"Cossette, you need to eat." Vanessa repeated as she knocked on Cossette's door again. "Cossette?"

"I'm not hungry." Came the muffled response.

Vanessa sighed before passing the tray of food to me. "Give me a moment." She ran downstairs before climbing back up again, holding a small fan in her hand and with Christopher following behind her. Hugh and Max were out patrolling, while Kyle was at the Syndicate Management building getting updates about the Syndicates and any new plans. Christopher came over often to check on the medical conditions of Cossette after we claimed custody over her.

As they walked towards me, Vanessa stuffed a piece of paper into my hand, motioning for me to read it.

When she opens the door, the two of you stop her from closing it again.

I raised an eyebrow at her. Cossette wasn't that strong and didn't require the two of us to stop her, but I shrugged and crouched down, placing the tray of food onto the floor, in front of the small space between the ground and the door. Vanessa held the fan behind the tray of food and turned it on, intending to direct the smell of the food into the room. We stayed still for a few moments. I pressed my ear onto the door, hoping to be able to hear any sounds of movement from the other side. Christopher stared at me with an amused expression, and I stuck my tongue out at him in return.

A scuffle caught my attention and I shifted position to be able to move faster. The door cracked open and I immediately pushed my weight on it. I heard Cossette yelp and thought that the door was just going to swing open, but instead I was beginning to be pushed back. I frowned, before groaning when I remembered that there was a function on the doors that would make them close no matter what.

Pushing myself up so I was standing, I dug my heels into the ground and pushed harder against the door, trying to at least stop it from closing any further. Christopher finally decided to help out and approached the door. He placed a hand on either side of my head and leaned in close to push on the door. My senses went into overdrive as I felt my face heat up. Too close.

Suddenly the force from the door disappeared and I fell onto my back. Christopher cursed at the sudden disappearance of the force and fell as well. On top of me. If it was possible, the heat on my face just increased.

"Get off me." I said, trying to sound normal. But to my embarrassment and dismay, it came out as a squeak. A whisper of a blush brushed across Christopher's cheeks as he quickly pushed himself up. He ran a hand through his hair and cleared his throat before offering a hand to help me up. I ignored the hand and scooted away from him before standing up myself.

A week has passed since the fire that had burnt down Sector 12. Most of the survivors were critically injured and are split across multiple hospitals around Aestrea for treatment. Those who were slightly injured were allowed to leave the hospital after a few days, and are currently staying in a camp. I had asked Mrs. Miller for permission to have Cossette live with us in our Syndicate house after she was released. She agreed, albeit with hesitation.

I turned to Cossette who was eating and chatting with Vanessa with a massive smile on her face. Something in my mind clicked. I stomped towards them, glaring at them. "You set this up!" I accused the two of them, seething.

The two of them only giggled back at me. "You got no proof." Vanessa sang, seating herself onto Cossette's bed.

I groaned and rubbed my hand over my face in exasperation. "You guys are unbelievable," I muttered. "I'm just going to go."

I turned around and rushed out of the room. As I made my way towards the training area, I passed by Max who had just returned from patrolling. He held a stack of donut boxes in his arms and was walking towards the kitchen. He shot me a toothy grin and I waved back in response. As I continued to my destination, I could hear Max and Christopher talking in the background. The sound of Christopher's voice started to make me feel strange and my heart beat began to thunder in my ears at an unbelievable rate.

I ran the rest of the way and once I was in the control room, I slammed the door shut and leaned against it, breathing heavily. I slid down and exhaled a long breath, calming down my heart. I shook my head, trying to shake myself out of my daze.

Pushing myself back to a standing position, I moved over to the controls. I flipped a switch that activated voice commands and chose the mass attack mode. Reaching into one of the cabinets by the control panel, I pulled out a body suit that was covered in sensors. The mass attack mode is when multiple holographic soldiers materialize in the training room and the trainee has to put down all of them without getting 'killed' themselves. Since they were holographic, the person wouldn't be able to feel impact when attacking or when being attacked. By wearing this body suit, they would be able to feel the holographic bodies and the pain if they got hit by the holographic soldiers. I picked a handgun with fake bullets and placed it in a holder that was attached to my hip, and grabbed onto a small dagger.

I exited the control room and entered the main training area. It was much larger than the training room back in Sector 9, it was twice as long and wide. When I entered, some ropes were being lowered into the room for me to use as I please. I made my way to the center and spoke the command to begin.

As soon as I said the command, holographic soldiers began to materialize all around the room. I crouched down with the dagger in my hand and sprinted towards my first target. I slashed it across the neck. It froze for a moment before disappearing in a burst of light. I pivoted on my heel and slashed down on a hologram that had snuck up behind me.

