"Alright, ye lil' no-goodies," a guy said. He was young, but much older than me. In adulthood. Eighteen, nineteen. Maybe twenty.

"What're we even doing here?" Zenon said through clenched teeth.

"Ye look pretty lean, strong. Can you fight, boy?" The man prodded his side with his foot.

"Why does it matter to you?"

"If we're gonna fight against the others, then you're gonna help us. And you, girlie, ye can fight too. I saw ye."

"Shut up," I said. But I wasn't really thinking it. I was pondering a more serious topic. These people were gathering others to fight for them, but against who? They said others. Were there others in my city, fighting against one another for things? Like food, maybe? Territory?

"They can probably fight," another man said. He sounded much more mentally intact than the others, like he hadn't gone crazy from having a damaged mind yet. "Listen, girlie. I saw you fire that gun and hit one of our troop members. On a whim, that was extremely good. Good enough to keep us alive." He stepped into my line of sight. Not as young as the other guy with the strange-sounding voice, the one who said something that sounded like 'ye' instead of 'you'. Definitely older. Colton's age, probably. Brown hair.

"We aren't going to hurt you unless we need to," he said.

"Unless you need to?" Zenon said annoyedly. "So you're just gonna beat us up until we do what you want?"

"Listen, boy. Ye need to shut your mouth and listen to Mr. Haleport for once," the younger man said. He gave Zenon a sharp jab to his back.

"Talon, keep your feet to yourself unless he's doing something wrong." Mr. Haleport gave him the same kind of look you'd give a five-year-old if they were misbehaving.

"Sorry, sir."

"Back to what I was saying," Haleport said. "We will not inflict pain to either of you if you help us out."

"There's no way we're helping you!"

"Permission to... inflict pain, sir?" Talon said. Haleport nodded, and Talon gave Zenon another kick.

"Stop it!" I yelled. "Please! Stop!"

"Hey, girlie, shut your mouth," Talon said. "Ye want a beating too?"

"Alright, Talon, that's enough."

"Yes, sir."

"Is this guy the only pain you're inflicting?" I asked.

"Well," Haleport said, "we have other means of doing so. For example, we have some knives. Talon, fetch the knives."

"Here you go, sir." In Talon's hands, he held about half a dozen of the blades, and he handed one to Haleport.

"You can't expect us to do things for you just by threatening us," Zenon said.

"Yeah?" Haleport smirked and walked over to Zenon, then bent down in front of him. "You wanna rephrase that sentence?"

"How about: There's no way we're gonna do your dirty work."

"Mistake, boy." He snatched Zenon's hand and pressed the knife into his forearm before he could react. When Zenon cried out in pain, I jerked my body forward.

"Stop!"

"Back up, girlie. You want the knife, too?" Haleport took a step toward me and I winced.

"No, no... just..."

"Girlie, you're gonna be in big trouble if ye mess with Mr. Haleport," said Talon.

"You've got that right," Haleport said. "Now, look at the sky. It's dark now. Talon, why don't you and the others tie them up-ah! City Central... let's go."

☣ ☣ ☣

My heart skipped a beat when I saw the execution setup come into view. I could see that the bodies still hadn't been cleaned up-they lay everywhere.

A shudder ran down my shoulders.

"Perfect," Haleport said. "Tie 'em up there. Have this." He indicated the setup then threw Talon a key, and in a few minutes Zenon and I were linked by the wrist to the big concrete block with handcuff-like clamps. Just what Zenon had been chained up to during his execution, except since there were two of us, we had one hand free.

"You'd better get some sleep now," said Haleport.

"Ye need to be nice and rested if you're gonna help us," Talon said.

"What. If. We. Don't. Wanna." Zenon paused between words to take a deep breath. He caressed his bleeding arm and stared at it, then shot a look back at Haleport, who flipped the knife in his hand, tossing it and catching it again.

"You'll find out." Then he turned around and raised his voice, speaking to the rest of our captors. "We'll all get some rest. The kiddies don't need a watch-trust me."

He was most likely right. When I tugged at the arm that was chained up to the execution setup, it barely budged. And it wasn't even tied so I could undo it, it was clipped into the handcuffs. Smart, but annoying.

"You sure, Mr. Haleport?" someone said.

"Yes."

"Yes, sir." There was a bit of uncertainty in their voice. I wished I could be that uncertain about being tied up all night.

☣ ☣ ☣

Executive Heuglin was supposedly in that building. The Training Centre.

I stared at it from where I was, staring in longing at where I could possibly escape to. I wondered constantly about where Shane, Erin, Terri, Adelyn, Skai, Orion... well, I wondered where everyone was. I wondered what Orion thought when I told them to go. To come back? To just leave and escape danger...? I hoped for the first option.

"Longing for safety?" I jumped at the sound of Zenon's voice in spite of the softness of it. I turned my head around. He didn't look very tired. The moon was peeking out from behind the clouds tonight and the bright blue in Zenon's eyes reflected it. Our captors had actually disappeared from City Central. I heard them mentioning camping out in a building, but slipped into a nightmarish sleep before further discussion. I woke up shortly after, and everyone was gone except Zenon and I.

"I don't know," I said, my voice trailing off. "I miss those simple days when I had nothing to worry about but grades."

"Yeah. Even sometimes that went worry-free."

"I wish I knew."

"Knew what?" Zenon asked.

"That I'd end up like this eventually. I never, ever knew that my life would go haywire. I expected to get a... a more normal job. Maybe Teacher. When you're a Teacher, they don't train you to fire a gun and hunt people down...."

