___________________________________________________________________
The School
A fanfiction by: Just Plain Pain
CHAPTER 1
They’ve come for me. I know too much. I could hear their voices outside. Searching my room. “Check under the bed. We have to find her. You! Go check downstairs. She’s got to be here somewhere.” I was shaking in fear. I knew this day would come. The School, as the stories called it, would come and collect me. I was there a couple months ago. I was just observing. Just to see if the stories were true, they were. They must have caught me on the security cameras or something ‘cause a bunch of guards chased me off. I knew they would come for me eventually. I was actually in the School. Oh the horrible things I saw. Apparently I saw too much.
The closet door opened. A man in a white lab coat (A white coat is what the stories called them I think) was standing over my shaking form. He smiled evilly. “There you are, Sam. We’ve been looking everywhere.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me up. I screamed and kicked. One of them grabbed me from behind. I kicked another one in the chest. They grabbed my legs so I couldn’t fight. I screamed bloody murder. I struggled and squirmed. Then there was a sudden sharp prick of pain in the side of my neck; they’d injected me with something. My vision blurred and I slipped into unconsciousness.
I woke up in the back of a panel van. There were a man and a boy standing next to me. The man was in a lab coat, and the boy was a teenager. The back of the van was open, sunlight pouring through. “Take her inside and get her ready. Before she wakes up.” Said the man in the lab coat to a couple of guards outside the van. He had brown hair, and from what I could tell as brown eyes. He was older. Forty maybe. The boy was young. Jet black, messy hair, tan skin, lean body, tall, muscular, kind of cute. A guard climbed into the van, picked me up and carried me out. I was just coming to so I couldn’t fight back. The boy fallowed us in. I was set in a cage in a large white room.
“Stay here and make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid, Jax." Said the guard. The boy, who was obviously Jax, took a seat next to the cage. Once I saw his face, I realize he isn’t but maybe a year older than I am. And he was drop dead gorgeous. He reached through the bars and pushed the hair off my forehead.
The white coats left, leaving the boy and me alone. We started to talk. (He’s not much of a talker so I did most the talking) I told him my name. Jax is an avian human hybrid. “So what kind of horrible experiments do they on to you here?” I ask him.
“Actually my life here has been pretty good. I haven’t been hurt. Well, except training but that was an accident. But they treat me good. Teach me good survival skills, to fight.” He said. I looked at him in disbelief. “You don’t get out much do you? You’ve never heard of the Flock have you?”
He knit his eyebrows. “I hear Jeb and the Director talk about them sometimes, but that’s it.”
“They were one of the few successful experiments that they did. They injected 2% avian bird DNA into each of six fertilized embryos and the babies were born with wings. They performed horrible and painful tests on them until they escaped and told pretty much the whole world. Fang, Maximum, Iggy, Angel, Nudge, and the Gasman. Angle can read minds, Iggy is blind cause they tried to give him night vision and the idiot scientists screwed it up, Nudge can move metal without touching it, The Gasman… well you can guess what he does, Max is the leader and Fang is the silent one of the group. Fang kind of looks like you but different.”
“Was that the short version?”
“Ugh!” I leaned back in the cage. “You really need to get out more.” He smiled and laid back with his hands behind his head looking at me. He was pretty hot.
Thirty minutes later my cage was roughly picked up and slammed onto a cart. “Ow! What gives?” They wheeled me into what looked like an operating room. There were medical tools and an operating table. They opened the door too my cage. I shrank back as far as I could into the cage. “I am so not coming out. I’m not an idiot like most your experiments. I am staying in here if it kills me!” A man squatted down to look in the cage. I recognized him. He was Jeb, the man from the stories. He smiled his sweet smile and spoke gently, “It’s okay. Come on out. You’ll be fine. You’re so skinny. You look so delicate.” I shrank back farther. But it was true. I hadn’t eaten barely anything for the last 3 months since I learned the stories and saw with my own eyes. Since I realized they would come for me. I was paranoid. “Looks can be deceiving,” I hope I didn’t sound as scared as I was. Jeb just smiled. “I’m sorry if we scared you. I wont hurt you. You’ll be fine.” Jeb held out his hand for me to take. I started to reach toward it, “That’s it. Its ok.” I quickly pulled my hand back and stayed in the cage. Jeb sighed and stood up. Suddenly the cage tipped forward. They shook it but I still refused to come out. “I told you I’m not coming out.” They set the cage back down.
A huge hand reached in, grabbed my ankle and started pulling me out. “No!” It pulled half my body out; I turned around and grabbed the bars at the back of the cage holding on for dear life. Someone kicked my fingers, forcing me to let go. I kicked the guard that the hand was attached to and he let go. I tried to crawl back in the cage but the guard grabbed my waist and held me down on the table. I managed to kick him and run toward the door, but they caught me and slammed me back down on the table. I thrashed, kicked, and bit when necessary.
They got my arms strapped down, so I fought with my feet. I kicked one in the face, another in the chest, probably cracked a few ribs. I love adrenaline strength. In all the chaos a white coat managed to keep my head still and inject me with a sedative. My body slowed and weakened.
“Let me go. Please. I wont tell anyone.”
They got my legs strapped down finally.
“This will knock you out. It’s completely harmless. Relax and let it take effect.” He said as he held my head still. I fought the wave of drowsiness that had come over me. After ten minutes the drug overwhelmed me and I blacked out.
CHAPTER 2
I woke up on a cot on my stomach, wearing a white T-shirt, and white jeans. My back hurt like someone set me on fire. Jeb was standing at the counter in my small room. Jax was sitting next to my bed. Jeb looked back and smiled. “You’re awake.” He walked over with a cup of water and held it out to me. “Here. You’ve been out for four days. You feel okay?” I sat up and took the water.
I moved my shoulders and winced. “No I don’t feel okay!” I took the water but didn’t drink. I didn’t trust him. “My shoulders feel like they are on fire.”
Jeb laughed a little. I glared at him. “You were for a while. You’re fine now. It’s okay. We gave you a gift.” My eyes widened and I looked behind me at my shoulders. Jeb laughed. “Yes. We gave you wings. This is not like the erasers that we quickly slapped on. We did major surgery. Your bones are now hollow like a birds, the wings are wired into your brain so they will respond like you were born with them. It took 3 days but we finally got it done. Your new wings will be working just like Jax here who was born with them.” He patted Jax on the shoulder. “Oh and sorry about the eyes. They might be a little darker than your normal light brown. Little mishap but you’ll be fine.”
I stood up and spread my new wings. I couldn’t even spread them all the way in my 10X10 foot room. Jeb got up, ducked under my wing and stood behind me. “Seventeen feet across. Blacker than night.” I looked over my shoulders at my magnificent new wings. They are darker than Fang’s from the stories. I reached up and grabbed a bit of my bangs. But what I pulled down in front of my eyes wasn’t my normal dark brown hair, it was just as curly but now it was jet black. Jeb ran his hand down the top of my left wing. “Six years it took to get this color. True black. So many lost for this one dream to have a perfect black falcon human hybrid.”
“Black falcon?”
“We altered one falcon's DNA to be strong, faster, and live longer. We call it the Black falcon. It’s the most deadly bird in the sky. Hunts at night, pure black, very deadly, kills on the first strike every time, the unholy offspring of night and death itself. We tried it on many but their DNA just didn’t… respond well to the falcon’s DNA. Sadly they never woke up after the surgery. But you did. After six years one finally woke up.”
“Oh.” I took off out the door and down the hall, my wings straight out behind me. White coats and guards moved out of my way in alarm.
I was almost at the main doors. I burst through the doors into the fresh air. I took a deep breath and took off running faster than I thought possible. I got into the air on the first try. It felt good, flying for the first time, the wind ruffling my feathers, although I could have done with out the bugs, thank you. I was just about to see how high I could go when something shocked me. And I don’t me a static shock; I mean volts of electricity shock. I started falling; I spread my wings hoping to catch air. Nothing worked. I hit the ground hard, a fall that would have killed a regular human. But if Jeb made all those improvements he said he did it barely even touched me. Just hurt a lot. I lay on the ground and gasped for air.
