By the time I am awake, have had breakfast and I am ready the next morning, the training room is already full and everyone is already training. Glore tells me he put Elyria on shooting practice, so I head to the shooting range. When I get there though, she isn't the only person in the room.

Tyran is there too.

Neither turn when I walk in, so I am unsure of whether they heard me. Elyria is holding one of the small training guns, and Tyran is showing her how to shoot it. I watch as he helps her load the ammo, and then adjusts her aim. His movements are slow, and steady, and his voice is calm as he talks her through it.

I watch them until Elyria shoots, and then clear my throat. They turn. Elyria smiles, but Tyran just glares at me.

"Hey Mae." Elyria greets. Tyran is silent. Our eyes meet and I find myself giving him a cold, hard glare. Instead of shrivelling away from me like I'm used to, he just glares back. I keep waiting for him to look away but he doesn't, and we end up standing there staring at each other so long it's almost a contest. The only thing that makes us look away is Elyria, who, unaware to the hatred between us, starts talking to me like nothing is going on.

"Mae, Glore talked to me this morning. He was asking about how I was doing, and made me show him some of what I could do. He said I was falling behind a bit, so he was going to give me another trainer as well as you. You know.. To help me." She says and I look at her. She is hesitant, a little nervous, probably worried I am going to get mad at her for what she's telling me. But it's okay. I understand what's going on. I haven't been a very good trainer lately and Glore clearly knows that. To be honest, I've been feeling so out of it, I could use the help.

"So this is Tyran." She says and gestures to him.

It takes me a moment to realise what she is implying. It takes Tyran less than a moment to smirk at me like an asshole. Elyria makes a little smile, her fingers nervously running over the training gun she holds. She's waiting for me to say its okay, or to at least nod, but I do neither. Instead, I stare at Tyran's face. It is full of wit, confidence and hate. But for a moment I see something else. Something not as unattractive. It's almost like sadness.

But the more I try to figure out what it is, the less I can even see it. Then he turns to Elyria and I lose it entirely. "Elyria here is already pretty good with a gun. Must run in the family."

I am so annoyed at the fact I have to teach with Tyran that I don't even wonder about how he knows she is related to Calix. Elyria once told me that she almost never told anyone about her rare relationship with the dead green eyed boy. Not even the people she's trusted her whole life. It generally gets both of them into tough situations.

But Tyran's comment just runs over my head, and I frown. "Alright then. I haven't seen you shoot a gun Elyria. Show me."

Still clearly nervous, she loads the gun, turns and lifts it up to take aim. She is relaxed holding it, not tense like a lot of students I've had were. She takes a moment before she shoots, clearly more worried about aim than speed. I see the bullet hit close to the centre of the target and nod. She turns to me.

"Accurate. But you're too slow. The few seconds you took to steady your hand would earn you your death if a criminal had a gun. You need to learn to aim faster and shoot a couple of shots so you're more efficient." I say. "Other than that you're fine. I'll look at your shots" Elyria nods, and I slowly see her nervousness ebb away. She turns back to the target and starts doing as I say. I gesture for Tyran to follow me to the the viewing room.

Once we are both inside, I close the door and turn to study Tyran.

"What the hell do you think you're doing here?" I ask, hatred seeping through my words. How could I hate a boy so much that I barely even knew? I suppose the same way I loved Calix so much and he was pretty much a stranger.

Tyran shrugs and looks through the tinted glass at Elyria. "I'm training her." He looks back at me with a grin so devilish it makes me question his sanity. "The question is, what are you doing here?"

His grey eyes are dull, but in them I see the confidence and sass in his voice. "I am doing exactly what you are, apparently." I reply.
"Apparently." He is still grinning as he looks back at Elyria. there is a minute or two of silence, before his smirk finally gets to me.

"Reese really likes you." I say. It is completely irrelevant and I don't know why I say it, but the topic has been on my mind ever since last night. It is obviously a rough topic for him because Tyran's his jaw hardens and his smirk is gone almost instantly. He doesn't say a word, so after a minute, I keep talking.

"You probably don't care, but she really does." I say, thinking of the look in her eyes as she talked about him last night. The hurt when I insulted him. It was true. She really does like him.

Tyran nods. "Alright."

I am about to blow up at him for saying something so meagre and rude but he gestures to Elyria. "She's fairly strong for her age, but she has almost no technique. I watched her train this morning. She wouldn't even beat Calix in a fight, and you know how easy that was."

Maybe it's the choice of his words or maybe it's the way he says it so casually, but I stiffen as he says that. I look over only to see that he is watching me, looking a little annoyed. I look away quickly and force the lump out of my throat.

"Look F, will you stop with the whole 'the only love I've ever had is dead so therefore I am forever dead' business? It's getting really fricking annoying. I mean, I get that you should be a little sad and stuff, but you are so overplaying it. You didn't have him for 15 years of your life, you can live without him for the rest of it." He says. I look back at him and our eyes meet. I know I should be feeling mad at him, but instead I am a little surprised by his courage. I wasn't expecting him to say something like that. So truthful.

I guess thats what it is. The truth. I need to stop acting mopey about a boy I barely knew. Calix is dead and gone, and Tyran is the first person to tell me I don't need him. But he's right. I don't. I need to move on.

Tyran coughs and looks away, back at Elyria who has lowered her gun and looked back at the tinted glass expectantly. "Come on F. Let's go train."

