Defect (10 page)

I look down and see a raised bump nestled in between the pale blue veins on my wrist. On Sam it was barely noticeable, but on my thin arm, it seems to stand up and demand attention.

“All done,” she says.

I hop down from the table and take a
second to be sure I’m okay to walk without stumbling, then follow Will from the room.

My fingers keep going to the
bump in my wrist. Coupled with the tattoo on my other arm, I feel marked, less like me somehow. But everyone has them around here, Will included, so I guess I fit in somewhere. “You still haven’t told me what we’re doing today.”

Will turns around to face me.
In the narrow hallway, we’re too close. I can smell his skin, see his pulse jump in his neck, but neither of us takes a step back. “Have you ever fired a gun, Sterling?”

I shake my head.

Will leads me to the supply room. I step inside and the woman behind the desk motions me forward. I scan my barcode at the strip of blue light on the side of her data terminal. She studies the screen for a moment, then scurries away to the rows and rows of shelving behind her. I see her moving between the aisles, selecting articles as she goes.

I wonder what my barcode told her. Surely the basics: female, height, weight, but was
there more? Does she know about my failed mindscan? I decide it doesn’t matter. There is little privacy here. It must tell her my shoe size too, because she moves to a row of government-issued gray running shoes and carefully selects a pair from the end. Anything will be better than the one size fits most cloth slip-ons I’ve been wearing.

She comes back with a stack of
new clothes, underpants, the running shoes and folded sheets for my bed. I tuck the underpants in between the sheets and meet Will in the hallway.

“Go change. I’ll meet you in the
bunker in ten minutes.” He leans against the wall to wait.

It’s empty
now in the bunker and dorms. Everyone else is at breakfast, my stomach reminds me. I toss the sheets on my bed and select something to wear – a pair of fitted black workout pants, a sports bra and black T-shirt, then put the rest of the clothes in my locker. After I change, I look at myself in the narrow mirror above the sink. In clothes that fit, I feel a bit more like myself, but my expression is more hardened than I remember. When I turn my wrists toward the mirror, I hardly recognize myself. I shove my arms back down by my sides so they’re out of view. And there I am, recognizable again.

I meet Will in the
bunker and after doing a double-take at my changed appearance, he hands me a backpack. He already has one strapped to his back. I take it and put it on. It’s heavier than I expect. “What’s in here?”

“You’ll find out later.”

He leads me outside a different way than we usually go and when the door closes behind us, I realize there’s no fence surrounding us. I look to him in disbelief. He wouldn’t do anything to get us in trouble, would he?

He nods to
ward the woods straight ahead. “We’re going in there. There’s a test coming up I want you to be ready for.”

I
notice that he doesn’t point out how far the others are ahead of me, or that my lack of strength will make this impossible. He just takes off running toward the woods, and I hurry after him. 

After we’ve been running for about fifteen minutes, my body reminds me that I never had breakfast.
Will’s barely out of breath. “You all right?”

“Mm hm.
I’m just kind of hungry.”

He nods. “I figured, but you have to be ready for all types of situations. It’s good to learn that you can still function,
that you can push your limits and still survive. It’s important to train under the harshest of conditions.”
What is he preparing me for?
“Although, you of all people don’t need to miss a meal, so I packed you some food in the bag,” he says.

“Oh. Um, thanks.”
The backpack bounces on my back, and now I’m wondering what else he’s put inside.

We jog in silence for a little while
longer, and the deeper we move into the forest, the thicker and harder to navigate it becomes. Fallen tree limbs litter the trail, and eventually the trail disappears completely, as we cut diagonally away from the compound. Soon we’re dodging branches and stomping through weeds that reach up to my knees. I wonder how Will seems to know just where he’s going.

The further we get away, the more my mind seems to focus in on what Rena told me, like it’s only safe to think about it out here.
Be very careful, Eve Sterling
. I hear Rena’s words like a warning in my mind. I consider asking Will what he knows about my mother and father, but I don’t know if I can trust him.

I focus on my breathing, just putting one foot in front of the other. I’m long past when I thought I’d reached my limit. When my
lungs burn, and my legs feel as though I can’t take another step, at last we stop.

Will stands in
a clearing up ahead, and I walk the last few paces to him. “Good. Five miles in under an hour,” he says, clicking his watch to stop.

I lean over, placing my hands on my knees, drawing deep breaths.
Five miles? I would never have thought I could run five miles. I’m instantly proud, then filled with dread at the thought of the run back.

Will motions for me to take a seat on a nearby log. “Catch your breath for a few minutes. Now might be a good time to eat something.”

I follow his orders and sit down, shrugging out of the backpack. The back of my shirt is drenched with sweat. I rummage through the backpack and pull out a bottle of water, draining half of it. I recap it, realizing I better save some since I don’t know what else Will has planned for me. I find a peanut butter sandwich and eagerly dig into it. I sense Will watching me, but when I look up, he turns and looks away, looking out into the woods. It doesn’t escape my notice that he doesn’t sit down. It’s like he has to be in complete control at all times.

When I finish the
sandwich, I continue searching the bag and find an apple, now bruised from tumbling around, but decide to save it for later, just in case. I dig around inside, seeing what else is in the bag. There are water purification tablets, a box of waterproof matches, a candle, a tarp, a roll of first aid tape, and a small knife tucked into a side pocket. It strikes me as an interesting combination of things for a jog through the woods.

“Let’s go,” he says, without asking if I’m ready. I’m
relieved to see he takes off walking, rather than running. My legs are tight and tired.