White coats gathered around with medical kits, checking my heart, breathing, hearing, and eyesight. After several injections I was carried, half conscious, into the medical room back inside.
After a few hours of white coats coming and going a doctor stood next to my bed, talking to Jeb. “Are you sure we should keep her alive? She seems too wild.” Jeb seemed to be considering this for a moment but finally said, “Yes. We just have to break her. She will cooperate once we figure out what makes her tick.” Just then a woman that radiates authority sauntered in like she owned the place, probably the director. “Hunger seems to work on a lot of our subjects. Lets try that and see if it works.” She walks between Jeb and the doctor. Jeb tensed and spoke like there are horrible consequences if he spoke out of place, “Uh… Not to speak out of term but I don’t think that’s a good idea. We have worked for six years trying to find the perfect subject to hold the black falcon DNA with out destroying itself. We need to keep her healthy, ma’am.”
“I suppose you’re right.” The director grabbed my chin and turned my head from side to side examining my face. “How long have you had her half conscious?”
“About three hours since she fell out of the sky.” Said the doctor joining the director at my side. “She is stable. She can leave. She has the strength. Quiet a lot of strength actually.”
“What was the damage?”
“Three broken ribs, four cracked. She had minor head trauma But not as much to make a difference. She can move fine, breath perfectly. Personally I would love to see her fly, ma’am.” The doctor said.
“In due time. Put the collar on her. She will start training in five minutes.” The director walked away and Jeb relaxed. By this time I was more but not quiet fully awake. The doctor unstrapped my arms and helped me sit up. He put a thick metal wire on my neck that was very heavy and it dug into my collarbone. He pushed a button and a paralyzing shock wave went through my entire body. I yelped in pain. The doctor smiled. “Good. It’s working.”
Jeb unstrapped my legs and I stood up. I tried to run toward the door but a guard grabbed me around the waist and picked me up. “Put me down!”
Jeb walked up. “Fallow me.” He said and walked out of the room.
The guard turned me sideways and carried me with one arm on his left hip hitting my head several times on the way down the hall. “Dude! I can feel. Stop hitting my head. You’re going to give me a concussion!” He walked close to the wall and hit my head again. “Okay, you did that on purpose.” I complained.
He smiled with satisfaction. I huffed and crossed my arms for the rest of the ride.
The guard carried me into a room like a gymnasium for a high school class of giants. The ceiling was an easy four stories high. And it was at least three hundred feet long and about a hundred feet wide. It had a bunch of equipment like an obstacle course. There was a huge wall that vibrated violently and ropes over a moat type thing (I didn’t really want to find out what lived in that water), There was tires, a climbing rope, a live fire run, and a bunch of climbing things that I had to run over. It looked like they robbed a military boot camp. And there was some other stuff that looked like it was meant to kill you like swinging axes, flames spurters, a rolling balance beam. Where do people come up with this stuff?
“Uh… You don’t really expect me to do that do you?” Jeb looked at me like I just asked the stupidest question a girl could ask. “Ugh! Fine.” I spread my pure black wings and bend my knees like I was going to leap and take flight. “Let’s do this.”
Jeb laughed a little. “Uh, no. You will not be allowed to fly during this training exercise.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” A guard lifted my arms; I folded in my wings, then a white coat took two belts and wrapped them around my chest, strapping down my wings. “Ow! Not so tight. I need to breath.”
I was lead to the starting point of the course. Jeb pushed a timer and I took off running. I stepped through the tires in record time, climbed up and down the stupid wooden obstacles, swung across the rope and freaky green water, scrambled up the wall and jumped down the other side, dodged the swinging axes, crawled through the live fire run getting tons of scratches along the way (Stupid barbed wire), rolled and tumbled through the fire sputters, ran across the turning balance beam, did a flip off the end and landed on my feet. Jeb walked up and stopped the timer. “Seven minutes, zero six point three seconds. Not bad.” I took off the belts around my chest and threw them on the floor at Jeb’s feet. “Next time, just ask me. Okay? I don’t need a bunch of belts. I can fallow orders if you ask nicely you know.”
The director walked out of a room with a one-way glass window in front. “Yes. We could ask nicely. But then what fun would that be?” she nodded at a guard. He grabbed my arms and held them behind my back. “Hey!” The director took the remote from the doctor and pushed the button. The collar shocked me and I fell to one knee. The guard pulled me back up. I kicked him in the sweet spot he dropped me and I ran for the door. The collar shocked me again and I collapsed. Two guards grabbed my arms and pulled me up, my head hung. The director grabbed my hair and tilted my head back so I was looking at her. The director got three inches from my face. Her breath smelled of cocktail sauce and fancy shrimp. “One more outburst like that and you will regret it.” She dropped my head and shocked me one more time just to show her point. “Take her outside. Next lesson today.”
I was half dragged, half carried out side to a grass-bare yard, about the same size as the gymnasium but a little bigger. And unlike the gymnasium, this place was bare. Like, there was nothing there except a sad little tree in the corner that looked like it just wanted to die. I know how you feel. I thought. I was shoved to the ground and kicked toward the center of the yard. Jax came out of the building with a determined look on his face. When he saw me his eyes widened and he looked at Jeb.
“You said I was going to train. You never mentioned I’d be fighting her.” He gestured toward me like I was an insect.
Jeb shrugged. “What’s the difference? She’ll just be easier to defeat. You have more experience. So stop complaining.”
I got mad, stood up and brushed myself off. “What’s the mater? Afraid you’ll get beat by a girl, Pretty Boy?”
“Hardly.”
“Then fight me and we’ll see who is better.” I walked up to him. He was about six inches taller so I had to look up.
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
“!” We were in the other one’s faces at this point. Jeb put his hands on our shoulders. “Okay. I see we have some tension going on. This is good. Let’s get to training shall we?” Jax made a sound in the back of his throat that sounded like growling, turned around, lifted his chin and took his position at one end of the yard. I turned around and did the same. I was offered a weapon but I declined. I prefer to do my fighting with my hands and feet. He, however, accepted a steel pipe. I smiled evilly and called out, “Hey! Pretty Boy!” He didn’t seem to like me calling him a pretty boy. He gave me a look like he wanted to kill me. “Why don’t you fight me without a weapon? Afraid you’ll break a nail?” I held out my hand and wiggled my fingers. He dropped the pipe.
“Bring it on! I think I can handle a weakling like you, Sam!”
That was it. I spread my wings so fast and hard I knocked over two guards just from the wind created. I took flight and he did the same. His wings were a shiny gray-ish color. I climbed and climbed until I hit a net. (Smart people) And he fallowed. When he was about a meter below me I dived and landed on his shoulders, grabbed his neck and started choking him. He spun and flipped, dived and punched but he couldn’t get me off. Finally I decided I didn’t want to kill him so I held his neck with my arm, careful not to hold too hard, and dived dragging him down with me. I landed and let go. He fell to his hands and knees and started coughing.
He kicked my feet out from under me. I tried to get back up but he was already sitting on my chest. I tried to get him off but he had his knees on my arms. He leaned down and… Kissed me? I laid the in shock for a while after he got up and left.
What just happened? I thought.
CHAPTER 3
The next few days were interesting in training. Every time it would always go something like this: insults form both sides, intense fighting, him sitting on my chest, a kiss and then he would just get up and leave. No smile or anything, just a kiss and gone.
We never saw each other except when we were fighting. And Jeb and the director didn’t even care that he kissed me. They acted like it never happens. But it does.
One night I picked the lock on my door and sneaked down to where Jax’s room was. I opened the door and looked at his sleeping form. His back was to me. I poked his shoulder. “Jax wake up.” Nothing. I kicked him in the side. He jumped and rolled over. “What? And OW!” He propped himself up on his elbow and rubbed his eye. “What are you doing here? It’s like two in the morning.” He whispered.
