That evening, pretty much everyone was in a bad mood.
Kat was still mad at me for having rotten luck, I was mad at Kat because she was mad at me and not to mention I just found out she might have been with my boyfriend!
Hazel had gotten her tail today as she was brushing her teeth. She didn't notice so as she was leaving the bathroom she accidentally slammed it in the door. So she was sulking.
Aunt Sarah had found out that Kat exiled me from our room so she yelled at Kat and then yelled at me for not telling her. And now the three of us were mad at everyone.
So I'm back in my room now but I can't say I'm all that excited about it.
Kat could still smother me in her sleep.
And then there was Uncle Victor who looked all kinds of nervous because there were too many angry women in his house.
Really, Parker was the only one who was even relatively in a good mood.
He filled up the dinner table with chatter about his cutthroat life on the play ground.
It's not until Uncle Victor said a prayer that we were all allowed to go to bed.
I ignored Kat and she ignored me.
We slept on our respective beds facing away from each other.
I thought about the day and I was honestly just so exhausted by it all.
On the bright side, it couldn't possibly get any worse, right?
The next morning, I woke up way too early for any normal human being again.
Today, I had the option of changing right into my training attire before heading off.
Kat happened to wake up and when she saw me, she just scowled and walked right past me to our bathroom.
Aunt Sarah was up and had made me breakfast even though I insisted she didn't have to.
I walked to school, alone. Through the dark woods because of course the sun hadn't come up yet.
I had to say, I really did enjoy the few moments of peace without expectations or pressure or anyone being mad at me.
It almost made me wish Roman was here to take this short walk with me.
He enjoyed these hours when it was too early for the sun to be up.
He usually chose this time to go for jogs or to go hiking. He always invited me to join him but this girl loves her sleep way too much.
Oh how I miss my bed.
A thought suddenly came to me. Was that why Roman would always go for hikes and runs? To survey the territory?
Whenever someone said his name now, it was always accompanied by 'spy' and 'traitor'.
I always wanted to jump into those conversations and yell at anyone who would ever dare call my sweet, kind and loving Roman any of those things.
But what did I know?
He lied to me too.
I got to school and found everyone in the gym already.
Today I was ten minutes early.
Ha! Take that Instructor Peter.
I scanned the room.
Andre and Allison were by the bleachers, Andre was demonstrating some kind of punching gesture.
Bea and Courtney were not too far, chatting.
Well I guess everyone was here except Mr Grumpy pants.
I honestly contemplated staying in the same position until the instructors showed up just to avoid having to sit by myself. But I knew everyone had already noticed me and turning around would make Bea and Courtney think they had intimidated me.
Well, they had. I saw the way the girls trained and they definitely did not come to play.
I was about to walk into the gym when I heard a voice coming in from the hallway.
"Will you drop it? I'm sure it's nothing." It was Joshua, he sounded irritated.
"Nothing?" That must have been Michael, he sounded hysterical. "Josh, he called an emergency defence meeting yesterday, that's not nothing. There must have been a security breach or something must be wrong."
"And you think she knows something about it?" Josh grumbled.
Was I being paranoid? Or was the way he said 'she' vaguely familiar? It sounded like he was talking about someone he definitely wasn't too fond of, i.e, Crystal Swan.
"Well, after what you saw last night..."
I could hear their footsteps getting closer, they were going to find me here and probably think I was spying.
I should probably move before - oops, too late.
The twins showed up.
The minute they spotted me, Josh turned to look at Micheal who just looked panicked.
If I thought fast, I would have pretended not to have heard anything and just walked through that door. But my slow butt just kept staring.
"Hi, Crystal!" Michael greeted. He scratched the back of his head. "Funny bumping into you here. Josh and I were just talking about you!"
Joshua looked at his brother with narrowed eyes.
"I - I mean not right now. In case you overheard anything."
Joshua shot him another look.
So they were talking about me.
Emergency defence meeting?
Security breach?
It didn't take long for me to connect things.
Last night with Tristan in the woods.
Was something wrong?
I fought the urge to gulp as another thought came to me.
The voice I heard yesterday... the one I thought had belonged to Roman.
