How much do you really know?

eighteen

    I spun around to face the door and saw a guard step through. Of course it was a guard. I rolled my eyes before he roughly grabbed me, pulling my hands behind my back. I screamed and struggled; this time I would not be taken without a fight. Was I getting in trouble for killing Bryce? It was only for self defense. Or were they just moving me? Maybe I would get lucky and they would kill me. Either way, I wasn't ready to leave Bryce just yet. Even though he had turned on me, he had meant a lot to me and I had to show my respects. The guard had to understand that.
    "I am not leaving with you!" I screamed as I tried to wiggle my wrists out of his iron grip. The guard seemed to have no trouble containing me and he didn't respond to my outburst. He was trained to deal with this stuff. It was just a normal occurrence in his work day.
    Even though I wouldn't stay still, he somehow got the handcuffs around my already handcuffed-chafed wrists.
    I dug my heels into the floor as he pulled me with him by my arm, but my shoes just slid along the smooth tile. Anger seethed in me because none of my methods of causing trouble for the guard were having any effect. He didn't even look annoyed.
    I gave up and just walked with the guard seeing as my efforts were only causing me to lose energy. I might as well make this easy for myself. Maybe I could find another opportunity.
    He dragged me down the long, banal corridors of whatever building we were in until finally we reached a door.
    He opened it and shoved me through, then shut the door behind me, leaving me in the room. I looked around and noticed that the room was huge and filled with people. Upon greater observation, I recognized some of the people and the corners of my mouth rose. I saw Carson, Aspen and ... Bryce?
    My heart skipped a beat as my brain spun in confusion. Not five minutes ago I had been staring at his dead body on the floor, the dead body that I had stabbed. This couldn't be right. What had happened?
    As if he sensed that I was looking at him, he spun his head around to meet my gaze. My mouth dropped open upon seeing his face. It was really him. Or was it?     His eyebrows scrunched together and his face seemed to ask 'what?' as if he didn't know why I was staring at him like that. Did he know?
    I heard the door open and turned to look at who was next to enter. Connor was shoved inside. He started to walk towards us when he suddenly stopped and stared, his mouth dropping open. I followed his gaze and saw that he was staring at Bryce, who was giving Connor the exact same look. I was near Connor and heard him mutter, "Well, look who's back from the dead." Connor knew that I had killed Bryce? The room spun.
    I glanced around at other people and they seemed to be making the exact same faces and glancing around at everyone. Every single person had a confused look on their face. What was going on?
    The guards standing along the perimeter of the room just stared at us with smirks.
    All of a sudden, two figures walked into the room from a door in the back.
    Andrew was one of them and I could practically feel the anger well up in the room. He was the man who shot one of our friends and was amused by it.
    The other figure confused me. She was always next to Andrew on all the posters.
    Emery. The leader of GORG.
    But why was she here? She had other important stuff to do. Why was she wasting her time on a bunch of kids?
    All the murmurs ceased when she began talking.
    "I know you all must be very confused at the moment, but I assure you, all is fine." I heard a couple scoffs at that statement, but she continued talking without hesitation. I absentmindedly picked at my fingernails. I didn't know what was going on and it made my heart pound and my hands shake. Emery gave off a very professional aura, her shoulders straight and her voice projecting. "You guys have recently been through much hardship, but at what cost? You have only ended up right back where you began. We have simulated something like what you guys have been through, but much worse." Simulated? I could barely keep myself standing upright anymore. What was she talking about?
    "Our soldier, Julia, reported back to us about who you guys are closest to, and we cloned them."
    My heart stopped. It seemed as if every word that came out of mouth was worse than the last. A couple people dropped to their knees.
    "We have only now discovered how to clone, and you guys helped us test our current cloning system, which was a success. We have not told the public yet, and we may very well not. Anyways, back to the point. We put them in your room and they tried to kill you. You had to kill them before they killed you. Now, some did not succeed in this task, and some did exceptionally well." She looked me straight in the eyes, and my heart pounded. I didn't want to think about that moment ever again. I didn't want to think about what they had put me through for no reason. Her eyes then flicked to the person standing beside me. Connor.