“I need to ask you a question.”
“It couldn’t wait ‘til training?”
“No.”
“Fine.” He sits up the rest of the way. He is still wearing his black jeans and silver studded belt, but his shirt is off, showing his abs. “What?”
“Do you know why they picked me? Of all people, why me?” I crossed my arms. He didn’t answer. I pushed his shoulder back with my hand. “Answer me Pretty Boy.” He still didn’t answer. “Ugh! Fine then.” I started toward the door. He put his hand on my shoulder.
“Sam.”
“What?” I said without turning around. My hand still on the doorknob.
He turned me around and kissed me. I relaxed and kissed him back. A spark of electricity ran through my entire body. I knew he felt it too. I wrapped my arms around his neck; he wrapped his arms around my waist. For about a minute we stood there kissing. He pulled back and smiled.
“Because I asked them to. I saw you when you were here three months ago. I don’t know. Something just… clicked.”
Then the door opened and we both fell on our backs in the hall laughing. We both looked up and stopped laughing.
He stood up, held out his hand and helped me up. I stood next to him facing Jeb and the irritated director. Jax cleared his throat awkwardly and looked down. “Uh… We were just talking.” The director raised an eyebrow and tapped her pointed shoe, which echoed down the hallway. I wondered if Jax noticed the small bug in the director’s hair. He must have because I glanced at him and we started snickering. Jeb made a small swipe with his hand over his throat in a cut it out. She’s already pissed way. We stopped snickering but neither of could wipe the smile off our face. We had to look down to avoid bursting out laughing.
The director walked up to me and held out her hand for me to put something in. I handed her the bent bobby pin I used to pick the lock. She turned on her two-inch heals and walks down the hall. “Since you two seem well rested training starts in thirty minutes.” She called back as she walked down the hall. Jax and I started snickering again. Jeb glared at us. We tried to stifle the laugh but didn’t do a very good job.
Once the director turned the corner, Jax and I burst out laughing. The director stuck her head around the corner, the bug still crawling in her hair, and we stopped laughing. When she left we waited a few seconds then hit the floor laughing. Jeb even smiled. Once we could breath again we stood up. Jeb put on his serious face again. “Okay. Jax, back to your room and clean up. That goes for you too, Sam. I’ll be back in ten to collect you.”
I went back to my room and took a quick shower. Jeb came back with Jax and lead us back outside. Jax and I snickered the whole way.
When we got outside Jeb sent us to opposite sides of the courtyard again, I smiled at Jax. Jeb snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Focus. This is the wrestling part of the training. Get the other pinned for three seconds. And…” He blew his whistle and Jax charged.
“Wait! What?” Jax ran into me, knocking me over. He sat on my chest and pinned my arms beneath his knees. I jammed my knees into his back and rolled. I sat on his chest and grabbed his throat, not choking him though. Unfortunately I couldn’t get his arms pinned down so he grabbed my wrists and we went into a wresting roll. I’m pretty sure here is no a dirt particle in that courtyard we did not roll over.
After twenty minutes of rolling and laughing Jeb called us off. We kissed and got up; we were covered in dust from head to toe. Well, so much for my shower.
We walked back inside and changed. Him in his faded black jeans and black shirt, and me in my white T-shirt and white jeans. We were lead into a room with a bunch of white coats handling needles. I was getting a bad feeling. Then the director walked in and my worst fears were proven. I ran toward the door. A guard grabbed me and slammed me down on a metal table. White coats strapped down my arms and legs. “Let me go!” A white coat stuck a needle I my neck and injected me with a drug. My body went limp and I couldn’t move. Another attached wires to my forehead. “What are these for?”
The director leaned down; her face was three inches from mine. Her breath smelled like blue cheese dressing. Man what does this woman keep eating for breakfast? “We are going to break you.”
A white coat pushed a button and an electrical shock went through my whole body. I screamed in pain. Jax just stood by and let them torture me. He looked away and didn’t even try to stop them. I should have known. He’s one of Them. Corrupt. Evil.
When they stopped the director left. My chest felt like it was on fire. Jax walked up to me and I turned my head the other way. He touched my arm. I wanted so badly to slap him.
They unstrapped me and shoved me back into a cage. Jax went back to his room. I sat there close to tears. I couldn’t believe I fell for his tricks. His fake charm and sweetness, the way he played innocent the first time I talked to him. He is just another experiment that they have corrupted. I should have known. He has the same horrible mind as them. He could have stopped it. He didn’t. I thought he liked me. Stop thinking like that. You’re not going to let this get to you. I told myself. He’s not the first guy. But something seemed different this time. Stop it! Don’t beat yourself up. I can’t believe he kissed me.
They came to get me the next morning. I was the devil’s daughter. I kicked and screamed. I broke 28 ribs, 8 noses, 3 hands, and probably some of them will have a concussion. It took ten white coats, eleven guards and an Eraser to get out of that cage. Finally they remembered the shock collar on me and I had no choice. Why didn't they think of that the first time?
They took me out to the courtyard but this time Jax wasn’t waiting. Instead there was an Eraser. Jeb blew a whistle and the Eraser charged. I kicked him in the chest and took to the air. The Eraser recovered and looked up frustrated.
“Not fair! You cheated!” He growled.
“What’s the matter? Can’t you fly?” I teased from just beyond his reach.
The Eraser started circling right under me. “What goes up must come down.”
That was true. I was already tired from my fight to stay in the cage so I had to think to stay airborne. I got an idea. “You’re right. What goes up…” I flew upward. Higher and higher until I could see the details in the net. “Must come down.” I turned around and dived faster than Max could ever dream of. I headed straight for the Eraser. He didn’t even have time to move before I pulled up just at the last second and flew straight over him, grabbing his waist as I passed. I flew up again. Which was hard when there is a 200lb. Eraser in you arms that’s trying to rip your head off. I went up to the net and he stopped clawing at me. He looked back, a look of horror on his face. I smiled and let go. He hurtled to the earth screaming and howling his stupid little head off. I waited a few seconds and decided I couldn’t let him die. I dove and caught him just before he hit the ground. I landed and set him down.
He looked up at me in surprise. “You… You didn’t let me die?”
“Not all of us are killers.” I got up and walked away. He just stayed there in shock.
I walked back over to Jeb who was writing furiously on his clipboard. “So… Can I go back to my cage now?”
Jeb didn’t even look up from his clipboard. “It’s only 5:38 in the morning. Get back to the training room. Next is the hand to hand fighting.”
“Joy.” I went back to the obstacle course. But this time there was no course. Just an empty over sized gym. Jeb walked in beside me and looked around the gym. “Where is he?” He turned to a white coat. “I told you to bring him here.”
The white coat was young and obviously very nervous. “I’m sorry sir. We are working on it. He refuses to cooperate.”
“We got him here three weeks before Sam. He should know better. Just get him in here!” The white coat scurried off like a scared rabbit.
I tapped Jeb on the shoulder. “Uh… may I ask who ‘he’ is?”
Jeb turned back around and put on his fake sweet smile. “His name is Jess. He will be the one you will be fighting.”
“And he is just like me? He wasn’t born with the wings?”
“No. He wasn’t.”
Guards carried in a struggling boy. He was wearing a white shirt and white jeans like me. He had almost black dark brown hair. They put him down and he ran toward the door. A guard stopped him and shoved him to the ground.
I walked over so I was standing in front of him. He looked up at me with his light golden-brown eyes like mine used to be. His hair was wavy and a little messy. I looked at him and crossed my arms. “It’s Jess right?”
He got up and stood in front of me. He is the same height as me. 5 foot 8 inches. He looked as though he hasn’t eaten in three months either. “Yah. You must be Sam.” He said brushing his overgrown hair out of his eyes.
“Yah.”
Jeb walks up. “Okay. Take you positions and…” He blows the whistle and without rehearsing or planning it Jess and I take to the air at the same exact time. He has wings a dark copper brown and just as wide as mine.