"I didn't hear anything." I spoke immediately.
Michael looked relieved but Joshua just rose his brows at me. He obviously didn't believe me.
So another comparison between the twins. There was the gullible twin and the ever suspicious twin.
"I'm going to go now." Micheal spoke, smiling at me. "I just wanted to walk my brother to his training session. You know how nerve wracking these things can be for him. Poor kid can't even sleep anymore."
Joshua shot him daggers.
"Bye Mikey." He spoke sternly.
Micheal chuckled uneasily. "Right. I gotta go but I'll see you around, Crystal?"
He asked hopefully.
I looked at Joshua just in time to see him roll his eyes.
I turned to look at Micheal who was still staring expectantly. "Um... sure?"
We did go to the same school after all.
Michael beamed like I had just promised him what he had always wanted for Christmas.
"Cool. See you later then." He spoke before turning to leave.
He turned way too quickly and slammed his shoulder into a wall.
I flinched on his behalf.
His face turned pink.
"Stupid wall." He muttered before walking away.
Um, okay...
Every interaction I had with him was weirder than the last.
I turned to look at Josh... his cheeks were also tinted pink. Was he...
He rubbed his shoulder and quickly turned around to walk into the gym.
That's strange. It's almost as if he was mirroring Micheal.
I walked into the gym after Joshua. I had questions about what had happened out in the hallway, but I already knew I couldn't ask him.
I had better luck with Micheal.
Would that actually be a bad thing? Michael seemed to not have a problem with me like his brother... or at least that's what I thought his weird behaviour meant.
Could I ask him for answers?
Maybe I was crazy. Maybe that wasn't Roman's voice in the woods.
But then why did I feel so hopeful?
If the twins knew something... I mean they are the alpha's little brothers.
But Roman wouldn't come back. He would be stupid to do that. If he got caught, they would kill him for sure.
Was it wrong that I wanted to see him again though? To hold him... To speak to him...
There were so many questions I needed to ask.
The most important one being; why?
I had hardly stepped into the gym when I heard a commanding voice from behind me.
"Apprentices. Line up!"
Instructor Peter.
He walked in.
Without May.
This was going to be an interesting session.
Everyone rose up and rushed to the centre of the gym.
I was still standing behind.
Instructor Peter shot me a hard look.
Oh.
I quickly rushed to join the line, standing at the other end beside Allison.
"I hope you all slept well."
I looked at the other apprentices. I don't know about them but I had stayed up late studying the content May gave us. If I was going to suck at the physical component, I should at least thrive in the theory.
"Instructor May will not be joining us for the morning training today. She has other obligations but I trust that you will see her this afternoon for your lessons."
"Okay, lets get started. Yesterday's session showed me two things; one, most of you are physically fit - " He might as well have just said my name right there. "Two, some of you aren't very good partners."
Again, he should have just said my name.
Bea and Courtney were best friends. Andre and Allison seemed to be getting along well even though they seemed like polar opposites. Andre was pretty loud and talkative while Allison was more quiet and reserved. They seemed like a good match though, I even saw them talking during school hours yesterday. They seemed to be getting along.
Then there was my partner and I.
I looked over to where he stood in line.
He didn't even spare me a glance.
"Because of that and some recent developments, me and some of the people in the Defence Ministry have come up with these."
Peter dropped his training bag in front of us. He crouched down and took out two thin black bracelets.
"These are only prototypes but they're the Silvercrest's pack idea of ankle monitors. They're still in development so congratulations. You guys will be the first to try them out."
"What do they do?" Bea asked.
"Good question, Miss Gonzalez." Instructor Peter spoke. "Step forward with your partner. You two have the honour of demonstrating."
Bea and Courtney shared a look before they both stepped forward.
"It isn't going to shock us, is it?" Courtney asked warily as Instructor Peter latched the thing onto her wrist.
"Yes. Yes it will." He spoke with no smile on his face whatsoever.
"What?" Courtney yelped.
"Okay!" Instructor Peter exclaimed. He stepped back after putting the bracelet on Bea as well.
"Now, watch carefully." He spoke. "Walk to the opposite ends of the gym, you two."