    Then I remembered something she said: 'Now, some did not succeed in this task.' Who didn't succeed? Were they killed by the clones? I looked at the people in our now tiny group. Bryce was there, as was Justin, Connor, Chase, who looked particularly bad, Carson, Daniel, and Aspen. My heart dropped as I realized that we had not lost only one person, but two. Blake and Kayden were nowhere to be seen. We went from eleven people at the beginning of our journey to eight, but we had gained Aspen, so we only had seven out of our original group. Maybe Emery was right. We should never have tried to escape. Four of us would still be alive. As I was looking around, I caught a glimpse of Aspen a few people down from me. At first, nothing looked out of place, but then I realized the look of pure concentration on her face. She wasn't paying attention to the speech Emery was giving; she was focusing on something else. Her eyes shifted to meet mine, as if she knew I was looking at her. She motioned to her hands with her eyes, and I could vaguely see her using something that looked like a bobby pin to unlock her handcuffs. She was working so slowly and carefully that I wouldn't even have noticed it if I was looking for it. As I watched her, the bobby pin gave a little bit and I knew she had picked the lock. Aspen wrapped her fingers around the metal to keep them on her wrists, to look as innocent as she could.
    Emery continued to talk. I looked back at her to make it look like I was listening. "We watched you through a camera in the ceiling. But it is all worth it, I assure you. We cannot let any more kids like you getting out. We cannot risk our country with rebellious teens. I'm sure you can understand."
    At first, I was overwhelmed. What should I do? What if the guards caught Aspen? Should someone be a distraction while Aspen undoes some other people's handcuffs?
    But, the freedom of a bunch of people could have rested in my hands and I needed to get a hold of myself.
    I went through different scenarios in my head and picked one that had the best chance of success.
    Aspen was still holding her handcuffs behind her back, probably going through the same thought process as me. We couldn't let anyone of the guards know what we were doing until it was too late. There were three guards standing behind us and a couple up by where Emery and Andrew were standing, five in total.
I slowly took steps toward Bryce who was on my left. He turned to me when he saw my movement, but I was already near him, whispering in his ear. I told him about what Aspen had done, then told him to laugh as if I said something funny. He did, then turned to me to whisper something in my ear. I followed suit and laughed. He joined me and soon enough, to my satisfaction, the three guards made their way over to us to see what was going on.
    Two of them made the mistake of walking within a foot of Aspen, and their guns were swiped from their belts. I was surprised that it went so smoothly. Who trained these guards? As all three guards had their attention on Bryce and I, not one noticed their missing weapons.
    As they came nearer, I willed my eyes not to glance at Aspen because I feared that the guards would notice and turn to look at her. This was a difficult task as I wanted to know what she was doing. Before the guards blocked my view of her, I caught her taking the handcuffs off of Connor, Carson, and Daniel and handing one of her guns to Connor.
    I suddenly remembered that Emery and Andrew were still here and had their own guards. My eyes went wide. Aspen had also forgotten about them in our momentary success. I opened my mouth to yell at Aspen when I saw the guards that still had their guns point them at Aspen and Connor. However, Aspen's gun was already pointed at Emery's head.
    "Kids, calm down! Can't you see that we're not the bad guys here?" Emery didn't look scared at all. Maybe a little desperate, but there was no fear in her eyes. I looked around at everyone. There wasn't a single person who's eyes weren't filled with anger.
    "No! You can not keep us locked up in here!" Aspen shouted back, face red. "I don't even live in America and you've taken me to your little base! They are just kids!"
    Now, Emery was starting to act like she should have been acting. "I am only doing what is right for this country! These kids are a threat!"
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bryce's hands ball into fists, Connor's knuckles turn white from gripping his gun, and Justin tensed up. I, on the other hand, could barely focus on what was happening because of the pounding in my head. I didn't know what to focus on even if I could have focused on something.
    "You hadn't even met these kids before five minutes ago! You don't know who they are or what happened to them in their pasts!"
    "You want to know what I do know?" Emery shot back at Aspen. "I do know that my trusted associates believe them to be a threat! We gave them a perfectly good life, just where they are no longer a danger to society, and they had the audacity to escape! What is there to complain about? And you shouldn't be complaining either, young women,cause you are an accomplice to them. And don't forget, you broke US law by escaping form the base all those years ago. When you were in Canada, you were protected. But now that you're back here, we decide what to do with you."
    I swear I heard everyone in our tiny group scoff, including me.
    "This is ridiculous!" Andrew cut in. "We have a perfectly functioning society right here and you guys are complaining! How could it get any better? What would you change?"
    "What would I change, huh? What the fuck would I change, Andrew?" Carson brok in.
    Andrew acted as if he hadn't even heard the statement. "Now I'm going to have to ask you to drop your weapon now or we will shoot!"
    No one moved a muscle.
    Then Emery said something I didn't expect. "Andrew, maybe we should let the girl talk."
    But Andrew did not like that. "No! She's said enough. Drop the weapon NOW!"
    But there was one thing we knew that they didn't. Not only did Connor and Aspen not have handcuffs anymore, but neither did Daniel and Carson, and Carson was one of the most dangerous of us all. Bryce, Chase, Justin, and I still had the metal links around our wrists.
