have, I should have, I should have.
    Every time I thought of something I regretted, a new tear flowed down my cheek. It was as if the knife that split open Bryce's chest split open my past and sent it flooding over me, drowning me like Bryce's lungs had drowned in his own blood.
    Then, it was as if a dam was built up in a nanosecond. This was my life. All this had happened and there was nothing I could do about it. I had to learn to live with my past, even if I regretted it.
    I forced my eyes open, knowing I had to at some point. I was almost swept out at tide with the body lying on the floor in front of me, but I swam as hard as I could and made it out. I squeezed his cold, limp hand as a final goodbye and willed my eyes to stray from the blood oozing from his chest.
    Without looking at him for another second, I stood up and turned away, taking a deep breath. I wiped the tears from my cheeks and wondered if I would be stuck in this cell with his body, watching my best friend rot before my eyes.
    The door opened.