Taking a deep breath in and out, I focused my concentration on the hologram soldiers. I attacked one after another. Slashing, stabbing, kicking, and punching in a flurry. One of the soldiers landed a hit on me, making me lose my grip on the dagger as it slid across the floor. Without delay, I pulled out the handgun and began to shoot at the soldiers around me. I cleared a path and ran towards a rope that was dangling from the ceiling. Jumping up, I grabbed hold of the rope and pulled myself upwards. I twirled the rope around my left arm as I continued to shoot with my right.

My arms burned as I held onto the rope, adrenaline pulsing throughout my body. It felt absolutely thrilling. I felt a grin creeping onto my face as I shifted my weight around so that the rope would spin around, allowing me to spin and shoot at the same time.

The gun ran out of bullets. I tossed it away and searched around for the dagger. Once I spotted it, I used the rope to my advantage and twirled around, kicking every holographic soldier in my path before dropping back to the ground. I broke into a sprint before dropping to my knees and skidding towards the dagger. I grabbed it with my right hand, slamming my left hand onto the ground to stop my skid and then used the momentum to spin me back around. My back bumped against the wall. I placed my hands on the floor and planted my feet on the wall and pushed off, pouncing into the mob of holograms approaching me.

One of the soldiers grabbed onto my right arm whilst another ran towards me, weapon ready. I twisted my body around and slammed the one that was holding onto me into the other soldiers that were approaching me. There were a series of ropes lined up and I could use them to swing towards the wall. With that in mind, I aimed and threw the dagger through the mass of attackers, clearing out many of them at once. The dagger flew across the room before bouncing off the wall and onto the ground. My eyes followed the path of the dagger before it landed on something else. Or rather someone else.

Christopher stood by the doorway, slightly shocked. I realized then that I had probably almost hit him with that throw. I wasn't expecting anyone else to be in here. While I was distracted, one of the attackers must have snuck up behind me as I felt a piercing pain in my back.

The pain was unbelievable. I could feel muscles ripping as a needle-sharp point made its way into my back. It was only an imitation by the sensors but it felt too real. I let out a blood-curdling scream before shrieking the command to stop. The holograms around me disappeared and so did the holographic sword that had pierced me a moment before. However, the pain was still there. Even if there were no wounds on my body, my mind would remember this pain forever. I had never felt this much pain before. Not even when I was abused at home.

It didn't register in my head that I had curled up on the floor in pain until I noticed Christopher running towards me. I pushed myself into a sitting position.

"Are you okay?" He asked as he crouched down.

I nodded, "it's just the sensors."

Christopher gave a sigh of relief before he stood back up and extended a hand for me. I stared at the hand before reluctantly placing my hand in his as he pulled me up. As soon as I was standing and ripped my hand from his hold.

"Why are you here?" I asked as I turned to head back into the control room.

"Max said you would be here so..." he scratched his cheek before clearing his throat. "This place is pretty similar to the training center in the Syndicate Management Building."

I raised an eyebrow at the sudden change in topic but didn't mention it. "How do you know that?"

"Oh, uh, I help out there as a medic. Work experience." He cleared his throat again.

I hummed as I switched off the controls that I had turned on, before unzipping the sensor suit, slightly wincing at the pain that is still lingering. At that movement, Christopher quickly spun around which elicited another eyebrow raise at him. I was still wearing clothes underneath, but I suppose he didn't know that.

He followed me out of the training building and back into the house, a strange silence surrounding us. As we entered the living room, Max was standing by the door waiting for Cossette who was in the middle of putting her shoes on.

When she noticed me, she brightened up, "Amelia! Do you want to come with us?"

I cocked my head to the side in confusion. Max answered my unspoken question, "apparently, the management people want her to attend camp activities as well. Maybe to take her mind off things. I'm going along to keep an eye on her and to help out while I'm there."

I nodded at his explanation and looked back at Cossette who was giving me her puppy dog eyes. I raised an eyebrow at her again. "I'll go."

At those two words, Cossette broke out into a smile that was so wide it might have ripped her face in half. I heard a buzz and turned to find the source. It was from Christopher who was looking at the screen of his phone.

"I'll be leaving now too. My mum's asking me to run some errands for her." He walked over to the door and saluted to all of us, "see you guys later," before leaving the house.

"Where's Vanessa?" I asked as I followed Max and Cossette out the door.

"She just left. She and Kyle are on patrol now." Max replied, locking the door to the house before heading towards the car in the driveway. He climbed into the driver's seat and I quickly slid into the backseat, telling Cossette to sit in the passenger's seat at the front.

During the ride, I zoned out but still managed to pick up pieces from the conversation that was going on between Max and Cossette.

"- feeling better?" Max asked.