    Andrew was over the nonsense and squeezed the trigger of his gun that was pointed at Aspen's head. Emery's face turned angry at Andrew disobeying her. I could tell she didn't want any of us to die, she just wanted to teach us a lesson.
    I turned my head quickly to Aspen, not wanting to see her die but instinctively turning to look.
But Aspen was faster and more agile than we all thought. Even before Andrew's finger had pulled the trigger, Aspen had jumped down to the floor to avoid the bullet. It was like she had trained for this moment all her life. She probably had. She had thought ahead of Andrew; she had faster instincts than anyone else in that room.
    However, the moment the bullet left the chamber of Andrew's gun, chaos broke out. The guards who didn't have guns pulled out their blades. Bryce looked at me and screamed "Down, now!" I practically belly flopped onto the ground as did Justin and Chase. We were still handcuffed and did not want to be in the line of fire. We crawled around using our elbows and knees, trying to find something to get our handcuffs off as fast as we could, trying to be fast enough to escape the attention of the guards. Someone almost stepped on my head. Finally, after a couple of seconds that felt like a couple of minutes, Bryce crawled faster towards something. He had found Aspen's bobby pin that she had used to unlock her handcuffs.
    "Fuck yeah," Bryce whispered.
    However, he didn't find it fast enough to escape under the guards noses. Just as Bryce unlocked his handcuffs, a guard was on top of him. Bryce threw me the bobby pin then lifted up his legs to kick the guard back and stand up.
    I just barely caught the bobby pin, but realized I had never picked a lock in my life. I had no idea what to do, so I awkwardly passed it to Justin, who was lying on the floor next to me.
    He undid his, then rolled over and undid mine and Chase's. It was the nicest thing I had ever seen him do. He was a wiz at it, and had the cold metal off all three of our wrists in seconds. I wondered how he knew how, but decided I didn't want to know.
    But before any of us could stand up, another guard was ready to tackle us. Chase did the same trick that Bryce used, bringing up his legs to push the guard back then using his momentum to bring him to his feet. Justin jumped up. I was less graceful, almost falling over as my knees straightened, but finally, all of our group was out of handcuffs and ready to fight.
    Now, the whole bunch of guards were visibly angry, fists trembling and faces red. They had no idea we would try something like this. Though, what did they expect? They brought us all into a room together.
    Carson shook his head as if he was bored and couldn't believe he had to fight once again. He jumped up and punched a guard square in the jaw. That guard's neck jerked back, but he recovered quickly and threw a punch at Carson, who dodged it.
    I had blanked out watching Carson fight. The sudden outburst of fighting had overwhelmed me. The next thing I knew, I felt something large hit me from the side and knock me to the ground. However, before I could hit the ground, whoever had knocked me to the ground had wrapped their arms around me and rolled me so that they took the impact of the fall. As this was happening, I heard a gunshot from my left side.
    I heard a voice in my ear. "Eliana, are you ok?" It was Bryce's voice.
    "Yeah, I'm fine." I embraced this split second of calm as Bryce's arms were wrapped around me. I could still barely look at him without seeing his dead body with my knife sticking out of it.
    Bryce pushed me up to my feet and stood up. "Stay to the side and focus. Please don't blank out like that again. I need you here."
    My face went hot. I had no words for what he had just said. I only nodded. He sighed in relief and went back into the chaos. I saw that one guard had been taken out, one out of many. He had been stabbed in the chest and I didn't think about which of my friends had been the one to thrust the knife in between his ribs.
    The sound around me was overwhelming. The sound of gunshots echoed through my brain. People were moving so fast that I couldn't keep track of where everyone was. I just saw a mob of people. I caught a glimpse of my friends trying to grab the guard's guns. Smart.
    As I was trying to process what was going on in front of me, I forgot to process that I was sticking out like a sore thumb. The perfect target.
    The next thing I knew, another gunshot sound burst through the air, which I didn't think much of until I saw a shape jump in front of me. A shape with curly black hair. He fell to the ground. A scream unwillingly came out of my throat and I dropped to my knees. No, not Connor. We couldn't lose someone else. My brain was overloaded. I couldn't think of anything. I couldn't focus on anything.
    He suddenly sat up and I gave a huge sigh of relief. My eyesight cleared a bit.
    "Connor, are you okay?"
    "What the fuck were you doing?" His eyes were fiery and I felt a lump form in my throat. I didn't mean to make him mad. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I wished I could just focus and be a help instead of a burden. "We're in the middle of a fight, for God's sake. And yes, I'm quite fine, thanks for being so worried about me." He said that last part with a smirk which was a huge reassurance that he was indeed fine. I don't know why I felt reassured because a bullet had just entered his flesh. Your mind isn't exactly in the right state when overcome with the chaos of a fight and anxiety.