I smiled as we hovered ten feet apart flapping in sync. “Weird. We took off the same time. Do you always steal peoples fighting strategies?”
He smiled. “That is weird ‘cause I thought you were copying me.”
“No. I just like attacking from above. Gives me more of an advantage.” Then I noticed the thick wire around his neck like mine. A shock collar. “So I here you haven’t been cooperative.”
He smiled, “Well judging by the shock collar on you neck, looks like you haven’t either.”
“Very true. So when did you get here?”
“A month ago. You?”
“About a week ago. I’ve lost track of days. What do you say we give them exactly what they want?” I smiled. He ducked as I swung to kick him. He punched, I blocked and we pretend fought for a while.
Jeb started yelling for us to come down. I looked at Jess. “I don’t really feel like coming down. Do you Jess?”
“No I really don’t.” We both smiled and flew higher.
I looked down at Jeb. Even from this height I could tell his face is red from anger. I laughed. “Sorry Jeb! I can’t hear you!” Jess laughed and I smiled. Jeb kept banging on something. Probably the remote for the shock collars. But at this height we were out of range.
Jax came in. Jeb said something to him and pointed at us. Jax took off and flew up next to us. He pushed a button, Jess and I got shocked and started falling. Jess was knocked out from the shock. I wasn’t so lucky. We hit the ground hard. I cracked three ribs. I didn’t know how Jess was, but he woke up coughing so at least he was alive. We both stood up shakily.
“What gives?” I demanded. “I was enjoying having someone to talk to that you haven’t corrupted!”
Jess smiled.
Jeb snapped and walked away. Two guards grabbed Jess and me. They pulled/dragged/carried us back to the building and shoved us in cages. “Gosh I hate the School!” I yelled and kicked the door of my cage.
Jess started banging on the door of the cage. “Ugh! I don’t do cages! I’m claustrophobic!”
I sat back in my cage not making the trouble to try and get out ‘cause I knew I never would until they came and got me. “Don’t waist your energy. You’ll never break it like that. You’ll just get them really annoyed.”
He stopped and looked at me. “Well I’m not just gonna sit here and wait for them to kill me.”
I reached up and got a bobby pin out of my hair and handed it to him. “The least you could do is think.” He smiled and took the bobby pin. He started to pick the lock. After ten minutes I couldn’t stand it anymore. The clinking was driving me crazy. I sat up and took the bobby pin from him. “Oh give me that.” I picked the lock and opened his cage. “There. Sheesh.”
He crawled out and stood up. “Aren’t you coming?”
“And get risk getting caught again and probably an even worse punishment that shocking? No thank you.” He shrugged and walked off around the corner.
I sat back calmly and started t unbend the bobby pin. “And in 3… 2… 1…” There was a big crash and yelling. Jess was dragged back in half conscious. They shoved him back into the cage next to me. “Told yah.”
He glared at me and sat up. Well, hunched over cause the cage was too small. “Yah yah yah. At least I tried.”
The director walked in. For a moment I forgot I was in a cage and tried to lung at her. I hit my head on the top of the cage and she laughed. I made a growling sound in the back of my throat. “Why don’t you unlock the cage so I can RIP YOUR THROAT OUT!”
The director laughed like I was there for her amusement.
I reached through the bars and grabbed her ankle almost knocking her over. Unfortunately she regained her balance.
She glared at me. “You just bought yourself punishment. Bring her down to the lab. It’s time for testing.”
Again I fought. Broke a few of their ribs, left an imprint of my foot on their faces. It was the shortest fight ever. I was shocked and carried half conscious down to the lab.
CHAPTER 4
The next six hours were the most excruciating, humiliating, enraging, unnerving, and violating hours of my entire life. I wont go into detail for those of you with weak stomachs.
Jess ran into the room a couple times, tackled a few white coats trying to make them stop. After a while they just held him there and made him watch as they almost killed me. Jess started crying every time I went unconscious because he thought I was dead. He punched the director a few times. She’s going to have a black eye. He fought for me.
I was half conscious for most of the time but I swear sometime in the middle of his fighting he said he loved me. I tried to yell back but my voice wouldn’t work. They dragged him out.
When the director was satisfied with the screams and tears she collected from me I was shoved into a huge glass upright tube in the middle of a big room. I was humiliated. I had cuts and blood all over my arms and legs from where a guard had thrown me into the glass doors of a cabinet the first time I tried to run, my nose was bleeding from God knows what, my forehead was split from where I head butted a white coat, and my face was all bruised. My white jeans were ripped; my white shirt was stained with blood. I looked like I got in a wrestling match with a rhino.
White coats came and went, observing. Though I wasn’t very exciting. I just sat there with my knees pulled up to my chest and my forehead down on my knees. I never looked up whenever someone tapped on the glass. I didn’t move. I just sat there thinking about what Jess had said on the lab and refused to cry. Did I hear him right? He loved me? Maybe he said something else like ‘I loathe you’. No. That wouldn’t make sense if he were willing to die for me. I’m so confused. I didn’t know how I felt.
For four hours this went on, until I looked up and saw Jess. Jess’s arms were being held behind his back by a guard. He looked like he got in a fight with an angry monkey. His face was bruised and cut. The director walked up with them. She grabbed his hair ad tilted his head up so he was looking at me. I could see the pain and sadness in his eyes. And he could see the hurt in mine. He tried to look away but the director pulled his head back.
“This is what happens when you disobey.” She hissed and dropped his head. He was stuffed into a cage in plain view of me. I put my head back down and tried to fight tears. I lost.
After a couple more hours Jax walked up to my tube. I banged on the glass and shouted at him to “Go away!” He just held up his hand behind his ear mocking me. He couldn’t hear me. The tube was sound proof. I could hear every word he said clearly though.
He tapped the glass. “How yah doing in there Short Stop?” I hated it when he called me Short Stop. Just ‘cause he was six inches taller. Ugh! I hate him. I started yelling at him. He just stood there and laughed.
“Leave her alone Jax.” Came Jess’s voice from behind. Jax walked over to his cage and kicked it. “And what? You gonna make me?”
The director walked passed. “Come on, Jax, Sweetie. Leave them to themselves.”
“Yes, Mother.” Jax smirked and walked over to her. Jess and I stared mouths agape in shock.
Mother? Well that explains a lot. I thought.
Jess started laughing. “So. The big tough Jax is a Mama’s boy.”
Jax turned around and gave Jess a look like he wanted to kill him. “I’m not a mama’s boy. And if you call me that again you can look at your teeth from inside a jar!”
Jess laughed. “Well it’s not my fault you screwed up your chance with Sam.”
Jax walked up to Jess’s cage and clenched his fists. “You better shut your mouth Jess.”
Jess just continued to laugh. Jax opened Jess’s cage, grabbed him by the collar and started punching him.
"YOu just oulled the last straw! I'm sick and tired of tyou shit!!" Jax yelled.
I stood up and started banging on the glass. I screamed for Jax to stop but he couldn’t hear me. Finally three guards pulled Jax off still punching. Jess laid there, his face all bloody and bruised. I slumped back down onto my knees but I couldn’t take my eyes off Jess’s unmoving body. I couldn’t fight it anymore. I started crying and banging on the glass. It cracked and I banged more.
The director walked up to the tube just as it shattered. She dropped to the floor and covered her head. I burst out of there like nothing else. I sprinted over to Jess and kneeled at his side and started doing CPR. “Come on wake up God damn it! 1… 2… 3…” I breathed into his mouth.
After about an hour I put my head on his chest and cried. “I love you, too.” After an hour more of crying they put me back into a cage. I let them.
For the next week I didn’t fight. I let them take me in and out of the cages, inject me with random chemicals. Some of them hurt but not as much as what I felt inside after Jess died. I died that day, too. When they would make me fight Jax again I didn’t even try. I stood there and let him take me down…
They had finally broken me.