Cossette gave him a big smile in return, "I'm still really sad about what happened, but I know they wouldn't have wanted me to be depressed and spend my days crying over them. We were a close family so I know there are things that all of them wanted to do someday. I'm going to take that responsibility and fulfill it in their stead."

I could see Max smile in the rear-view mirror. "Well, you'll have a lot of time to do them. I mean, you're like twelve?"

Cossette puffed out her cheeks, "I'm sixteen. Though I suppose it's reasonable to think that I'm twelve. I mean, I do act like one... according to my parents anyways. And I am short. So, that probably doesn't help me."

Max only chuckled in response. I felt a smile ghosting my face as I tuned them out again. Car rides somehow always made me sleepy, and I could feel myself slowly dozing off. I was jarred awake when I heard Cossette scream my name in my ear. I groaned before realizing that we had arrived at the site where the camp was temporarily placed. Grumbling, I stumbled out of the car.

We were near a forest so the air around the area was refreshing. I breathed in the fresh air and released it with a sigh. I raised my arms around my head and stretched, hearing a satisfying crack. I looked around. The people were split into age groups and there was at least one member of the management team with each group.

"Amelia?" Max nudged me slightly. Cossette was already heading towards a circle full of teenagers.

I shook my head, "you go ahead. I'm going to walk around for a bit." Max nodded and ran towards one of the two management members with the teenagers. I stayed standing in my spot for a moment longer before walking around the perimeter of the campsite. There were tents scattered around the area and ashy remains of bonfires. I supposed that the reason for this is to help the victims to get over any fear of fire or smoke that they may have gained after the incident. It seemed like a good enough reason to me.

Further in the forest, I spotted a white caravan. Curiosity winning me over, I began to make my way towards it. I circled the caravan once, nothing really catching my attention. I was about to walk away when I heard a voice come from inside. The voice was muffled so I couldn't identify who it was, but I could still hear the conversation clearly.

"Has the girl arrived?" said one voice that sounded feminine.

"Yes, she's with the others right now." Said another, that was deep and masculine.

"Good. Now we can follow the plan."

"Are you sure about this?" Whatever this plan was, the male was obviously hesitant about it. I frowned as questions exploded in my mind.

"Yes. If we don't get rid of her, all of my plans could go to waste. She's the only living member of that family left. The others have already perished in the fire. If only that syndicate didn't take her in, then I wouldn't have to resort to this plan."

I froze in my spot, momentarily forgetting how to breathe. The man didn't reply. Or if he did, I didn't hear him. Breaking out of my shock, I sprinted away from the caravan as quietly as I could. As I made it back to the campsite, I leaned against a tree, still shocked from what I had heard.

Cossette was the first person that came to mind. Did someone want to kill Cossette? Cossette noticed me and came running towards me. "Amelia, want to join us?"

I didn't hear her question and immediately asked her a question in return, "Cossette, do you have any members of family left?" It was insensitive of me to ask but I just had to know. The lady in the caravan had said that the girl they were planning on killing had no living member of family left. Of course, it could mean anyone but the fact that she said that a syndicate had taken her in essentially confirmed it was Cossette. This was more for me to double check.

Cossette was visibly shocked by the question. She rubbed a hand over her arm and replied, "Well, I had an uncle. He was my dad's twin brother. He disappeared a few years ago and we never heard from him so we just assumed that he died."

I nodded and muttered thanks and a sorry before dropping down to sit on the ground. Cossette gave a smile and ran back towards the group. I spent the rest of the day sitting in that one spot, keeping an eye on Cossette. My senses were alert and I ran many simulations of what might happen in my mind. Whatever happened, I will not let Cossette die.

I was silent the entire way back home as well. Max noticed something was wrong and once we were back home, he asked me what was bothering me. I replied with a look that said 'I'll tell you later'.

Hours later, once Cossette was back in her room for the night, I gathered the others for a meeting in the living room. I relayed the conversation I had overheard in the afternoon.

"Someone's out to kill Cossette." I concluded, crossing my legs and arms as I leaned back in thought. "But I just can't think of the reason why."

"Are you one hundred percent certain it's Cossette they were talking about?" Hugh asked.

I nodded, "She's the only member of her family left, and she's the only one who was taken in by a syndicate, which is us. It doesn't make sense for it to be anyone else."

Kyle nodded to agree with me. "What should we do now then?"

I thought for a moment, before I could reply, I heard a shuffling sound behind me and I spun around, ready to pounce. "Who's there?"

Cossette walked down the stairs where she was hiding. Her small frame was shaking with fear, eyes wide as tears snaked down her cheeks.

"Amelia," she started before she completely broke down at the bottom of the stairs. "I don't want to die."