    "Now get your ass moving and help us out a little, will ya? Also I tripped in front of you while trying to run over to that guard." He pointed to a guard in front of him. "I didn't jump to save you, cause who would wanna do that, huh? Just didn't want you getting any ideas." His signature eyebrow raise. Did a bullet even hit him? He sure wasn't acting like it.
    I knew he was lying, but what was new?
    As another guard came flying up, he pushed himself up off the ground with one hand, the other clutching his stomach. I didn't even process the red seeping through his fingers because I was focused on the guard approaching us. I had no weapon, but Connor had a gun, and he lifted it up with his one hand, aimed, and shot the guard square in the forehead. I gasped, amazed and horrified that he had such good aim, but also shocked that we were actually killing people in this fight. We were the cause of some people having no more experiences in their lives. It was only fair since GORG had killed so many of us, but we were only teenagers. We would have this blood on our hands for the rest of our lives.
    I looked over at him in shock, but he just gave me a wink and ran into the chaos, bloody hand still clutching his stomach.
    I was left alone with no weapons but my bare hands. Those would have to do. I decided not to dive into the main area of the fight, but I would take on any guards who were along the outskirts. At least, try to take on the guards. I had never actually punched something with the purpose of knocking it out. Except Bryce, or the clone of Bryce. I pushed that out of my mind.
    My heart raced as a guard stumbled out of the fight and towards me. He looked weak, so at least I wouldn't be fighting someone at full power. He didn't have a gun or a knife anymore, so it was a level playing field.
    His eyes met mine and he started to run towards me, except it didn't look so much like a run because he was favoring one leg. His left leg had a massive stab wound in the thigh, blood dripping down his leg and leaving footprints on the ground behind him. His eyes were filled with fury, clashing with his pale face.
My heart started racing as he got closer and closer to me, beginning to raise his fists. I followed suit, not really knowing how I was going to fight because I had never fought before.
    When he was a foot away and my heart was racing so hard I thought it was going to burst out of my chest, my survival instincts kicked in. I was not going to let this guard kill me. I dodged his first punch, which was slow and flimsy from how weak he was, and swung my right hand into the side of his head. I instantly jumped back, cradling my hand because, frankly, it really hurt. I had felt my knuckles connect with his skull and it hadn't felt good. But when I looked at the guard, he was no longer standing but laying on the ground, unconscious. My heart skipped a beat. I was amazed and terrified at the same time. Who knew I could knock someone out? It didn't matter if he was already half out of it because of the pain in his leg; I had taken out this guard and that was one less guard to injure one of my friends.
    My hand throbbed and I could already feel it beginning to bruise, but I continued to scan, making sure no guards would sneak up on someone. However, all my friends had pretty much done their job. I could only see one more guard in all the jumble and he was down pretty quick as Justin and Carson both jumped onto his back. Then it was just us and Emery and Andrew.
    Every gun in the room was pointed at Emery and Andrew. They slowly raised their hands. What had they done this whole fight? Just stood and observed?
    "You guys have no hope," Carson shrugged. "We don't want to kill you, but we will if we have too. I can't believe you let a couple of kids defeat your guards and get to the leaders of GORG. If you let us go, we won't kill you. Just let us leave this place."
    As Carson spoke, I looked around at those of us who were left, just as I had when I came to this room after "killing" Bryce. To my surprise, everyone was still standing, except Daniel was cradling a bullet wounded shoulder and it seemed as if Justin had a stab wound in his right thigh. Everyone had minor injuries such as black eyes or bleeding knuckles.
    Emery and Andrew were silent, their jaws dropped and their eyes full of shock. They didn't make a move to stop us. It was two against seven. They wouldn't dare go against those odds. I guess they had just watched with the assumption that their guards were better trained than us.
    Carson motioned with a small hand signal that we should start moving out. Bryce left first, holding his gun in front of him in case any other guards were to come around the corner. He tapped my arm and motioned for me to follow him. Next was Connor, then Chase, Justin, Aspen, Daniel, then finally Carson, holding Andrew and Emery at gunpoint as long as he possibly could.
    The second Carson stepped through the door and was out of sight of Emery and Andrew, he screamed at us all to run. As he did so, we could hear Andrew's voice radiating anger. "Stupid kids! We won't stop until we find you! We won't let you ruin our hard work to make this country great!"
    It was then that we all realized we had made a mistake by leaving them alive.
    We just ran.