___________________________________________________________________
The School
A fanfiction by: Just Plain Pain
CHAPTER 1
They’ve come for me. I know too much. I could hear their voices outside. Searching my room. “Check under the bed. We have to find her. You! Go check downstairs. She’s got to be here somewhere.” I was shaking in fear. I knew this day would come. The School, as the stories called it, would come and collect me. I was there a couple months ago. I was just observing. Just to see if the stories were true, they were. They must have caught me on the security cameras or something ‘cause a bunch of guards chased me off. I knew they would come for me eventually. I was actually in the School. Oh the horrible things I saw. Apparently I saw too much.
The closet door opened. A man in a white lab coat (A white coat is what the stories called them I think) was standing over my shaking form. He smiled evilly. “There you are, Sam. We’ve been looking everywhere.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me up. I screamed and kicked. One of them grabbed me from behind. I kicked another one in the chest. They grabbed my legs so I couldn’t fight. I screamed bloody murder. I struggled and squirmed. Then there was a sudden sharp prick of pain in the side of my neck; they’d injected me with something. My vision blurred and I slipped into unconsciousness.
I woke up in the back of a panel van. There were a man and a boy standing next to me. The man was in a lab coat, and the boy was a teenager. The back of the van was open, sunlight pouring through. “Take her inside and get her ready. Before she wakes up.” Said the man in the lab coat to a couple of guards outside the van. He had brown hair, and from what I could tell as brown eyes. He was older. Forty maybe. The boy was young. Jet black, messy hair, tan skin, lean body, tall, muscular, kind of cute. A guard climbed into the van, picked me up and carried me out. I was just coming to so I couldn’t fight back. The boy fallowed us in. I was set in a cage in a large white room.
“Stay here and make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid, Jax." Said the guard. The boy, who was obviously Jax, took a seat next to the cage. Once I saw his face, I realize he isn’t but maybe a year older than I am. And he was drop dead gorgeous. He reached through the bars and pushed the hair off my forehead.
The white coats left, leaving the boy and me alone. We started to talk. (He’s not much of a talker so I did most the talking) I told him my name. Jax is an avian human hybrid. “So what kind of horrible experiments do they on to you here?” I ask him.
“Actually my life here has been pretty good. I haven’t been hurt. Well, except training but that was an accident. But they treat me good. Teach me good survival skills, to fight.” He said. I looked at him in disbelief. “You don’t get out much do you? You’ve never heard of the Flock have you?”
He knit his eyebrows. “I hear Jeb and the Director talk about them sometimes, but that’s it.”
“They were one of the few successful experiments that they did. They injected 2% avian bird DNA into each of six fertilized embryos and the babies were born with wings. They performed horrible and painful tests on them until they escaped and told pretty much the whole world. Fang, Maximum, Iggy, Angel, Nudge, and the Gasman. Angle can read minds, Iggy is blind cause they tried to give him night vision and the idiot scientists screwed it up, Nudge can move metal without touching it, The Gasman… well you can guess what he does, Max is the leader and Fang is the silent one of the group. Fang kind of looks like you but different.”
“Was that the short version?”
“Ugh!” I leaned back in the cage. “You really need to get out more.” He smiled and laid back with his hands behind his head looking at me. He was pretty hot.
Thirty minutes later my cage was roughly picked up and slammed onto a cart. “Ow! What gives?” They wheeled me into what looked like an operating room. There were medical tools and an operating table. They opened the door too my cage. I shrank back as far as I could into the cage. “I am so not coming out. I’m not an idiot like most your experiments. I am staying in here if it kills me!” A man squatted down to look in the cage. I recognized him. He was Jeb, the man from the stories. He smiled his sweet smile and spoke gently, “It’s okay. Come on out. You’ll be fine. You’re so skinny. You look so delicate.” I shrank back farther. But it was true. I hadn’t eaten barely anything for the last 3 months since I learned the stories and saw with my own eyes. Since I realized they would come for me. I was paranoid. “Looks can be deceiving,” I hope I didn’t sound as scared as I was. Jeb just smiled. “I’m sorry if we scared you. I wont hurt you. You’ll be fine.” Jeb held out his hand for me to take. I started to reach toward it, “That’s it. Its ok.” I quickly pulled my hand back and stayed in the cage. Jeb sighed and stood up. Suddenly the cage tipped forward. They shook it but I still refused to come out. “I told you I’m not coming out.” They set the cage back down.
A huge hand reached in, grabbed my ankle and started pulling me out. “No!” It pulled half my body out; I turned around and grabbed the bars at the back of the cage holding on for dear life. Someone kicked my fingers, forcing me to let go. I kicked the guard that the hand was attached to and he let go. I tried to crawl back in the cage but the guard grabbed my waist and held me down on the table. I managed to kick him and run toward the door, but they caught me and slammed me back down on the table. I thrashed, kicked, and bit when necessary.
They got my arms strapped down, so I fought with my feet. I kicked one in the face, another in the chest, probably cracked a few ribs. I love adrenaline strength. In all the chaos a white coat managed to keep my head still and inject me with a sedative. My body slowed and weakened.
“Let me go. Please. I wont tell anyone.”
They got my legs strapped down finally.
“This will knock you out. It’s completely harmless. Relax and let it take effect.” He said as he held my head still. I fought the wave of drowsiness that had come over me. After ten minutes the drug overwhelmed me and I blacked out.
CHAPTER 2
I woke up on a cot on my stomach, wearing a white T-shirt, and white jeans. My back hurt like someone set me on fire. Jeb was standing at the counter in my small room. Jax was sitting next to my bed. Jeb looked back and smiled. “You’re awake.” He walked over with a cup of water and held it out to me. “Here. You’ve been out for four days. You feel okay?” I sat up and took the water.
I moved my shoulders and winced. “No I don’t feel okay!” I took the water but didn’t drink. I didn’t trust him. “My shoulders feel like they are on fire.”
Jeb laughed a little. I glared at him. “You were for a while. You’re fine now. It’s okay. We gave you a gift.” My eyes widened and I looked behind me at my shoulders. Jeb laughed. “Yes. We gave you wings. This is not like the erasers that we quickly slapped on. We did major surgery. Your bones are now hollow like a birds, the wings are wired into your brain so they will respond like you were born with them. It took 3 days but we finally got it done. Your new wings will be working just like Jax here who was born with them.” He patted Jax on the shoulder. “Oh and sorry about the eyes. They might be a little darker than your normal light brown. Little mishap but you’ll be fine.”
I stood up and spread my new wings. I couldn’t even spread them all the way in my 10X10 foot room. Jeb got up, ducked under my wing and stood behind me. “Seventeen feet across. Blacker than night.” I looked over my shoulders at my magnificent new wings. They are darker than Fang’s from the stories. I reached up and grabbed a bit of my bangs. But what I pulled down in front of my eyes wasn’t my normal dark brown hair, it was just as curly but now it was jet black. Jeb ran his hand down the top of my left wing. “Six years it took to get this color. True black. So many lost for this one dream to have a perfect black falcon human hybrid.”
“Black falcon?”
“We altered one falcon's DNA to be strong, faster, and live longer. We call it the Black falcon. It’s the most deadly bird in the sky. Hunts at night, pure black, very deadly, kills on the first strike every time, the unholy offspring of night and death itself. We tried it on many but their DNA just didn’t… respond well to the falcon’s DNA. Sadly they never woke up after the surgery. But you did. After six years one finally woke up.”
“Oh.” I took off out the door and down the hall, my wings straight out behind me. White coats and guards moved out of my way in alarm.
I was almost at the main doors. I burst through the doors into the fresh air. I took a deep breath and took off running faster than I thought possible. I got into the air on the first try. It felt good, flying for the first time, the wind ruffling my feathers, although I could have done with out the bugs, thank you. I was just about to see how high I could go when something shocked me. And I don’t me a static shock; I mean volts of electricity shock. I started falling; I spread my wings hoping to catch air. Nothing worked. I hit the ground hard, a fall that would have killed a regular human. But if Jeb made all those improvements he said he did it barely even touched me. Just hurt a lot. I lay on the ground and gasped for air.
