by Stacey Mac
“Why don’t you come and take a seat.” He says, turning his back on me and walking towards the bench seats along the walls behind him. He doesn’t turn to see if I’m following him, and it feels childish to stand stubbornly in the middle of the room. So I follow.
He lifts a leg over one of the benches and straddles it, hefting a bag he’s been carrying to sit in between his knees. I sit down, several feet away on a different bench, and look studiously away from him; like a child.
I wait for him to speak, but he doesn’t. I know he is looking at me, and it feels cowardly to refuse to make eye contact with him, but I don’t want to lose this contest of ‘who can ignore who better’. I listen to his slow, even breathing, and eventually decide that I can’t take it anymore.
“Let’s make a deal,” I say, my breath turns to mist in the cold air. “Let’s pretend like I don’t remember you, and you don’t remember me.”
“And why would I agree to that?” He asks casually.
I want to breath fire and burn him alive.
“You really can hold a grudge, can’t you?” he says.
“It’s one of my many talents.”
“Why don’t you save us both the impending fit, and say whatever it is that you got to say?”
“I’d rather not.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because I’m already in trouble with the trainers, and I don’t think sharing my feelings with you is going to help my situation.”
“Yeah, speaking of which,” he says sliding further down the bench towards me. Out of the corner of my eye I see him lean forwards on his elbows. “What exactly were you doing today that made you late? You ain’t a good fighter, but I hadn’t pegged you for stupid.”
I feel blood heat my face. “I was helping someone.”
“Be more specific,” he orders, and I hear the authority in his voice. He sounds like a trainer, and again I get the feeling that I’m so much younger than him.
“A minor got separated from her ranks, and she didn’t know where she was supposed to go. She asked for my help, and I didn’t want her to get into trouble, so I took her to her training room.”
There is just quiet for a moment, then I hear him exhale heavily. “You helped some little, lost girl, and made yourself late?”
“Yes, she’s tiny. She is going to break easily.”
He studies me for a long time. “Hmm,” he says. “Perhaps I don’t know you after all.”
“Why?” I ask then, louder than I meant to. “Because that makes me stupid?”
“No,” he says. “Because it makes you braver than I thought you were.”
I don’t really know what to say to that, and when I don’t respond, he grins. “I don’t even know your name.”
“You never asked.”
“Are you always this snide?”
I narrow my eyes, and his grin broadens. “What I meant to say was, what is your name?”
I consider him for a moment. He seems to be enjoying himself, which makes me want to hurt him. Resolutes are weird.
“Tessa,” I tell him, looking away. “My name’s Tessa.”
“Well, Tessa,” says Dean, rummaging through his bag. “I have to hold you here for at least two hours, and you got to leave looking pretty exhausted, in case you come across anyone in the halls on your way back to your room. So what do you want to do?”
“I... What?” I stutter, confused.
“What do you want to do while we’re here?” He says, gesturing to the equipment around the room.
I pause for a while before answering. “Aren’t you supposed to tell me what to do, trainer?” I ask him. Maybe he is soft in the head.
“Probably,” he says, standing and shaking out his legs, “but I ain’t. I’m asking you.”
“Why?” I press. “I’m supposed to be being punished.”
“Maybe I don’t think the punishment fits the crime.” At that, he walks briskly away, heading for the beam.
I walk slowly after him, watching as he places a hand on the beam and holds his foot to his back, stretching.
I copy him, stretching out my legs, which ache, and then my arms, which ache more. It feels good to work out the kinks in my muscles.
“Decided yet?”
I put my arms to my sides and look up to him. I want to go home. I want to get the fuck out of here, away from him, but I say: “Running. I want to run.”
His eyes shift around the room, and back to mine. “Let’s go, then.” He turns on his heel, and seconds later, he is out the door.
I hurry after him. Where is he going? Did he not just say that I can’t leave without looking exhausted? What if I run into Trey?
I open the door to find Dean waiting on the other side.
“Where are we going?” I hiss at him as he leads me down the hallway towards the stairwell.
“You want to run, right?” he asks. “We need more space. We’re going outside.”
“It’s past curfew,” I tell him. “We can’t.”
“Trainer,” he points to his chest, “remember?”
How could I forget? Still, I keep my distance from him, walking slightly behind him down the stairs. If we run into a more ethical trainer, I won’t hesitate to ditch this guy to fend for himself.
We head through the corridors and out the front door. We are immediately stopped by fronters who guard the entrance, but Dean holds up his visitors’ UIC tag, and they let us continue without asking questions.
And just like that, we have broken the most important rule here at the compound – that you don’t leave the compound. Dean walks so surely, so casually, like he isn’t afraid of anything. He walks like the Resolute do.
I wish I could be so sure of myself.
There is this wire fence that surrounds the perimeter of the training compound. It covers a few hectares of land. Generally, the land inside the fence is used for survival training. Dean walks me to no particular point at the fence and starts running along its’ length. I hasten after him.
“Y’know,” he huffs, “you’ve never asked my name.”
“Don’t need to, trainer.”
“In case the fact escapes you, I ain’t a Galore-god. We use real names in Resolute. Manners, too.”