I nod, and for the first time in weeks, actually do that.

~~~

By the end of the day, I've discovered that Tyran isn't a bad trainer. Glore has been showing him the ropes of it for the past few weeks, and he knows things about Elyria after the first five minutes training her. She's left handed, but her right hand is strangely stronger. I show Tyran things that he doesn't notice and slowly my head clears and I get back into teaching.

Our short moment of connection in the viewing room turns out to be worth nothing as for the rest of the day, Tyran and I hate each other as much as any other moment. We tolerate each other though, for Elyria's sake, although not without many glares and hateful comments. Tyran doesn't bring up Calix again though. I'm not sure whether he is doing it for my sake of because he doesn't feel like talking about the dead green-eyed boy, but either way I'm grateful.

We train over time until Elyria is too tired to make a good punch. Then we split ways, Tyran downstairs, most likely to the common area and Elyria and I upstairs, to the girls dorms. I expect Elyria to go to her room but when I open the door to my room, she stops. I am going to close the door but then she asks me, "Mae, do you have any jobs scheduled for tonight?"

I stop and shake my head. I have no evening job tonight but I have a morning shift on patrol tomorrow. "Why?" I ask. "Do you want to train for longer?"

She shakes her head. "Gosh, no. I just wanted to talk to you."

I nod then gesture for her to come in. She does so and then awkwardly stands around, not knowing where to sit. I close the door and sit on my bed. "What is it you wanted to talk about?" I ask and pat the sheets beside me. She sits down and shrugs.

"I don't know. Anything. Everything. See, I don't really have any friends here. Being only 11 is the biggest issue, but as well as that there's the fact that I'm really not very friendly." She says and sighs.

I nod. "I know how that feels."

She smiles. "Yeah. So anyway, I don't have a roommate yet because I was assigned a vacant room so it's really lonely and I kind of just want someone to talk to."

"Okay. I kind of want someone to talk to as well." I say, which is the truth. I had been really lonely since I left the hospital. Not lonely in the sense that I wasn't around people, because I was around people. No, lonely in the sense that I really didn't have anyone to talk to. Reese hasn't been around much, and when she is, we only talk about stuff like whether or not I've seen so and so's new haircut or she asks me how I'm doing, in which I always answer 'fine', because that's the easiest way to respond. She knows I am lying, but she doesn't push further in worry that she's going to piss me off.

Both Elyria and I are silent for a moment, then she slowly smiles. "So, Mae. You and Tyran." She says, and I look at her confused.

"What about me and Tyran?"

She grins and wiggles her eyebrows. I realise what she is implying and almost gag. "Oh gosh. No. Just... Jeez, no. If you think that in any universe I would ever like Tyran then you seriously need... a lot of help."

She laughs. "I'm just saying. The way you two look at each other.." She trails of and her grin is so sneaky I throw a pillow at her.

"What, like we hate each other?" Now I'm laughing. Just the way she grins, even after being hit by my pillow, and the thought of Tyran and I together brings the laughter out.

"You do know he's going out with my roommate." I say, calming myself down to a smile. Elyria looks over at the other bed, with a look that seems almost devilish. Then she turns to be and grins evilly.

"We must get rid of her." She says, in a creepy voice.

I laugh again and shake my head. "I don't like Tyran!"

She shrugs. "You never know.

"I will never like Tyran!" I exclaim. Elyria grins.

"Whatever you say, Maedana. Whatever you say."

I roll my eyes, smiling. "Anyway, how are you going as a black? Adjusting to life okay?"

She nods. "I was well prepped, so it's been fine."

I frown. "Well prepped?"

She shrugs. "I wasn't supposed to tell you, but I was sent to be a black like Calix."

Her words make me confused. Sent to be a black? By who? And what about Calix? He became a black because of his drunk friend. He wasn't sent to be a black. What was she going on about?

But then, just as I'm about to ask, the door opens and we both turn to see a shock of light brown hair passionately kissing a boy. For a minute I don't notice who the boy Reese is kissing is. Then I see short black hair and I realise it isn't Tyran.

It takes Reese a minute to see me and Elyria sitting on my bed, our faces no doubt filled with shock. When she does though, she stops in her tracks. The boy, who I vaguely recognise, tries to keep kissing her but she pushes him away. "Get off, Joel." She says, sharply but very soft.

Her face is pale. She moves away from Joel and looks between Elyria and I. "What the hell are you doing here?" She asks, but not spicily, her tone flat and her eyes terrified.

I shake my head. "This- this is my room." She looks at Joel, who stands above her, his face confused. He clearly didn't know what was going on here. His innocent look almost makes me throw up.

In fact, this whole scene almost makes me throw up. It is like a horror movie, in which everything seems to be happy and going great, then all of a sudden it turns sour and I am caught in the middle of it.

Wasn't it Reese who just yesterday was falling all over Tyran? Who was joining the CD for him?

My head tries to work out what's going on. Did they break up? No, they couldn't have broken up unless Reese got up at 5:30 in the morning before training started to talk to Tyran, which I know for a fact she didn't. Inside, I hope that maybe that is what happened and I'm just misreading the situation, but I know that doesn't explain Reese's guilty, afraid look.

I look at Elyria and nod at her towards the door. "I think.. I think we should go." I say, glancing back at Reese and standing up. Elyria nods and does the same. She stands by the open door and Reese and I stare at each other. I know my face is cold, but I can't help it. Reese looks at me with eyes that I can barely stand. I'm not sure whether she is pleading or whether she is just plain scared, but I think she knows she's made a big mistake.

I look back at Elyria and head out the door. As I'm closing it, I hear Reese call out, "Wait!" so I stop and look back inside. She looks at me, and now I know her eyes are pleading.

"What?" I say emotionlessly.

"Please. Don't tell him." Her voice is almost trembling.

I look at Joel, who looks back at me and smiles a little. He really didn't have a clue what was going on. It makes me hate him even more.

"I can't make any promises."

I look back at her for a moment, then close the door.