White coats gathered around with medical kits, checking my heart, breathing, hearing, and eyesight. After several injections I was carried, half conscious, into the medical room back inside.
After a few hours of white coats coming and going a doctor stood next to my bed, talking to Jeb. “Are you sure we should keep her alive? She seems too wild.” Jeb seemed to be considering this for a moment but finally said, “Yes. We just have to break her. She will cooperate once we figure out what makes her tick.” Just then a woman that radiates authority sauntered in like she owned the place, probably the director. “Hunger seems to work on a lot of our subjects. Lets try that and see if it works.” She walks between Jeb and the doctor. Jeb tensed and spoke like there are horrible consequences if he spoke out of place, “Uh… Not to speak out of term but I don’t think that’s a good idea. We have worked for six years trying to find the perfect subject to hold the black falcon DNA with out destroying itself. We need to keep her healthy, ma’am.”
“I suppose you’re right.” The director grabbed my chin and turned my head from side to side examining my face. “How long have you had her half conscious?”
“About three hours since she fell out of the sky.” Said the doctor joining the director at my side. “She is stable. She can leave. She has the strength. Quiet a lot of strength actually.”
“What was the damage?”
“Three broken ribs, four cracked. She had minor head trauma But not as much to make a difference. She can move fine, breath perfectly. Personally I would love to see her fly, ma’am.” The doctor said.
“In due time. Put the collar on her. She will start training in five minutes.” The director walked away and Jeb relaxed. By this time I was more but not quiet fully awake. The doctor unstrapped my arms and helped me sit up. He put a thick metal wire on my neck that was very heavy and it dug into my collarbone. He pushed a button and a paralyzing shock wave went through my entire body. I yelped in pain. The doctor smiled. “Good. It’s working.”
Jeb unstrapped my legs and I stood up. I tried to run toward the door but a guard grabbed me around the waist and picked me up. “Put me down!”
Jeb walked up. “Fallow me.” He said and walked out of the room.
The guard turned me sideways and carried me with one arm on his left hip hitting my head several times on the way down the hall. “Dude! I can feel. Stop hitting my head. You’re going to give me a concussion!” He walked close to the wall and hit my head again. “Okay, you did that on purpose.” I complained.
He smiled with satisfaction. I huffed and crossed my arms for the rest of the ride.
The guard carried me into a room like a gymnasium for a high school class of giants. The ceiling was an easy four stories high. And it was at least three hundred feet long and about a hundred feet wide. It had a bunch of equipment like an obstacle course. There was a huge wall that vibrated violently and ropes over a moat type thing (I didn’t really want to find out what lived in that water), There was tires, a climbing rope, a live fire run, and a bunch of climbing things that I had to run over. It looked like they robbed a military boot camp. And there was some other stuff that looked like it was meant to kill you like swinging axes, flames spurters, a rolling balance beam. Where do people come up with this stuff?
“Uh… You don’t really expect me to do that do you?” Jeb looked at me like I just asked the stupidest question a girl could ask. “Ugh! Fine.” I spread my pure black wings and bend my knees like I was going to leap and take flight. “Let’s do this.”
Jeb laughed a little. “Uh, no. You will not be allowed to fly during this training exercise.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” A guard lifted my arms; I folded in my wings, then a white coat took two belts and wrapped them around my chest, strapping down my wings. “Ow! Not so tight. I need to breath.”
I was lead to the starting point of the course. Jeb pushed a timer and I took off running. I stepped through the tires in record time, climbed up and down the stupid wooden obstacles, swung across the rope and freaky green water, scrambled up the wall and jumped down the other side, dodged the swinging axes, crawled through the live fire run getting tons of scratches along the way (Stupid barbed wire), rolled and tumbled through the fire sputters, ran across the turning balance beam, did a flip off the end and landed on my feet. Jeb walked up and stopped the timer. “Seven minutes, zero six point three seconds. Not bad.” I took off the belts around my chest and threw them on the floor at Jeb’s feet. “Next time, just ask me. Okay? I don’t need a bunch of belts. I can fallow orders if you ask nicely you know.”
The director walked out of a room with a one-way glass window in front. “Yes. We could ask nicely. But then what fun would that be?” she nodded at a guard. He grabbed my arms and held them behind my back. “Hey!” The director took the remote from the doctor and pushed the button. The collar shocked me and I fell to one knee. The guard pulled me back up. I kicked him in the sweet spot he dropped me and I ran for the door. The collar shocked me again and I collapsed. Two guards grabbed my arms and pulled me up, my head hung. The director grabbed my hair and tilted my head back so I was looking at her. The director got three inches from my face. Her breath smelled of cocktail sauce and fancy shrimp. “One more outburst like that and you will regret it.” She dropped my head and shocked me one more time just to show her point. “Take her outside. Next lesson today.”
I was half dragged, half carried out side to a grass-bare yard, about the same size as the gymnasium but a little bigger. And unlike the gymnasium, this place was bare. Like, there was nothing there except a sad little tree in the corner that looked like it just wanted to die. I know how you feel. I thought. I was shoved to the ground and kicked toward the center of the yard. Jax came out of the building with a determined look on his face. When he saw me his eyes widened and he looked at Jeb.
“You said I was going to train. You never mentioned I’d be fighting her.” He gestured toward me like I was an insect.
Jeb shrugged. “What’s the difference? She’ll just be easier to defeat. You have more experience. So stop complaining.”
I got mad, stood up and brushed myself off. “What’s the mater? Afraid you’ll get beat by a girl, Pretty Boy?”
“Hardly.”
“Then fight me and we’ll see who is better.” I walked up to him. He was about six inches taller so I had to look up.
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
“!” We were in the other one’s faces at this point. Jeb put his hands on our shoulders. “Okay. I see we have some tension going on. This is good. Let’s get to training shall we?” Jax made a sound in the back of his throat that sounded like growling, turned around, lifted his chin and took his position at one end of the yard. I turned around and did the same. I was offered a weapon but I declined. I prefer to do my fighting with my hands and feet. He, however, accepted a steel pipe. I smiled evilly and called out, “Hey! Pretty Boy!” He didn’t seem to like me calling him a pretty boy. He gave me a look like he wanted to kill me. “Why don’t you fight me without a weapon? Afraid you’ll break a nail?” I held out my hand and wiggled my fingers. He dropped the pipe.
“Bring it on! I think I can handle a weakling like you, Sam!”
That was it. I spread my wings so fast and hard I knocked over two guards just from the wind created. I took flight and he did the same. His wings were a shiny gray-ish color. I climbed and climbed until I hit a net. (Smart people) And he fallowed. When he was about a meter below me I dived and landed on his shoulders, grabbed his neck and started choking him. He spun and flipped, dived and punched but he couldn’t get me off. Finally I decided I didn’t want to kill him so I held his neck with my arm, careful not to hold too hard, and dived dragging him down with me. I landed and let go. He fell to his hands and knees and started coughing.
He kicked my feet out from under me. I tried to get back up but he was already sitting on my chest. I tried to get him off but he had his knees on my arms. He leaned down and… Kissed me? I laid the in shock for a while after he got up and left.
What just happened? I thought.
CHAPTER 3
The next few days were interesting in training. Every time it would always go something like this: insults form both sides, intense fighting, him sitting on my chest, a kiss and then he would just get up and leave. No smile or anything, just a kiss and gone.
We never saw each other except when we were fighting. And Jeb and the director didn’t even care that he kissed me. They acted like it never happens. But it does.
One night I picked the lock on my door and sneaked down to where Jax’s room was. I opened the door and looked at his sleeping form. His back was to me. I poked his shoulder. “Jax wake up.” Nothing. I kicked him in the side. He jumped and rolled over. “What? And OW!” He propped himself up on his elbow and rubbed his eye. “What are you doing here? It’s like two in the morning.” He whispered.