"Ha. Even Train Worker was a little stressful. Especially when I was being chased for killing a bunch of people. I suppose I kind of did deserve it-"

"Don't say that. Ever."

"Hm?"

"You didn't deserve to die. You don't. Never." I hadn't expected my voice to be so fierce, and even I was surprised by how it sounded. I rarely ever spoke in such a forceful manner.

"No, I guess not." The corner of Zenon's mouth curved upward slightly and he looked at the dark ground, which in a matter of seconds disappeared from sight. I looked up at the sky, only to find that the moon was gone. Thick clouds covered it up like it never existed.

"Woah there," Zenon said. "We might be expecting some-" Drop "-rain. Ow." He twitched his arm, unable to brush off the drop with his tied-up hand. "I swear, if it starts pouring I'm going to kill the old man who did this to us."

Drop.

Drop drop.

I flinched when the rain hit me. It wasn't too contaminated, just burned a little. But enough to make me want to run. It was definitely a lot worse when I was with Len. I still had a couple scars from the droplets.

"Crap," Zenon muttered when a few more raindrops burned his exposed skin. His cut, I realized, was uncovered, despite the jacket he was wearing. It had been rolled up by Haleport so he could have access to it with his knife.

"Here," I said. I reached my own free arm out and adjusted his jacket. I realized I had been stupid enough to leave mine back all the way in the Asylum in the apartment. I supposed it was never even cold enough to wear it anyway, and how was I supposed to know it would rain whilst we were chained up to a pole in the middle of City Central?

All things considered, I couldn't necessarily blame myself for it. Screw you, Mother Nature, I thought. And all those people who lived before the Warming, or the bombing, or whatever.

"Thanks," said Zenon. He laughed a bit and reached his arm around me, wincing when yet another few drops pelted down on his head. "At least it's just spitting."

"Yeah." And I couldn't help it. His face was just there, staring off into nothingness, so I touched it with my free hand and kissed him, and he didn't do anything about it except hold me tighter.

"I'm sorry for all of this," I said finally, leaning into his shoulder.

"Don't be."

And I slipped back into sleep, peaceful at first until the nightmares came.

I noticed a noise. A shrill beeping sound. Where was it coming from?

Zenon and Len were also up. Len looked well-rested, while Zenon had a tired look on his face. He must've stayed up all night.

"April?" he said. I stretched out my limbs-all except my injured arm-and sat up. When I tried to locate the source of the beeping noise, I realized something horrific.

"Hm?" I said. I looked down at my wrist. My COM watch. Someone was calling me. I wanted to turn it off, but I couldn't without pulling up my sleeve tapping a button.

I forgot to turn it off when I was carrying Len back to Zenon.

Now they would know I betrayed them.

"What's the noise coming from?" Len asked, brushing her dark hair back with her hand.

My mind raced for possible lies to tell, but I couldn't cover up. Not this time.

"I... don't..." I started.

"April. Your wrist," Zenon said. He reached a hand out to my wrist, but I jerked it back.

The beeping got increasingly louder...

And louder...

"I don't trust you anymore," Zenon said. Tears filled his eyes, then from behind him, Colton appeared.

Louder.

"Time's up," he said with a laugh, then pulled out a gun.

Louder. I covered my ears.

Colton pulled the trigger. I screamed. Blood... no. No. No. No. No...

"April!"

I jolted out of my sleep, sweating and struggling for air. "Yeah... yeah?" I said, as if nothing had happened.

"You were talking...," Zenon said. He wasn't telling me something.

"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. Did I wake you up?" I looked at the sky, eager to change the subject. The sun was up now. Pinks and blues and greys danced across the sky in an almost beautiful pattern.

"You were talking about something in particular, though. That morning. When...."

"When you figured out I was a traitor?"

"I can't believe I ever did that. I was kind of a bad friend." Zenon smiled a bit, which caused me to as well. I noticed suddenly that his arm was still draped over my neck, but I didn't move. Not one bit.

"You're okay, though, right?" he asked me.

"I'm fine. Nightmares."

"Me too. Sometimes I never even fall asleep."

"Last night?"

"Nah, not really. I dozed off for an hour or too, maybe, but I kinda just stayed up for the rest." Zenon looked a little red in the face. "It sounds kinda childish, I know."

"No," I said. "It's reasonable. After witnessing what happened over the past... years."

There was a still silence for a moment before I heard clattering and yelling. It was coming from one of the buildings around City Central, but was too muffled to make out any words. If I wasn't mistaken, it was the noise of Haleport and his tribe. Perhaps they'd come to unlock us.

"Get up!" I heard Haleport yell. That was all I could make out.

"They're coming, aren't they?" Zenon said. He jerked his immobilized arm instinctively, but failed to do so and he ended up half-dangling from it.

"They're not going to kill us," I said. "Not for the life of them."

"Look what they did to my arm!" He held out the laceration on his skin, which wasn't nearly healed yet, but the blood had thankfully dried up and wasn't coming out anymore.

A door burst open and my mouth dropped open. Our captors had hidden in the Training Centre.

So what had happened to Heuglin?

"You ready to fight?" Haleport yelled to us.

"Oh, heck no," Zenon muttered. "Where're your friends and why are we still here?"

"They'll come," I said as our captors approached us.

"Hey, ye lil' no-goodies," Talon said. "You'd never guess what went on in there." He pointed to the Training Centre.

That's when I noticed the fresh blood smeared on his hands.