I am frustrated to the point of pain. I’m tired of this stupid stand-off. “Dean. Your name is Dean. Can we stop talking now?”
“And how do you know that?”
“It isn’t detective work, trainer. I just listen.”
He says nothing, just keeps jogging at a steady pace. I keep stride with him easily. I work hard to forget he exists, tuning out the slap of his shoes against the solid earth, the heavy breaths that leave a trail of mist in his wake. I look ahead into the darkness, at the silhouetted outline of the woods surrounding the fence line. The moonlight isn’t enough to penetrate the smog, but I know it must be up there somewhere. I wonder vaguely what it would be like to look up and see it.
After around an hour, I’ve forgotten about him. I breathe deeply, relishing in the freezing night air stinging my nose.
“Let’s stop for a while,” Dean says between breaths, and the spell is broken.
I shake my head and run on, ignoring him. His hand suddenly catches mine. It is warm with sweat. He pulls me to a stop before letting go.
“You can keep pretending I ain’t here,” he says heavily, his breathing erratic with his exertion, “but we are going to be spending some time together whether you like it or not, and I’m getting a little tired of trying to make it easier for you. We both know that you’re going to implode. Get it over with.”
“Why do you care? You’re my trainer, right? Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. That’s how this works. Did they not teach you that in Resolute?”
“I thought you said that you listen,” he says. He is much taller than me. “I am tellin’ you what to do. If you’ve got something to say to me, then say it.
Instantly, I wish I could take my words and shove them back in
my mouth. I may hate him, but I don’t need to give him reasons to hate me. It occurs to me just how close he is, how scared I am.
I take a step back and shake my head. “There is nothing to say.”
He mumbles something under his breath, turning his back on me. “Let’s get on then, initiate.”
Chapter Six
In the sway before waking, I dream.
I see my father running. He holds fast to my mother’s hand, and they sprint through Galore, past the crumbling buildings, to the outside of town where the asphalt road turns to dirt and the mountains become clearer in the distance. For a moment I wonder why they run, but then the ground around them begins to explode. Plumes of dirt, rock and fire erupt. The air turns toxic, the ground quakes, and my parents weave through the explosions, desperate, terrified. I look up to see the bombs falling. They whistle before they hit the earth with deafening thuds.
In the painstaking way that dreamers do, I run, but cross no distance at all. “Mum!” I scream. “Dad...Stop!”
They hear me. They both slow. My mother ducks behind my father. They become more afraid, both of their faces expanding in terror. I turn to find whatever threat they’ve seen behind me. There is nothing.
When I turn back to my parents, my father stands before me, my mother cowering behind him, and he holds a gun to my head.
“Dad,” I whisper. “It’s me.”
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers back.
And as the ground around us is pulled to the fiery sky, he pulls the trigger.
*
Many of my body parts have turned to lead. The cold shower I just took did little to wake me up, and even the high-pitched chatter that fills the girls’ bathroom doesn’t exceed the noise in my head.
I stand in front of a sink, one of many that line the wall. I look into the grimy mirror. My reflection looks sallow, tired. A bluish bruise has blossomed along my jaw line, and my lips look puffy, but other than this, I still look like me. My long hair is tangled beyond help. I pull it off my back and braid it quickly. Giving up my space at the sink, I walk over to the bench where I’ve left my training uniform.
Ignoring the other girls that mill around, I drop my towel and begin to dress. Most of them have only just arrived, and are in various stages of undress, waiting their turn to wash. The showers operate from large water tanks, and are rigged to turn off every sixty seconds, so this how long you have to clean yourself. They only spurt water close to freezing, so you don’t want to take any longer than that anyway.
I nod and wave politely to a few of the girls I recognise, and then leave. I only have eleven weeks and six days to go.
Jesus.
The day passes with more of the same, and it turns out that Vincent was right - Trey does find someone else to pick on when we assemble in the Arena. This time it is a different Galore girl. Apparently she yawned too obviously while Trey was giving instructions, and it earned her a place in the spotlight while Trey berated her, and then instructed her to heave two fifty-pound punching bags up and down the arena’s length while the rest of us stretched and watched.
It isn’t so bad. The girl collapses and throws up her breakfast after a half hour and Trey kicks her out. I wonder vaguely if it was strategic on her part.
Just as we are pairing up, the Resolutes make their entrance, and we disperse to our mats. Dean isn’t here, and I’m relieved as I walk with Vincent to our corner. Maybe my luck is finally turning.
By mid-afternoon, I’m beat. My arms feel as though they are independent from my body; they refuse to cooperate. By the time Trey dismisses us at dusk, my legs have abandoned me as well, and I tell Vincent to go on ahead, so that I can be left to drag this unwilling vessel to the cafeteria alone.
I don’t know how I’m going to stay awake this evening, let alone train. But perhaps...perhaps if Dean wasn’t in the Arena today, he won’t be guarding the gym tonight.
I eat in the cafeteria with Vincent, Mia and Delilah, and we are joined by a Resolute senior named Adriel – a medic’s son. He is short but stocky, with a pleasantly chubby face. He looks boyish, but it suits him, this immaturity. I’ve never seen him before, but by the way he is leaning towards Delilah when he talks, he isn’t sitting with us by accident.