“I need to ask you a question.”
“It couldn’t wait ‘til training?”
“No.”
“Fine.” He sits up the rest of the way. He is still wearing his black jeans and silver studded belt, but his shirt is off, showing his abs. “What?”
“Do you know why they picked me? Of all people, why me?” I crossed my arms. He didn’t answer. I pushed his shoulder back with my hand. “Answer me Pretty Boy.” He still didn’t answer. “Ugh! Fine then.” I started toward the door. He put his hand on my shoulder.
“Sam.”
“What?” I said without turning around. My hand still on the doorknob.
He turned me around and kissed me. I relaxed and kissed him back. A spark of electricity ran through my entire body. I knew he felt it too. I wrapped my arms around his neck; he wrapped his arms around my waist. For about a minute we stood there kissing. He pulled back and smiled.
“Because I asked them to. I saw you when you were here three months ago. I don’t know. Something just… clicked.”
Then the door opened and we both fell on our backs in the hall laughing. We both looked up and stopped laughing.
He stood up, held out his hand and helped me up. I stood next to him facing Jeb and the irritated director. Jax cleared his throat awkwardly and looked down. “Uh… We were just talking.” The director raised an eyebrow and tapped her pointed shoe, which echoed down the hallway. I wondered if Jax noticed the small bug in the director’s hair. He must have because I glanced at him and we started snickering. Jeb made a small swipe with his hand over his throat in a cut it out. She’s already pissed way. We stopped snickering but neither of could wipe the smile off our face. We had to look down to avoid bursting out laughing.
The director walked up to me and held out her hand for me to put something in. I handed her the bent bobby pin I used to pick the lock. She turned on her two-inch heals and walks down the hall. “Since you two seem well rested training starts in thirty minutes.” She called back as she walked down the hall. Jax and I started snickering again. Jeb glared at us. We tried to stifle the laugh but didn’t do a very good job.
Once the director turned the corner, Jax and I burst out laughing. The director stuck her head around the corner, the bug still crawling in her hair, and we stopped laughing. When she left we waited a few seconds then hit the floor laughing. Jeb even smiled. Once we could breath again we stood up. Jeb put on his serious face again. “Okay. Jax, back to your room and clean up. That goes for you too, Sam. I’ll be back in ten to collect you.”
I went back to my room and took a quick shower. Jeb came back with Jax and lead us back outside. Jax and I snickered the whole way.
When we got outside Jeb sent us to opposite sides of the courtyard again, I smiled at Jax. Jeb snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Focus. This is the wrestling part of the training. Get the other pinned for three seconds. And…” He blew his whistle and Jax charged.
“Wait! What?” Jax ran into me, knocking me over. He sat on my chest and pinned my arms beneath his knees. I jammed my knees into his back and rolled. I sat on his chest and grabbed his throat, not choking him though. Unfortunately I couldn’t get his arms pinned down so he grabbed my wrists and we went into a wresting roll. I’m pretty sure here is no a dirt particle in that courtyard we did not roll over.
After twenty minutes of rolling and laughing Jeb called us off. We kissed and got up; we were covered in dust from head to toe. Well, so much for my shower.
We walked back inside and changed. Him in his faded black jeans and black shirt, and me in my white T-shirt and white jeans. We were lead into a room with a bunch of white coats handling needles. I was getting a bad feeling. Then the director walked in and my worst fears were proven. I ran toward the door. A guard grabbed me and slammed me down on a metal table. White coats strapped down my arms and legs. “Let me go!” A white coat stuck a needle I my neck and injected me with a drug. My body went limp and I couldn’t move. Another attached wires to my forehead. “What are these for?”
The director leaned down; her face was three inches from mine. Her breath smelled like blue cheese dressing. Man what does this woman keep eating for breakfast? “We are going to break you.”
A white coat pushed a button and an electrical shock went through my whole body. I screamed in pain. Jax just stood by and let them torture me. He looked away and didn’t even try to stop them. I should have known. He’s one of Them. Corrupt. Evil.
When they stopped the director left. My chest felt like it was on fire. Jax walked up to me and I turned my head the other way. He touched my arm. I wanted so badly to slap him.
They unstrapped me and shoved me back into a cage. Jax went back to his room. I sat there close to tears. I couldn’t believe I fell for his tricks. His fake charm and sweetness, the way he played innocent the first time I talked to him. He is just another experiment that they have corrupted. I should have known. He has the same horrible mind as them. He could have stopped it. He didn’t. I thought he liked me. Stop thinking like that. You’re not going to let this get to you. I told myself. He’s not the first guy. But something seemed different this time. Stop it! Don’t beat yourself up. I can’t believe he kissed me.
They came to get me the next morning. I was the devil’s daughter. I kicked and screamed. I broke 28 ribs, 8 noses, 3 hands, and probably some of them will have a concussion. It took ten white coats, eleven guards and an Eraser to get out of that cage. Finally they remembered the shock collar on me and I had no choice. Why didn't they think of that the first time?
They took me out to the courtyard but this time Jax wasn’t waiting. Instead there was an Eraser. Jeb blew a whistle and the Eraser charged. I kicked him in the chest and took to the air. The Eraser recovered and looked up frustrated.
“Not fair! You cheated!” He growled.
“What’s the matter? Can’t you fly?” I teased from just beyond his reach.
The Eraser started circling right under me. “What goes up must come down.”
That was true. I was already tired from my fight to stay in the cage so I had to think to stay airborne. I got an idea. “You’re right. What goes up…” I flew upward. Higher and higher until I could see the details in the net. “Must come down.” I turned around and dived faster than Max could ever dream of. I headed straight for the Eraser. He didn’t even have time to move before I pulled up just at the last second and flew straight over him, grabbing his waist as I passed. I flew up again. Which was hard when there is a 200lb. Eraser in you arms that’s trying to rip your head off. I went up to the net and he stopped clawing at me. He looked back, a look of horror on his face. I smiled and let go. He hurtled to the earth screaming and howling his stupid little head off. I waited a few seconds and decided I couldn’t let him die. I dove and caught him just before he hit the ground. I landed and set him down.
He looked up at me in surprise. “You… You didn’t let me die?”
“Not all of us are killers.” I got up and walked away. He just stayed there in shock.
I walked back over to Jeb who was writing furiously on his clipboard. “So… Can I go back to my cage now?”
Jeb didn’t even look up from his clipboard. “It’s only 5:38 in the morning. Get back to the training room. Next is the hand to hand fighting.”
“Joy.” I went back to the obstacle course. But this time there was no course. Just an empty over sized gym. Jeb walked in beside me and looked around the gym. “Where is he?” He turned to a white coat. “I told you to bring him here.”
The white coat was young and obviously very nervous. “I’m sorry sir. We are working on it. He refuses to cooperate.”
“We got him here three weeks before Sam. He should know better. Just get him in here!” The white coat scurried off like a scared rabbit.
I tapped Jeb on the shoulder. “Uh… may I ask who ‘he’ is?”
Jeb turned back around and put on his fake sweet smile. “His name is Jess. He will be the one you will be fighting.”
“And he is just like me? He wasn’t born with the wings?”
“No. He wasn’t.”
Guards carried in a struggling boy. He was wearing a white shirt and white jeans like me. He had almost black dark brown hair. They put him down and he ran toward the door. A guard stopped him and shoved him to the ground.
I walked over so I was standing in front of him. He looked up at me with his light golden-brown eyes like mine used to be. His hair was wavy and a little messy. I looked at him and crossed my arms. “It’s Jess right?”
He got up and stood in front of me. He is the same height as me. 5 foot 8 inches. He looked as though he hasn’t eaten in three months either. “Yah. You must be Sam.” He said brushing his overgrown hair out of his eyes.
“Yah.”
Jeb walks up. “Okay. Take you positions and…” He blows the whistle and without rehearsing or planning it Jess and I take to the air at the same exact time. He has wings a dark copper brown and just as wide as mine.