Courtney eyed Bea warily but Bea just shrugged and started walking.
Courtney shortly followed suit and started heading in the other direction away from her.
When Courtney almost reached the basketball court, I was wondering what the bracelets were for until I heard Courtney scream.
Bea quickly turned to her.
Courtney was rubbing her wrist.
"It shocked me!" Courtney screamed.
"I said it would, didn't I?" Instructor Peter spoke nonchalantly before gesturing for the two girls to come back.
"They're called A1 bracelets. They're primarily designed for guards who have the job of transporting prisoners." He explained. "The one Miss Gonzalez has on is the primary, so in this case, Miss Duncan has on the secondary. She is assumed to be the prisoner."
"Um, okay, boss man, how does this have anything to do with us? Is our next lesson bringing in prisoners?" Andre looked way too excited in my opinion.
Peter gave him a blank look. "No."
He reached into his bag and took out two more pairs of bracelets.
"Your job is to learn to get along with your partner by spending at least fourteen hours in a day with them."
"What?" Joshua spoke.
Instructor Peter rose a brow at him. "Problem?"
Joshua pressed his lips together. "No, instructor."
Well I wasn't too excited about it either. Fourteen hours? Within ten feet of Joshua Melrose at all times?
"What if we need to go to the bathroom?" Bea asked.
It's then that I noticed she was glaring at me. I'd be spending all that time with her boyfriend after all...
Which meant I'd have to spend time with her.
Oh no.
"That's for you and your partner to figure out." He spoke before handing the bracelet sets to Allison and I.
I turned to Joshua. I looked down at the two bands, they had red dots on them. You could easily make out with was the primary. It was a bit thicker and had a red strip.
I looked at the bracelets again and then at Joshua who had finally bothered to approach me.
Hmm... to be the shocked or the shocker.
I was tempted to give him the secondary bracelet but my stupid moral campus pushed me to give him the primary.
If he was surprised, he didn't show it. He just took the bracelet as if it was obvious that he would be the one to get it in the first place.
"Don't think I'm doing this as a punishment. Learning who your partner is in and out is a requirement that could cost you your life. This is the person you could be trusting to have your back in war."
"I thought we only had our partners for the week. How are we supposed to get to know them within that short period of time?" Allison asked.
Instructor Peter tucked his hands behind his back. "New directives from the alpha, himself. Following previous occurrences, he has decided that partners will be maintained for at least a month."
What?
"What?" Bea shrieked before turning to glare at me again. "But Pe - I mean instructor-"
Instructor Peter didn't even give her a chance to finish.
"1 Corinthians 13 verse 11, candidate." He barked.
Bea looked down at the ground in shame. "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."
Instructor Peter nodded. "Exactly."
"You all might be young but you need to understand that what you've signed up for is service to your pack and your alpha. Being an apprentice could also mean going to war alongside your alpha, it could mean, dying alongside your alpha, it could even mean having to take over leading the pack in the absence of your alpha. You are to be his crutches, if he says jump, you jump. If he tells you to freaking put on a show at the nursery school, you drop what you're doing and go entertain those brats. You work for him now. And working for him means following instructions. Am I clear?" He barked.
"Yes sir." We all responded simultaneously.
Peter nodded.
I hadn't even belonged to a pack until I came here and now I was laying down my life for a job I didn't even want.
Loyalty is something crucial for the apprenticeship. Roman broke that.
I had been dreading taking on the duties of the apprenticeship from the beginning.
It's only now that I realised that the duties of the apprenticeship were really duties towards the alpha. Duties towards Tristan, my rejected mate.
How was I supposed to pledge allegiance to someone I had hurt like that?
How was I supposed to work under Tristan with this secret between us?
"Learn to work together, all of you." Peter spoke. "You'll always have God but you'll soon come to learn that you need each other more than you know."
He looked at all of us as if he was desperate to convey a message.
I wanted desperately to tell him the reality of it all. Not everyone got along around here.
Some of us - meaning me - weren't even supposed to be here.
"Okay, everyone get ready to run. Except this time you're doing it with your partners." I looked at Joshua and his facial expression said one thing 'no way.'
Oh boy, as if things couldn't get any worse.