“So, you’re the girl with the death wish?” Adriel says to me suddenly.
“Why do you say that?”
He shrugs, “First you piss off your head trainer, and then you piss off ours. I don’t blame you, though,” he grins, “That Trey guy has some serious compensation issues going on.”
The rest of us duck our heads, but Vincent looks over his shoulder, alarmed. By now you should have gathered that you don’t want a trainer to catch you speaking ill of them, or their genitals. We don’t usually speak of them much at all, just to be safe.
Adriel’s boyish face lights up with mischief, “Oh, sorry. What I meant to say was, ‘behold! Trey, head of trainers!’”
“Shut up! Unless you don’t mind losing your ability to have children in the future,” hisses Mia, and though her face is girlish, her expression is not.
“Okay, okay,” Adriel says, returning his attention to his meal.
“What did you mean?” I ask him, “When you said I made your trainer angry?”
He is shovelling stew into his mouth and doesn’t bother to look my way. “I meant Dean - he’s a buddy of mine. Seemed pretty wound up after he got back last night from training with you. Looked like he wanted to punch something.”
I frown at my tray. Good, I think. I won.
“Don’t worry,” Adriel says, watching me. “Our trainers aren’t really the whip-lashing, sadistic types. I’m sure he’s over it by now.”
I nod. I don’t give a shit if he’s over it or not.
*
This time, when I arrive in the gym, he is already there.
The ‘he’ is Dean, and he isn’t sick or missing like I’d hoped. He is hanging a punching bag from a hook that dangles from the ceiling, and doesn’t see me come in behind him. The dim lighting glistens from the beads of sweat that cling to his bare back. From the looks of his bruised knuckles, he has been here for a while, abusing a second punching bag that is already swinging from the rafter. I watch as the muscles in his powerful shoulders flex.
It’s distracting. I swallow, clearing my throat.
He turns at the sound. For a moment he just looks at me, and then he bends to retrieve his shirt from the ground. He walks towards me, wiping his hands, shrugging into the grey shirt. “I’m goin’ to teach you how to fight,” he says, indifferent. “Come on.”
Unsure, I follow him back to the beam that we stretched at yesterday, and I watch him begin his warm-up routine again.
He says nothing as he lifts his arms over and behind his head. The sleeve of his shirt falls down over his shoulder, and he closes his eyes, concentrating.
I look down and away, embarrassed to find myself staring. I rest my heel on the beam and lean to touch my toes, wincing as my leg muscle tries to jump out of my skin.
I try hard not to notice him, because I hate him, but I notice him anyway.
I notice how his eyes close at every stretch, and how is dark eyelashes brush the tops of his cheeks. I watch the colour rise from his neck at the strain. I notice when the tendons of his hand tense as he grips the back of his foot, or his shoulder, or his neck, and I wonder how someone so lean can be so imposing.
“You ‘bout done?” His voice echoes around the empty room, and I jump.
Blood heats my face, and for a moment I think he is talking about my staring. But he gestures towards the beam. Am I about done stretching, he means.
“Yes.”
He walks to the punching bags and picks up something on the ground there. “Are you coming?”
He’s condescending to me.
I scowl, but move my feet in his direction. “I thought you were letting me pick the training I wanted to do?”
He holds out the knuckle shields in his hands.
“Put these on,” he says flatly, without looking. “Hurry it up.”
My eye twitches. Adriel was right, he is pissed off. Maybe I’d be worried about that if I didn’t already owe him a cracked skull, but I do, and he’s a dick.
I pull the shields over my fingers. The thin padding tightly encases my knuckles and the back of my hand, but leaves my palm and fingers free.
“Your striking technique is inconsistent at best. You need to get in some repetitive practice to get it right. If you do, you could stand a chance.” He has his back to me. He comes to stand before the larger punching bag, and flexes his fingers. “Hammer fists first; they’re your best shot at causing the most harm with the least muscle.” He swings his right arm across his chest and bends it up towards his forehead, leaning away from his target. Then, snapping back, he lets his arm fly, and the side of his fist thuds heavily into the bag, making it quake against the rafter.
“Keep your torso centred with your fist as you strike, like your arm is attached to your stomach by a string.” He gestures then for me to step up to the smaller punching bag. “A set of fifty to begin with. Go.”
But I don’t.
He sighs audibly, frustrated. “You can’t have it both ways, alright? You want me to be like one of your trainers? Then you have to follow instruction when I give ’em.” A deep crease appears between his eyebrows, and the shadows beneath his eyes elongate, darken. He turns his back on me again. “Hammer fists – fifty.”
I step up to my punching bag. I take a deep breath, lift my fist and –
“Stop,” Dean says.
I let my arm fall.
“Hold your arm strong, at the moment you’re letting it just hang there. You’ll never produce a good strike unless you put some power behind it.”
I bite my tongue. It is surprisingly repugnant to be corrected by him, but he is a trainer and I am an initiate, and he is strong and I am weak, and he is Resolute and I have to accept, endure and obey.
I raise my fist again, and then snap it back, letting it collide with the bag.