I smiled as we hovered ten feet apart flapping in sync. “Weird. We took off the same time. Do you always steal peoples fighting strategies?”
He smiled. “That is weird ‘cause I thought you were copying me.”
“No. I just like attacking from above. Gives me more of an advantage.” Then I noticed the thick wire around his neck like mine. A shock collar. “So I here you haven’t been cooperative.”
He smiled, “Well judging by the shock collar on you neck, looks like you haven’t either.”
“Very true. So when did you get here?”
“A month ago. You?”
“About a week ago. I’ve lost track of days. What do you say we give them exactly what they want?” I smiled. He ducked as I swung to kick him. He punched, I blocked and we pretend fought for a while.
Jeb started yelling for us to come down. I looked at Jess. “I don’t really feel like coming down. Do you Jess?”
“No I really don’t.” We both smiled and flew higher.
I looked down at Jeb. Even from this height I could tell his face is red from anger. I laughed. “Sorry Jeb! I can’t hear you!” Jess laughed and I smiled. Jeb kept banging on something. Probably the remote for the shock collars. But at this height we were out of range.
Jax came in. Jeb said something to him and pointed at us. Jax took off and flew up next to us. He pushed a button, Jess and I got shocked and started falling. Jess was knocked out from the shock. I wasn’t so lucky. We hit the ground hard. I cracked three ribs. I didn’t know how Jess was, but he woke up coughing so at least he was alive. We both stood up shakily.
“What gives?” I demanded. “I was enjoying having someone to talk to that you haven’t corrupted!”
Jess smiled.
Jeb snapped and walked away. Two guards grabbed Jess and me. They pulled/dragged/carried us back to the building and shoved us in cages. “Gosh I hate the School!” I yelled and kicked the door of my cage.
Jess started banging on the door of the cage. “Ugh! I don’t do cages! I’m claustrophobic!”
I sat back in my cage not making the trouble to try and get out ‘cause I knew I never would until they came and got me. “Don’t waist your energy. You’ll never break it like that. You’ll just get them really annoyed.”
He stopped and looked at me. “Well I’m not just gonna sit here and wait for them to kill me.”
I reached up and got a bobby pin out of my hair and handed it to him. “The least you could do is think.” He smiled and took the bobby pin. He started to pick the lock. After ten minutes I couldn’t stand it anymore. The clinking was driving me crazy. I sat up and took the bobby pin from him. “Oh give me that.” I picked the lock and opened his cage. “There. Sheesh.”
He crawled out and stood up. “Aren’t you coming?”
“And get risk getting caught again and probably an even worse punishment that shocking? No thank you.” He shrugged and walked off around the corner.
I sat back calmly and started t unbend the bobby pin. “And in 3… 2… 1…” There was a big crash and yelling. Jess was dragged back in half conscious. They shoved him back into the cage next to me. “Told yah.”
He glared at me and sat up. Well, hunched over cause the cage was too small. “Yah yah yah. At least I tried.”
The director walked in. For a moment I forgot I was in a cage and tried to lung at her. I hit my head on the top of the cage and she laughed. I made a growling sound in the back of my throat. “Why don’t you unlock the cage so I can RIP YOUR THROAT OUT!”
The director laughed like I was there for her amusement.
I reached through the bars and grabbed her ankle almost knocking her over. Unfortunately she regained her balance.
She glared at me. “You just bought yourself punishment. Bring her down to the lab. It’s time for testing.”
Again I fought. Broke a few of their ribs, left an imprint of my foot on their faces. It was the shortest fight ever. I was shocked and carried half conscious down to the lab.
CHAPTER 4
The next six hours were the most excruciating, humiliating, enraging, unnerving, and violating hours of my entire life. I wont go into detail for those of you with weak stomachs.
Jess ran into the room a couple times, tackled a few white coats trying to make them stop. After a while they just held him there and made him watch as they almost killed me. Jess started crying every time I went unconscious because he thought I was dead. He punched the director a few times. She’s going to have a black eye. He fought for me.
I was half conscious for most of the time but I swear sometime in the middle of his fighting he said he loved me. I tried to yell back but my voice wouldn’t work. They dragged him out.
When the director was satisfied with the screams and tears she collected from me I was shoved into a huge glass upright tube in the middle of a big room. I was humiliated. I had cuts and blood all over my arms and legs from where a guard had thrown me into the glass doors of a cabinet the first time I tried to run, my nose was bleeding from God knows what, my forehead was split from where I head butted a white coat, and my face was all bruised. My white jeans were ripped; my white shirt was stained with blood. I looked like I got in a wrestling match with a rhino.
White coats came and went, observing. Though I wasn’t very exciting. I just sat there with my knees pulled up to my chest and my forehead down on my knees. I never looked up whenever someone tapped on the glass. I didn’t move. I just sat there thinking about what Jess had said on the lab and refused to cry. Did I hear him right? He loved me? Maybe he said something else like ‘I loathe you’. No. That wouldn’t make sense if he were willing to die for me. I’m so confused. I didn’t know how I felt.
For four hours this went on, until I looked up and saw Jess. Jess’s arms were being held behind his back by a guard. He looked like he got in a fight with an angry monkey. His face was bruised and cut. The director walked up with them. She grabbed his hair ad tilted his head up so he was looking at me. I could see the pain and sadness in his eyes. And he could see the hurt in mine. He tried to look away but the director pulled his head back.
“This is what happens when you disobey.” She hissed and dropped his head. He was stuffed into a cage in plain view of me. I put my head back down and tried to fight tears. I lost.
After a couple more hours Jax walked up to my tube. I banged on the glass and shouted at him to “Go away!” He just held up his hand behind his ear mocking me. He couldn’t hear me. The tube was sound proof. I could hear every word he said clearly though.
He tapped the glass. “How yah doing in there Short Stop?” I hated it when he called me Short Stop. Just ‘cause he was six inches taller. Ugh! I hate him. I started yelling at him. He just stood there and laughed.
“Leave her alone Jax.” Came Jess’s voice from behind. Jax walked over to his cage and kicked it. “And what? You gonna make me?”
The director walked passed. “Come on, Jax, Sweetie. Leave them to themselves.”
“Yes, Mother.” Jax smirked and walked over to her. Jess and I stared mouths agape in shock.
Mother? Well that explains a lot. I thought.
Jess started laughing. “So. The big tough Jax is a Mama’s boy.”
Jax turned around and gave Jess a look like he wanted to kill him. “I’m not a mama’s boy. And if you call me that again you can look at your teeth from inside a jar!”
Jess laughed. “Well it’s not my fault you screwed up your chance with Sam.”
Jax walked up to Jess’s cage and clenched his fists. “You better shut your mouth Jess.”
Jess just continued to laugh. Jax opened Jess’s cage, grabbed him by the collar and started punching him.
"YOu just oulled the last straw! I'm sick and tired of tyou shit!!" Jax yelled.
I stood up and started banging on the glass. I screamed for Jax to stop but he couldn’t hear me. Finally three guards pulled Jax off still punching. Jess laid there, his face all bloody and bruised. I slumped back down onto my knees but I couldn’t take my eyes off Jess’s unmoving body. I couldn’t fight it anymore. I started crying and banging on the glass. It cracked and I banged more.
The director walked up to the tube just as it shattered. She dropped to the floor and covered her head. I burst out of there like nothing else. I sprinted over to Jess and kneeled at his side and started doing CPR. “Come on wake up God damn it! 1… 2… 3…” I breathed into his mouth.
After about an hour I put my head on his chest and cried. “I love you, too.” After an hour more of crying they put me back into a cage. I let them.
For the next week I didn’t fight. I let them take me in and out of the cages, inject me with random chemicals. Some of them hurt but not as much as what I felt inside after Jess died. I died that day, too. When they would make me fight Jax again I didn’t even try. I stood there and let him take me down…
They had finally broken me.
___________________________________________________________________