He goes to the edge of the clearing and removes his backpack. He lifts his shirt and unstraps a handgun from his waist. 
He keeps it pointed toward the ground and walks a few paces over to a fallen log. I begin to interpret the area around us for what it is – a shooting range. Set up about fifty feet across from the fallen log is a series of stumps that stand upright.

He
hunts around inside of his backpack and produces a box of bullets. He sets them beside the gun on the log. “Ready for your first lesson?”

I nod, knowing I don’t really have a choice.
Something about the black glint of the steel intrigues me, and I take a step closer. I remember seeing the guards patrolling the fence, guns strapped in their holsters, as Cassidy and I rode our bikes past. It seems like a lifetime ago. I always felt safe, knowing they were patrolling the fence to keep the bad people out. Now I’m not so sure. For the first time in my life, I see the fence’s true purpose: keeping us in.

He picks up the gun. “Always treat a gun as if it were loaded.”
He makes a point of holding it securely with the barrel pointing toward the ground.

I nod. I remember Alex’s story about Will freaking out on him when he didn’t know if his gun was loaded. It seems to make sense to me.

The way he holds it in his hands is like he has respect for what it can do, the damage it can cause if he’s not careful. “Keep your finger off the trigger until you’ve made a conscious decision to shoot.” He taps his fingers on the outside of the trigger guard. He shows me the safety and switches it back and forth between locked and unlocked, demonstrating the difference.

H
e reaches for the box of bullets and pulls the gun open to load one bullet. I swallow down a wave of nervousness.

“Come here
.” He moves me in front of him. “Hold it with two hands.” He places the gun in my hands. It’s heavy, and it feels dangerous just holding it. With the pulse guns, the worst I could do was embarrass myself with my poor aim, but this gun feels deadly, and a sense of dread I’ve never felt before floods through me.

“Stand with your feet shoulder
-width apart.” I step apart. “Your hips toward the target.” I release a slow breath. “Bend your knees slightly,” he breathes against my hair. I wonder if he gives everyone a one-on-one lesson, or if he just believes after my failure with the pulse gun that I’ll need the extra attention. I settle in, making sure my knees aren’t locked. “Good. Okay, you’re aiming for that stump straight out across from us. You see it?”

I nod. It’s peppered and splintered with bullets marks.

“Raise your weapon toward the target.”

I hesitate for a second. “Maybe you should demonstrate it first.”

He’s silent for a moment, as if considering it. “No, you can do this,” he says without an ounce of doubt in his voice.

A
small sliver of satisfaction wells up in me, and I raise the gun in front of me. It’s hard to hold it up without shaking. It’s heavy, and I’m concentrating on so many things at once – my breathing, my stance, keeping my arms steady, holding it correctly. 

“You’ll want to pick a spot on the log and focus on it.”

I squint at the log until I can line it up with the little sight notch on the gun.

“And switch off the safety when you’re ready.”

I forgot that was still on. I find it with my thumb and flip it down and refocus on my target.

“When you’re ready, you’ll want to slowly squeeze back on the trigger
. He takes a step back from me, leaves crunching under his feet as he backs up.

I curl my finger around the trigger and hold my breath. I squeeze
, and the gun discharges with an ear-splitting bang, rocking me back on my heels. The gun blast is so loud; it’s like a crack of thunder through the quiet woods. An empty shell lies at my feet and the smell of burnt gun powder hangs in the air. I try to see where I’ve hit the log, but it looks just the same as before. “Did I hit it?”

Will
shakes his head. “Usually you won’t the first time. You’ll try again.”

For some reason, even though I
had wanted to try it, I don’t like the idea of having to fire the gun again. Immediately after I felt the gun go off, my heart filled with a panicky feeling I can’t explain. It pressed down on me, reminding me that what I was doing was designed to kill someone.

Will takes the gun from me and reloads it.

“Shouldn’t I learn how to do that part, too?” I ask.

He stops what he’s doing and passes it back to me.
One side of his mouth twitches, and I can tell he likes that I asked this. “Slide open the chamber.”  He hands me a bullet. “The rounded end goes forward.”

I
place the bullet inside and let the gun snap closed. Knowing it’s loaded and the safety is still off makes my stomach tingly. I step into position, just wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible. Maybe if I hit the log this time, he’ll let me be done. I raise the gun and concentrate on the log through the sight. When I have it all lined up, I squeeze the trigger. My hit sends splinters flying from the log.

I can tell Will’
s smiling before I even turn around. I am too. We stand there staring at each other for a few seconds before he breaks the silence. “Nicely done, Sterling.” He removes the gun from my hands, brushing his fingers against mine in the process. 

When I slip into the gym, I look like a drowned rat. I’m drenched in sweat, even though Will and I walked the last three miles when I couldn’t run anymore. I can hear feet scuffling from the pool room, though no sounds of splashing. As I head inside, the smell of the pool makes my throat close up. The memory of nearly drowning in it has not faded.

Kane
is hosting a game of tug-o-war over the water. Teams stand on either side of the pool with a rope stretched taut between them. I shudder. What is it with him and ropes and water? I push my hair out of my face and try to be inconspicuous as I join the team that contains Sam and Sabrina. I know Kane spots me, but with Will standing just inside the doors, he lets my sudden entrance go unnoticed.

I picked the right team. We win the match and send the other team flying into the pool. I’m grateful. When I think about going in that pool again, the burn of the chlorine in my eyes and throat, I feel little pangs of fear.

I’m not sure Kane’s thought his training methods through though, because with half of the group soaking wet and dripping on the floor, he’s forced to release us early for dinner.