Marked

The next morning Rachel paced the small confinement of her room, from wall to wall and back at least a hundred times. She’d hardly slept a wink and when she had, nightmares had plagued her.

When Yalina finally entered Rachel’s room her face was hard and she looked determined not to cry.

“What did she say?”

Yalina’s shoulder twitched. “She said she never imagined I would throw away years of training over a boy, that she was disappointed in me and had thought I knew better than to jeopardize our mission.”

“You are all so brainwashed.” Rachel groaned, throwing her arms up in the air.

“You need to stop saying things like that unless you want to end up on the outside of these walls, with no protection.”

“Are we really protected here, Yalina? If you or I or anyone else ever find ourselves in a run-in with the poachers, you better believe Abby is going to abandon us just like she abandoned Hector.”

“It’s done, Rachel. It’s over. Learn to live with it.” They stared each other down, neither of them really knowing what to say next. The hallway loomed up behind Yalina, bathing her in white light, her black hair looking blue under the fluorescence.

“I’m not giving up.” Rachel brushed past her towards the door. “This isn’t over, not for me.”

Yalina caught her arm before she could leave. “Don’t do anything stupid that could ruin the mission we’ve worked all these years to complete.”

“My only mission” Rachel said through gritted teeth. “Is to stay human.”

She yanked her arm away and strode into the corridor, her mind spinning, calculating, trying to find a way to do just that.

The dining hall soon greeted her with its usual buzz and trivial small talk. Everyone went about their day normally, except for one corner of the room where a crowd clustered around a heavy-set woman. She appeared to be crying, her shoulders weighed down with mourning.

In front of her was a board with several pictures tacked onto it. The newest additions, right at the bottom and surrounded by candles and flowers, were pictures of Hector and of a pale man, with a long nose and curly hair. Aaron.

Rachel wavered near the food line, listening as people came and went, giving their condolences and uttering words they thought were comforting. Her eyes remained glued to Hector’s picture on the wall, unable to look away.

Where are you?

“I’m sorry this happened to your son, Cora. He fought well for us.”

Unwittingly, Rachel’s feet carried her over to the board with the pictures, her skinny frame slipping through the crowd with ease.

So many faces stared back at her, so many people who had been sacrificed in the name of a mission she had yet to see come to fruition. What were they all waiting for, anyway? How close were they to achieving this so-called mission?

“His sacrifice will not be in vain, once we complete our mission.”

Rachel scoffed.

This made the man who had spoken raise an eyebrow in her direction.

“You got something to say, young lady?”

Rachel slipped her fingertip under Hector’s picture, making a thumbtack pop off and land on the floor with a clang. She stared sadly at his solemn face, wishing so badly that he was there in that very moment. He would know what to say.

“What is your mission?” She asked him.

“To bring down the capital, of course.” His lip turned up at the corner, as though he found her funny. His belly stretched out in front of him, a tell-tale sign of the bunker people’s privileged lifestyle. Why would they ever want to see the truth, anyway? That would mean having to say goodbye to their life of comforts.

“And how’s that coming along for you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Another man grumbled. Everyone had their eyes on her now and she realized this was her chance. She had to take it upon herself to convince them that it was now or never; not only for Hector but for everyone she could save from being abandoned in the capital in the future.

“Look around you. Look at this place. There are hundreds of you and you have yet to attack the capital and fulfill your so-called mission. Instead, you continue to let your people be abandoned in the city to be marked or killed, while you tell yourselves that one day you will be able to avenge them, that one day their sacrifices will mean something. Why can’t that day be today?”

“We’re not ready yet.” The man with the big belly interrupted. “We need more people.”

“And how are you supposed to increase your numbers when your people keep being abandoned in the city? How many more brothers, sisters—“She turned to the Aaron’s mother, the woman named Cora—“How many more sons need to be sacrificed before you fight back?”

The entire room was silent and looking at her now. A few guards by the entrance fidgeted uncomfortably, not knowing what to do.

“What are you all waiting for? When are you going to say enough is enough and bring the capital down once and for all?”

A fit of arguments broke out then, engulfing the room in voices and bickering. Some people stood from their seats, determined to be heard, others sat with wide-eyes, taking in the confrontations all around them.

The guards’ travelled to their weapons, hovering.

“She’s right!” Someone shouted from a table across the room. “We need to take those monsters down now!”

“Yeah! Avenge my brother!” Hope flourished in Rachel’s chest.

Maybe the bunker people could be reasoned with, after all.

“We can’t do that! We’ll all be killed!”

“We can’t jeopardize the mission that way!”

“That’s enough!” The wide-bellied man bellowed, grabbing a hold of Rachel’s arm and pushing her forward. “Are you going to sit here and listen to the blabbering of a heartbroken teenage girl who knows nothing about our lifestyle and what we have fought for years to build? All of our carefully crafted plans and missions all gone to waste because of one girl’s opinion!?”

“He’s right! She’s not even one of us!”

The guards pushed forward now, trying to disperse the crowd.

Rachel shoved at the big-bellied man but his grip was like iron around her wrist.

She made sure her voice was loud enough to be heard over the roar of voices. “You abandon your own people, no questions asked because you have been taught that your mission is bigger and more important than any one person. Have you ever thought that in saving your precious mission, you’ve become just like the city people!?”

The man slapped her hard across the face, effectively quieting her. That’s when two figures emerged from the crowd. One was Juan, and the other was Yalina. Juan threw himself against the man who had slapped her and punched him in the face, making blood erupt from his lip.

“How dare you lay your dirty paws on her?” He shouted.

Both men toppled onto the floor, Juan, younger and much stronger, straddling the older man as he punched him repeatedly. Rachel held out her hands as if to pull Juan away when someone shouted from behind her.

“These mountain people only came here to ruin our peace. Things have been downhill since their people arrived. They brought the disease and now this!” The man who spoke emerged from the crowd, going straight for Rachel but Yalina intercepted him, grabbing his arm and flipping him through the air in an instant.

Her knee pinned him down efficiently and she twisted his arm behind him. “I told you not to do anything stupid!” She growled at Rachel.

That’s when the doors hissed open and Abby stepped through, her carefully pressed jacket looking like a moving piece of cardboard.

“What in the world is going on here?”

“The mountain girl, it’s all her fault!” A woman jabbed a finger in Rachel’s direction. Abby swept the room with a cool, blue gaze. She took in Juan, still sitting on top of the older fellow, Yalina pinning a man down and Rachel standing in the middle of the room with everyone’s gazes burning into her.

“Take those two and put them in a holding cell for now.” She pointed at Rachel and Juan and then turned to Yalina. “Her as well.”